The time has finally come in the health space to look at women differently than men. The growing importance of treating sex and gender health issues separately has been a long time coming.
I have experienced it first hand. Women go through pain their entire lives, from childbirth to period pain to menopause. Menopause has been a taboo topic forever. Even after having a child, nobody talks to you about what happens once you go home. It is certainly starting to change, but we should all be asking ourselves why? And add to the why, why have men (yes, most doctors in the past have been men) not looked at women separately from their male patients?
The amount of data that will come in the next ten years about women’s health will be incredible, particularly as we live to be older.
When my Mom had her second child, who was born with hip dysplasia, nobody figured it out for a while. My mother was told that she wasn’t a good mother, that my sister just had terrible colic, and more. She persevered until she figured it out, but can you imagine being told by a doctor that you don’t know what you are talking about as a young mother?
This happens more to women more than men. It is hard to have a meaningful one-on-one with a doctor because the system is broken. Times are changing but medically looking at women differently than men is one of the many things that must change in the medical world. We will all be better off for it.