The Gender Health Gap

What is it and does it exist?

Introduction:

I am going to start this introduction in an unusual place. I am going to start it at the end. I have just finished the article. An article that has haunted me for months, because I knew that there was something that I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how. But I knew one thing. For whatever reason, I knew that I didn’t want to give up. So, on a day when the research didn’t feel as overwhelming, I decided to do the article in the only way I could. Step by step. Question by question.

What is the Gender Health Gap?

The ‘Gender Health Gap’ is the idea that women receive poorer healthcare than men. ¹

Does it exist?

Yes.

Is there proof, and what is it?

Yes, but it is not the proof that I thought it was. At first, I was lazy. I googled it.

I found a page on The World Economic Forum. It said that only 7% of global healthcare research is dedicated towards women-only health issues, and only 1% beyond the specialism of Oncology.² I found a video by the Women’s Health Alliance, which dispensed these statistics.³ Although it was accompanied by overwhelmingly depressing string music, and close-up shots of serious-looking women, presumably there to remind me that it was a serious campaign for women’s health, I didn’t doubt the veracity of the facts. One stuck out to me more than most. It stated that in a clinical trial for a drug designed specifically for women, only 23 of the 25 participants were men. So, I wrote these statistics down, with arrogant self-assurance, and the belief that this article would be over in no time.

But then I talked to a friend, who pointed out that, despite the lack of female-only health research, we cannot simply ignore the existence of health research that focuses on both men and women alike. Drug trials also often use male participants for fear of testing on pregnant women (but more on that later.) These observations did not invalidate the statistics, and what they showed, but they made me realise that there was more to the story.

This article was not going to be an effortless 2000 words. I, in a typically self-absorbed manner, panicked. I panicked because I mistakenly believed that because these statistics did not offer easy proof, that there wasn’t any. The concept I was exploring might not even exist, if the facts that ‘supported it’ were more complex than they seemed. This was very silly indeed. It was as if I was declaring that the sun didn’t exist, simply because I couldn’t see it. I mean for goodness sake, I was looking for it in the night. I was scared. I didn’t want to look further, because it took effort- and I felt out of my depth. I questioned everything. I felt trapped in darkness, only to realise that if I worked, and if I were patient, I could see the sunrise. I only had to try.

So, what is the proof really?

When I looked further, I found that there was in fact so much proof, and so much to explore, that I didn’t even know how to fit it into the article. I was convinced that I would never be able to write it, only to realise that, once again, I was being very silly. I don’t need to write down everything I can find out. It is of no use to any of us for me to collect crumbs of evidence to shove down your throat until you feel sick. I can offer you nice looking pastries instead…Sorry. Once again I lose myself in a tangent and a questionable metaphor. Let’s get back to serious stuff like facts.

First Do No Harm

One nice pastry I have to offer you (ok I guess I didn't give up on the questionable metaphor) is the ‘First Do No Harm’ report.⁴ This is a report submitted to the government, advising on the immense institutional change needed within all areas of the Healthcare system. Changes needed because of the huge number of avoidable health scandals, caused by medical neglect.

As well as medical research, and the opinions of experts, over 700 patients were interviewed. Most of those who were interviewed about their experiences, were women. You could argue that the research should have been less gendered in nature. You may even want to argue that it is unfair. To you, I will say this. Research was conducted into issues affecting people of all genders, and testimonies were given by people of all ages and genders. However, the stories with ‘harrowing details’ of ‘damaged lives’ that Baroness Cumberlege details in the opening letter of the report,⁵ were the stories that belonged to women.

The Report was a response to an investigation that was announced in 2018 by the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Hunt. He ordered an investigation into how the healthcare system in England responds to the harmful side effects of medicines and medical devices, with the examples of the drug Sodium Valproate, Hormonal pregnancy tests, and Pelvic mesh implants.

It is chiefly women that have suffered from the harmful consequences of these medications and devices. It is our pain. It is our damaged lives that are responsible for these very investigations. Research into medical malpractice is gendered because the medical neglect is gendered, and the pain is gendered. The voices that need to be heard are women’s voices.

The drug Sodium Valproate was given to pregnant women with epilepsy, which led to birth defects in their babies. Much like the Thalidomide scandal of the 1960s (where the drug, taken for nausea, also resulted in birth defects.) History repeats itself.⁶ The risk of teratogenicity (the ability of a drug to cause birth abnormalities.) has also been ‘largely excluded from clinical trials.’⁷

Pelvic meshes, inserted into women to help with bladder incontinence, were often implanted without the patient’s full understanding. Some stated that they felt part of ‘a cruel experiment’. When the pelvic meshes started to show debilitating complications⁸, they failed to be addressed by doctors, leaving women feeling ‘like there were razors inside their body.’⁹ Instead of receiving help, the women were called ‘hysterical’¹⁰ when they brought up their symptoms with their GPs.

The risks of the use of Sodium Valproate, and hormonal pregnancy tests that could causes miscarriages and birth defects, were not explained to patients either. This left mothers in shock, and consumed by guilt by having taken drugs and tests that harmed their babies. But it was the medical community that failed them.

