Women's Healthcare: Consequences and It's Lack of Research

Women make up 50% of the global population, which is approximately 4 billion people. They are affected by ailments specific to their sex as well as other ailments that also affect men. Yet, just 10-15% of funding towards healthcare is directed towards the study of the female body, as well as treatments and improvements in technology for specific phases relating to womanhood like pregnancy, childbirth and various cancers. This highlights the underrepresentation of women in the field of research regarding even studies of diseases that affect everybody, with the examples of heart failure and diabetes. 

“Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women in the USA, but only about a third of participants in clinical trials for new treatments are female,” – Chloe Bird, a professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School states, revealing this alarming statistic.

At first, this statement seems only to highlight how women aren’t chosen as participants for important clinical studies, but it also states that men who are equally affected by these diseases are prioritised in such cases. The gender gap could be examined regarding the diagnosis of women versus men by taking the same example, where women were found to be much less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease than their counterparts, and those who were were diagnosed comparatively much later in their lives.

This could reflect differences in presenting symptoms, though research has proven that many common illnesses present themselves in all human beings in the exact same manner.

This attitude towards women’s healthcare impacts  people’s daily lives as well in the form of chronic pain or fatigue syndromes being grossly dismissed by medical care professionals who disregard the symptoms that many women feel daily as being part of their “hormonal cycles” or even blatantly stating that they are “overreacting,” and letting them go without so much as pain medication.

A woman’s pain is also often glazed over by dismissing it as being psychological rather than biological, leading to a disproportionate number of women being diagnosed with anxiety disorders or dismissed as being “stressed” instead of being diagnosed with other medical conditions.

It can be said that globally, the medical field has come a long and arduous way forward to include women within research and treatment by making it compulsory by the 1990s to test the effects of common drugs on women, as well as to have more funding devoted to afflictions impacting specifically females. There is still a significant disparity between the same for men and for women, as well as a dire need to correct misconceptions and spread awareness about this topic before it does more harm to women across the globe.

For instance, period products such as pads, which are used by more than 55% of women worldwide, were only recently, in 2023, tested with actual blood and not substances akin to water. Additionally, it was found that in 2024, an amount (though a small percentage) of heavy metals were found in tampons, used by more than 48% of women worldwide, that caused a worsening of menstrual symptoms such as cramping, headaches, and lightheadedness, among others.

Aside from this being a medical issue, it also impacts the world socially, perpetrating and reinforcing the misogyny that is deep rooted in the history of medicine, not accounting for half of the world’s population while treating them as “sub-human” and unworthy of proper care. This history is why women’s healthcare, even today, is under-researched and underfunded.

Some may argue that the complexity of the female body plays a part in this, but with over a hundred years of medical advancements, “complexity” cannot be factored in as a genuine contributor to this problem but only an excuse or a justification for ignorance.

 By taking the example of the overturning of Roe V Wade, which occurred in the United States of America not too long ago, it is safe to say that women’s healthcare is not being taken seriously enough, as the fundamental right to a woman’s own bodily choices being taken away is more important to certain groups than their own health.

The social aspect to this conundrum is just as important as the medical as it violates the basic right that any adult should have to make decisions concerning themselves. In certain states in the USA, such as Texas, even medically necessary abortion procedures are illegal, putting the lives of many at risk. As of 2023, the USA had the highest number of pregnancy-related deaths among developed countries (a 40% rise from 2021). This statistic alone proves that female health should stop being treated as unimportant or a “joke” in our modern day.

Globally, women have begun to speak out about the injustices they face, and the poor quality of medical care they receive is one of them. It is crucial to rectify and ameliorate such services provided around the world, because even the smallest dismissal in such an imperative aspect of our lives could snowball into a cancerous, festering, life-altering mess.