Did you know that, for years, the very systems designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of medicines effectively shut women out? From 1977 through 1993, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US actually excluded females of “child-bearing potential” from clinical trials. Just pause with that for a moment. An entire demographic, excluded from crucial research into health outcomes simply because of their reproductive potential. It’s a stark example of systemic discrimination, and while the policy changed in 1993, the ripple effects, the vacuum of data, the ingrained dismissal of female biology in research… that didn’t magically disappear.
This exclusion is just one piece of a much larger puzzle – the fact that so much of our world’s knowledge, so much of the data that shapes everything from urban planning to medical protocols, has been collected from and based on the male experience. There’s a whole conversation, highlighted powerfully in books like “Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men” by Caroline Criado Perez, about this fundamental gender data gap. It means that the female body, its nuances, its reactions, its specific health needs, have often been treated as a deviation from the norm, less studied, less understood.
Think about it – car crash test dummies have historically been based on the average male physique, meaning cars are fundamentally designed to protect male bodies, leaving women at higher risk of injury. Office temperatures are often calibrated to male metabolic rates, leaving women shivering. Even the ‘classic’ symptoms of a heart attack are often male symptoms, meaning women experiencing different, but equally serious, signs can be misdiagnosed. Women’s bodies and our specific health outcomes are still, drastically, under-researched, and this lack of knowledge has real, tangible, sometimes dangerous consequences, making women invisible in everything from the design of our everyday tools to the medical care we receive.
This reality, this historical and ongoing oversight, was highlighted for me in the most acute way just a few years ago. As women, we often become accustomed to pain. We navigate menstrual cramps, hormonal shifts, the physical toll of childbirth or simply the relentless demands of daily life. We endure it, often in silence, pushing it aside because, well, because we have to get on with things, don’t we? Pain becomes, for many of us, a familiar, unwelcome passenger that we just learn to manage, perhaps because, on some level, we’ve internalised the idea that our pain isn’t always the most important data point in a world built on male data.
For me personally, this pattern of enduring pain was tied to a recurring issue with my Bartholin’s glands, those essential parts of female anatomy. For twelve long years – yes, twelve years! – this issue had plagued me. Each time it flared up, the experience was depressingly similar. Doctors would typically dismiss it, offer antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, and a vague instruction to ‘just wait it out.’ Operating, perhaps unknowingly, within a system where robust data on female-specific issues like this might be lacking, they defaulted to management rather than investigation. I’d go home, still in excruciating pain, and simply… endure.
Then came a time, about three years ago now, when almost the exact same thing happened. The familiar script unfolded: sent home with antibiotics, told to manage the pain with paracetamol. I went through the motions, I really did. But something in me – maybe it was the sheer, overwhelming level of pain I was in, maybe it was just twelve years of quiet frustration bubbling over – said this is not right. I couldn’t just endure anymore. I had to push. I had to advocate for myself and for my body, which was screaming that something was seriously wrong.
I pushed to be seen, specifically requesting a consultation with a top gynaecologist. After speaking to me briefly on the phone about my symptoms, his response was immediate and urgent – he told me to come in right away. The moment I arrived at the clinic, the whirlwind began. Suddenly, I was in a gown, signing papers, the air buzzing with a new kind of urgency. This doctor, finally, truly saw that this was serious. Little did I know just how serious it was about to become. I was rushed into theatre, the bright lights, the masked faces, the disorienting speed of it all. And then came the spinal block – a strange, cold sensation spreading upwards from my back, bringing with it a detachment from the lower half of my body while my mind raced with confusion and fear about what was happening. One moment I was enduring familiar pain, the next I was on an operating table, numb and disoriented.
What the doctor discovered was an aggressive infection within the gland, one that, had I waited just 24 more hours, could have entered my bloodstream. He told me, with a gravity that landed heavily, that I was very, very lucky they caught it when they did. In that moment, lying there recovering, ‘lucky’ wasn’t exactly the word that sprang to mind, I’ll admit! The confusion of the rushed surgery, the lingering strangeness of the spinal block, it all added to the feeling of having been through something sudden and serious that I hadn’t fully processed in the moment. But later, with the clarity that comes after pain begins to recede, I understood. He had seen the severity that others had missed for over a decade. He had listened to the pain my body was expressing, perhaps because he was trained to look beyond the ‘default’ or perhaps simply because he truly heard me.
Recovery was a long process that involved multiple antibiotics and some seriously strong painkillers. But more important than the physical healing has been the profound sense of peace. Twelve years of pain, twelve years of being quietly dismissed, finally taken seriously. Finally validated.
It brings to mind Maya Angelou’s powerful words: “I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.” That feels so incredibly pertinent when it comes to women’s health, living in a world where our experiences have historically been, and often continue to be, the missing data, the secondary consideration.
I share this deeply personal story not for sympathy, but as a massive wake-up call for anyone with female anatomy. Please, please remember that our bodies are still seriously under-researched, and sadly, our pain is too often dismissed or not taken seriously by medical professionals operating within systems built on historical bias and incomplete data. Getting a second, a third, even a fourth opinion is not being difficult; it is being your own advocate in a world that hasn’t always prioritised understanding your biology. Just because we have a high tolerance for pain, just because we are used to enduring it, doesn’t mean we should have to. Listen to your body when it tells you something is wrong, trust that inner knowing, and never, ever stop searching until you find a doctor who truly listens to you. Your health, and your peace of mind, are worth pushing for.
agirlcalledlynsey 
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