Closing the Gender Gap in Pain Management: Addressing Women’s Unique Health Needs

The crisis in women’s pain management is deeply connected to gender biases, a lack of research into women’s unique pain experiences, and the systemic disregard for women’s health concerns. Chronic pain disproportionately affects women, yet the medical community often fails to address their needs adequately. Gender disparities in pain treatment are especially stark when comparing how men and women are treated for chronic conditions. While men are more likely to receive prompt medical attention and validation for their pain, women often face their pain being dismissed as psychological, rather than physical, leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment. 

 

The Gender Gap in Pain Treatment

Women are frequently misjudged by the healthcare system when it comes to chronic pain. Men often experience privileges, such as being taken seriously, receiving immediate care, and even being granted medical leave when they report chronic pain. In contrast, women’s pain is often attributed to emotional or psychological causes, which can be dismissive and unhelpful. This bias undermines the physical nature of many women’s health issues, including conditions like endometriosis, fibromyalgia, and chronic pelvic pain—conditions that demand more than mental reframing or generalized treatments.

Misdiagnosis and delayed diagnoses are especially common for women. For example, women presenting with heart attack symptoms are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed or sent home, despite suffering from a life-threatening condition. This is due in part to the fact that most medical research, including studies on pain, has focused on male subjects, leaving the symptoms and experiences unique to women often overlooked or misunderstood.

Chronic Pain and Gender

Statistics clearly reveal the disparities: women make up about 70% of those affected by chronic pain, yet 80% of pain research is conducted on male subjects. One of the few studies that has explored gender differences in pain found that women experience pain more frequently and intensely than men. Though the exact causes are not fully understood, hormonal factors like estrogen and progesterone are likely contributors. These hormonal fluctuations affect pain perception, making women more sensitive to pain during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause, for example.

Despite this, pain management systems continue to be based on male-biased research. As a result, women’s unique pain experiences often go unaddressed. Women in pain are more likely to be prescribed sedatives, like anti-anxiety medications, instead of appropriate painkillers. In emergency rooms, women wait an average of 65 minutes for analgesics for acute abdominal pain, while men wait only 49 minutes. These delays can exacerbate the experience of pain and worsen outcomes.

This disparity extends beyond emergency care. For example, women who undergo coronary bypass surgery are only half as likely as men to be prescribed pain medication afterward. These systemic biases reflect a medical culture that undervalues women’s pain and, in many cases, leads to chronic undertreatment and worsened health outcomes.

The Impact of Misdiagnosis and Dismissal

Perhaps the most damaging element of this crisis is the tendency to dismiss women’s pain as emotional or psychological. For many women living with chronic conditions like endometriosis, fibromyalgia, or rheumatoid arthritis, this pattern of dismissal is not just frustrating, but dangerous. Women with these conditions often need more than mental reframing or stress management techniques—they require physical interventions, such as surgery or long-term medication, to address the underlying causes of their pain. Yet, too often, their needs are ignored or mischaracterized.

Take endometriosis, for example, a condition that affects 1 in 10 women and is characterized by severe pelvic pain and infertility. Women with endometriosis often have their pain dismissed as “just bad period cramps” or told that it’s “all in their head.” It can take years for many women to receive an accurate diagnosis, and during that time, they are subjected to multiple rounds of misdiagnosis, ineffective treatments, and emotional invalidation. Women suffering from chronic pain need real, physical interventions—such as surgery or specialized pain management—but they often face a long, frustrating road to proper care.

This dismissive attitude toward women’s pain perpetuates a cycle of inadequate treatment. By framing women’s pain as psychological or “normal,” many chronic conditions go undiagnosed or untreated, leaving women to suffer in silence far longer than they should.

The Need for Individualized Care

The critical takeaway here is that pain management must be individualized, especially for women. What works for one patient—such as mental reframing or cognitive behavioral therapy—may not be effective for others, particularly when the pain has a physical cause. Women with chronic conditions like endometriosis, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis need treatment that addresses the root cause of their pain, not just symptom management. Pain management systems that treat all patients as if their pain is the same—regardless of gender, biology, or underlying condition—will continue to fail many women.

Medical research that focuses solely on male physiology has contributed to the gender gap in pain management. As a result, women’s pain is often dismissed as psychosomatic while men’s pain is taken more seriously. This reinforces a system of undertreatment for women, where conditions that could be managed effectively if caught early are allowed to worsen due to misdiagnosis and delays in treatment.

A more nuanced, gender-aware approach is needed. Researchers must begin designing studies that consider gender and sex differences in pain perception and treatment outcomes. Healthcare providers must be trained to recognize the biological, hormonal, and social factors that shape women’s pain experiences. Only when these factors are taken into account can we hope to create better pain management systems that serve everyone equally.

Moving Forward: Advocating for Change

The crisis in women’s pain management can only be addressed through a combination of improved research, more compassionate healthcare, and a broader societal shift in how women’s health issues are viewed. We need research that specifically investigates gender differences in pain, with a focus on tailoring treatments to meet women’s unique needs. Healthcare providers must listen to their patients, validate their pain, and collaborate to develop personalized treatment plans.

Above all, we must dismantle the biases that have marginalized women’s pain in medical research and practice. For too long, women’s health concerns—especially chronic pain—have been overlooked, and the medical community has failed to prioritize them. As advocates for those living with chronic pain, we must ensure that women’s voices are heard and that their pain is treated with the seriousness it deserves. Until these changes happen, the crisis in women’s pain management will persist, and women will continue to suffer without access to the treatment they need and deserve.

 

References

Bimpong, K. et al. Scand. J. Public Health 50, 287–294 (2022).