So, how does this relate to The Gender Health Gap? The idea that women receive poorer healthcare. Well, this goes beyond a definition of poorer healthcare. Tis is a violent negligence, that leaves human beings in intense and debilitating pain. We are not treated, but instead dismissed as ‘hysterical.’ The same dismissal we would have received from the Ancient Greeks, or the students of that clever and not at all sexist Freud. Half the human race is treated with inferior support.

The Gender Data Gap

Not only is poorer healthcare for women evident in the negligence we face. But it is impossible to receive the same standard of care as men, if there is such a profound lack of research into women’s health. The Gender Data Gap is the fact that the data collected, including health data, has been mostly about men, and ignores the female experience.

Caroline Criado Perez, in her book ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Built for Men’ explores this, and the fact that the majority of research and medical trials (elsewhere and especially in the U.K ) are conducted with men, even for research into female-prevalent diseases. Of course researchers are scared of the potential effects on pregnant women, but I’m not entirely sure that this precludes any female participation. Even research conducted with mice has often only contained the male sex.¹¹

Women’s bodies are different to men’s. This may seem like an obvious thing for me to be saying, but for some reason it is a fact that is too often forgotten. Even when women are included in drug clinical trials, the data is often not disaggregated (I obviously had to google that- it means separated) so you cannot analyse the difference in response to the drugs between both sexes. Drugs that pharmacological companies supply are often drugs that prove to be effective for men, but in fact have completely different side effects and levels of efficacy for women.

Data is not collected about women’s health and bodies. This is a large reason for why we suffer adverse effects from medical devices and drugs. There is a lack of data collection, and there is a lack of understanding. The medical treatments for women are not proved to be safe before their use. We are not taken into consideration. The medical community is often responsible for our suffering, and even if it is not, it is responsible for its dismissal. We are facing an immense injustice, where our health is more at risk. Our voices are not being heard. The injustice of the widespread mistreatment of the female body, and female lives, remains largely unspoken. Because we are simply called ‘hysterical.’ ( A sexist term for madness which originated from the Ancient Greek word ‘hystera’, meaning uterus.) And we have all been called it.

Our lives

The experiences of women are why I am here. Not just writing this article, but all the others that wait for me in the draft folder. All the others that wait for whole worlds of gender inequality and medical research to be condensed into a few thousand words. Sure, there are your facts - your statistics and numbers. But what drives writers and researches to the topic of women’s health is the pain that we have suffered, because of the inequality within the healthcare system.

The stories I heard offered the greatest and most disturbing proof possible. There are thousands. No story less deserving to be heard than any other. And I want to write them all. But I don’t think I can today.

Criado Perez details the story of Michelle. She faced debilitating abdominal pain from an early age, but had been told for years that her problems were all in her head. Only to eventually discover that she had a diseased colon, and an increased risk of colon cancer as a consequence of her constant dismissal.¹²As the testimonies and conclusions of the First Do No Harm Report confidently prove, it is not the wrongdoing of individuals that is responsible for such health neglect. It is the failure of an entire system. And women are suffering because of it.

And it’s not just doctors and drug companies that uphold this system. It is us. The pain of women is normalised. PMS, period pain, heavy bleeding, complex pregnancies, dangerous childbirths, and a plethora of other issues. These are some of the burdens that we must bear. And it is seen as acceptable, because it is common. But if many men were in so much pain that they could barely move, and were paralysed with depression and suicidal thoughts every month because of hormonal changes, I can confidently state that I do not think it would be approached with such dismissal. I do not think that just because a pain is common, means that it should be left to exist, and to be dealt with in silence.

Endometriosis, when tissue similar to lining of the womb grows elsewhere in the body, is often dismissed by professionals as bad period pain. But it is first dismissed as such by women. Women feel ashamed, failing to seek help for fear of seeming weak, or to have their experiences undermined by a professional, who would likely send them home with no scans or blood tests, but instead some painkillers.

Womanhood is pain. That is the lie that we are told. And the most heartbreaking thing of all, is that we believe it. But, just because a number of painful experiences belong to the female body, does not mean that they must exist without help or support.

So, is all this a Gender Health Gap?

It cannot be debated that the there is great inequality for women when receiving healthcare. But can we call this a Gender Health Gap?

Let’s go back to my initial simplistic definition of the term. Taken from the House of Lords Library page: It is the idea that women receive poorer healthcare.

The main elements I discussed that support this idea were the First Do No Harm Report, the Gender Data Gap in research, and the lives of women. It is true that women have suffered immensely, and have not been represented in research. But is this poorer healthcare? Sure, there is dismissal and injustice. But it would be difficult to say that generally, in the U.K at least, we receive worse healthcare than men.

The Benenden Gender Health Gap 2024 Report, asked the opinions of 10,000 women in the U.K for their experiences in healthcare. ¹³ 72% of the women surveyed did not believe in the existence of a ‘Gender Health Gap’ (defined in this case as women receiving poorer health outcomes. ) This was probably the most surprising statistic I came across. 60% did not feel that their health issues were taken seriously, and 35% admitting to avoiding going to the doctors if possible. But most did not see these facts as evidence of a health gap. Feeling ashamed and ignored, didn’t mean that they believed women inherently receive ‘poorer health outcomes.’ But what does that even mean? I I have been trying to decipher what the definitions of ‘poor healthcare’ and ‘poorer healthcare outcomes’ actually are for weeks, and I just don’t know.

