Gender Bias in Healthcare

Image Credits: Getty Images

Gender bias can affect many aspects of healthcare. Doctors, researchers, administrators, and even patients can hold biased views about gender. These views can have a serious impact on health outcomes. Gender bias is a preference for one gender over another. These preferences are usually based on false beliefs or generalizations that depict one gender as superior or inferior to the other.

Most cultures place a higher value on men and masculinity; gender bias affects women and girls most severely. Stereotypes about gender affect how doctors treat illnesses and listen to their patients’ complaints, such as the severity of their patients’ pain. For example, a 2018 study found that doctors often view men with chronic pain as “brave” or “stoic,” on the other hand, they view women with chronic pain as “emotional” or "hysterical." The study also revealed that doctors were more likely to treat women’s pain as a product of a mental health condition, rather than a physical condition.

Gaps in medical research reinforce gender bias. For many decades, scientists believed that males made the best test subjects as they do not have menstrual cycles and cannot become pregnant. They thought the only differences between men and women were reproductive organs. This assumption led to a vast amount of research involving only male participants. The important biological differences between male and female bodies can influence how diseases, drugs, and other therapies affect people. Many studies from before the 1990s are flawed.

Gender bias can cause numerous consequences, resulting in large numbers of people receiving worse care than they should, which could lead to fatal outcomes such as death. Gender bias highlights knowledge gaps, a lack of women in leadership, delayed diagnoses, and avoidance of medical care.