It was an innocent comment from a better-than-wonderful nurse, but it confirmed what medical experts have told me on repeat: in standard medical training, in Australia, women’s health and how our bodies work is worse than an afterthought.
I was in my excellent skin doctor’s surgery, waiting to get some persistent sun spots burnt off by laser. I was warned the procedure – involving some evil cream, then eight minutes of hot light on each hand and my face – would be painful. (It was).
Many studies have demonstrated women are more sensitive to pain.Credit: iStock
Lovely nurse said: “We do offer some local anaesthetic for the pain, but it’s usually only the men who need it.” There was, I should state, no hint of misandry.
But why would the idea persist, even in the minds of male patients, that guys need more pain relief?
It’s probably down to medical gender fallacy number one, which remains alive and well despite being long disproved: women have a higher pain threshold.
Why would this sexist urban myth be? Because we live with periods, a range of painful reproductive conditions and birth? Whatever ...
I’ve interviewed a woman whose endometriosis pain was so bad she suddenly had to pull over the car and vomit, then lie in a ball on the........