So, I did the best thing I could, I went back to what I do know. Even this took some thought. So I took it chronologically.

I know that my PMS is shit. Why is this relevant? It is because this is what started it all. My debilitating troubles with hormones, and the difficulty I am facing in trying to access effective contraception that won’t interfere with my epilepsy. I felt depressed and hopeless, I felt ashamed, and as if I would not be believed or understood. More importantly, I knew that this is what every single woman feels when experiencing female health-related issues. I knew that I felt this way because of the stories. The stories of your own life, and the stories of women around you. Stories that tell you that you will not be believed. Stories that tell you that the very devices and drugs that are meant to help us, can tear our life apart. That they can harm us. They can harm our babies.

I discovered that term ‘Gender Health Gap’ when googling the differences for men and women within the healthcare system. It seemed as if it could define and explain these issues. So I made it the title of an article that became so much more than what I thought it would be.

I do not think that we can define what is happening to women with the phrases of ‘poorer healthcare’ and ‘poorer health outcomes.’ Because, not only I am not really sure what those definitions mean, but because I know they cannot encapsulate the trauma that women have to face. The trauma we face because our bodies are not treated with respect, knowledge, or understanding.

No vague terms can define pain that feels like razor blades in your stomach, or the feeling that your pain could have been treated, or even avoided. No vague terms convey the physical ache women feel when they lose a child because of a hormonal pregnancy test, or have a baby with birth defects because of a drug that was meant to help them. Or know that the drugs we take now, that were made for women, may have only been tested and understood within the context of bodies that are so incredibly different to ours.

This article isn’t about the Gender Health Gap. It isn’t about the data and the facts that support this complex concept. I think you could prove it. Use the example of the data gap, and medical neglect, to showcase that women do not receive healthcare, or health outcomes that are as good as they could be.

But, as important as I think it is, to make an effort to define these terms, it is not what is matters most to me. Of course I would like you to believe in the Gender Health Gap, or at least that women face injustice within the healthcare system, even if it exists by another name.

But the irony is that this article series is really about what cannot be put into words. I will talk about biology, and the oppressive legislation regarding the female body in the U.S. I will continue to discuss terms, like ‘patriarchy’, even though they lie beyond simplistic definition. I will spend my life talking about female existence, our bodies, and how the world treats them. But I have no idea yet of what I will achieve.

I cannot capture female suffering in an article, or an article series, or a book, or indeed in any other way. I cannot prove anything in words to men. And I cannot speak for women in numbers, facts, or even with thousands of accounts. Because, even in our shared suffering, all pain is unique.

I cannot define anything, or state anything with certainty. So why am I doing this? Why am I still writing? Why have I been trying to get these ideas written down for months?

It is because I have absolutely no idea what else to do. I have research and numbers. I can share the experiences of women that have not been heard, and the failings of society that have not yet been acknowledged. Surely this is good enough? It is important. It is valuable. It is worthwhile.

And yet somehow it doesn’t feel like enough.

I am writing this because, for whatever reason, I want to do the impossible.

I want to put all this pain into words.

The only thing that is keeping me going is the hope that maybe one day I can.

References:

• ‘First Do No Harm’ government report, 2020. <https://www.immdsreview.org.uk/downloads/IMMDSReview_Web.pdf>

• Criado Perez, Caroline, ‘The Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Built for Men,’ 2020.

  —The Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Built for Men,’ Audiobook, Audible, 2019. [Last Accessed 16 July 2025]

• Rakusen, India, 28ish Days Later podcast, BBC sounds, 2022. [Last accessed 16 July 2025] <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bvg9nm>

• Benenden Gender Health Gap Report, 2024

<https://www.benenden.co.uk/gender-health-gap-2024/>

• Parliament Website, House of Lords Library, ‘women’s health outcomes: is the gender gap?’, 1 July, 2021.

<https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/womens-health-outcomes-is-there-a-gender-gap/

• www.weforum.org

footnotes:

1. https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/womens-health-outcomes-is-there-a-gender-gap/

2. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/02/women-health-gender-gap-equality/

3. https://www.weforum.org/videos/closing-the-gap-in-womens-health/

4. First Do No Harm Government Report, 2020.

<https://www.immdsreview.org.uk/downloads/IMMDSReview_Web.pdf>

5. First Do No Harm Report, p.22, p. 153.

6. First Do No Harm Report, pp.47-48.

7. First Do No Harm, p.53.

8. First Do No Harm, p.5.

9. First Do No Harm, p.17.

10. First Do No Harm, p.20.

11. Caroline, Criado Perez, ‘Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Built for Men’ Audiobook Chapter 10: The Drugs Don’t Work. Audiobook 19:00.

12. Criado Perez, Chapter 10: The Drugs Don’t Work, 0:00- 2:00.

13. https://www.benenden.co.uk/gender-health-gap-2024/