A recurring theme here, and in many other health forums, is how female patients are treated differently, less believed, less understood, than male patients. Even by female doctors.
Although this article does not mentioned thyroid, I think we all realise that it is a prime example. Nonetheless, I hope it is of some interest as it discusses the issue.
The female problem: how male bias in medical trials ruined women's health
From the earliest days of medicine, women have been considered inferior versions of men. In On the Generation of Animals, the Greek philosopher Aristotle characterised a female as a mutilated male, and this belief has persisted in western medical culture.
“For much of documented history, women have been excluded from medical and science knowledge production, so essentially we’ve ended up with a healthcare system, among other things in society, that has been made by men for men,” Dr Kate Young, a public health researcher at Monash University in Australia, tells me.
Young’s research has uncovered how doctors fill knowledge gaps with hysteria narratives. This is particularly prevalent when women keep returning to the doctor, stubbornly refusing to be saved.
"“The historical hysteria discourse was most often endorsed when discussing ‘difficult’ women, referring to those for whom treatment was not helpful or who held a perception of their disease alternative to their clinician,” "
Women with thyroid disease like the ones who are members of this forum then? No wonder so many of us are considered to be hysterical. But the arrogance of that position (doctors can never be wrong) is just breathtaking.
I bought this book recently :
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
The thing I remember discussing with a few friends where our kids were babies (not long ago) is how doctors didn’t listen to us when we took our sick kids to see them, but our partners / husbands were listened to / not judged if they went. Only me?
Oh, I've frequently been called an over-anxious mother, or hysterical, when fighting for treatment for my kids. Even though I usually turn out to be right. And, yet, on the other hand, if there was something seriously wrong with your baby, and you didn't take it to the doctor, you would be branded a bad mother! You just can't win.
No idea what would have happened if my ex had taken the kids, rather than me. He wasn't what you would call a 'hands-on' father.
I remember my mother was condescended to when she asked the doctor to test my sister for anaemia. He scoffed at her and suggested that she was over-anxious (or whatever the 1970s equivalent of that phrase was). He did agree to the test, thankfully.
Then a few hours later my mother got a panicked phone call saying that my sister had to be admitted to hospital. Her haemoglobin, in modern units, was 60 g/L. The World Health Organisation defines severe anaemia as being below 80 g/L.
My first son was born at 28 weeks gestation. During my 29th week of pregnancy number 2, I was getting pain, lost my mucous plug, and felt VERY unwell. The Dr who saw me said, "You are just being neurotic. Go home, have a cup.of tea with your feet up, and stop all this nonsense. There is nothing wrong."
My 2nd baby, my only daughter, was stillborn only days later at 30 weeks. Yeah... It was all in.my head 🤬
I can’t click like for your post. I’m so sorry for your loss, terribly traumatic for you ( my granddaughter was born at 28 weeks, it’s a stressful time) I’d have been suing the ass of that dr.
I'm so sorry you lost your your daughter in this awful way. This is a tragedy and exactly what can happen when women with knowledge of their own bodies are ignored, and the 'Dr knows best' attitude prevails. Absolutely disgusting, and so very sad😔 x
I can relate to that. Always being told I was over protective. Not just doctors his teacher was as bad. Guess what at the age of 23 my youngest son was diagnosed dyslexic and dyspraxic. Fussy mother hmmm🤔
Somewhere on here is the story of my youngest's eye problems. We spent two or three years going from doctor to doctor, me being told I was neurotic and over-protective, and him being told he was just lazy and didn't want to work in class. It was sheer fluke that, in the end, an obnoxious eye doctor in a Parisian teaching hospital actually found the problem. It was a real, physical problem, not in anyone's head! Even so, she still wrote to my GP telling him that I was neurotic and having a negative effect on my son with my neuroses! Talk about gender bias!
I am definitely going to order this- after The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer and The War against Women - Marilyn French - I don't believe it can possibly make me more angry!! 😂Those books were written quite a while ago and are still relevant today....
I had a bad experience with a very unhelpful and condescending man at the local authority here yesterday that made me physically ill - I'm still fighting to calm down.....
Try a Women’s history of the World - I think that’s the right title - injustices of hideous magnitude against women laid bare it is both vomit and anger inducing....but it needs to be known
His problem - try to put the blame where it belongs and don’t waste precious energy on the pratt...,mind you I’d be boiling with rage too but I feel it is not good for me - a sharp witty tongue seems to desert me when I get a divvie like that and an imaginary fist springs to mind!
I've been on a first aid course this week, and I noticed this in the first aid hand book too!
How to treat a heart attack: sit HIM down
Angina: ask if HE has medication
Panic attack: sit HER down
Stroke: keep HIM calm
Vomiting: give HER a damp face cloth
The accidental ones (allergic reaction, cuts, broken bones) were divided into male/female fairly equally, and the fainting was assigned to a man, but it really wasn't necessary to use gender descriptors at all in the examples. The serious things were assigned to men, and it was so telling that "panic attack" was assigned to a woman.
This is so easy to remedy by using they/them! Perfectly grammatically correct and makes absolutely no assumptions about who you might be treating. Like you say, no need to bring gender into it.
Yeah none of the above are exclusive to any gender so it just seems unnecessary to be so specific. Pregnancy on the other hand, a very different matter.
Anyone enjoying the theme of this chat should watch the BBC docu called, I think, Maiden, about the all female yachting crew who entered the Whitbread round the world race in the late 1980s.
It’s amazing that this team struggled to get any sponsorship and its leader had to remortgage her house because yachting people / sponsors just didn’t believe an all-female crew could complete such a race. Gripping.
Thank you for the post. I had no idea that clinical trials didn't usually include woman. Like every woman, it seems, I too have come across this many times. Considering testosterone can bring about emotional outbursts and irrational behaviour, I wonder why men aren't referred to as ruled by their hormones and too emotional to rule. However the testosterone problem doesn't get much air time.
I'm not a man hater - just frustrated with the constant double standard. I've recently been Chair of a Body Corp and have had to put up with the sulky egos and "mates" who of course know more than any woman could comprehend about buildings. After all, I'm too female to understand common sense. Luckily there are sensible men out there and we work well together on equal terms.
They make up virtually all of the prison population too, if that wasn’t evidence enough
“Young’s research has uncovered how doctors fill knowledge gaps with hysteria narratives. This is particularly prevalent when women keep returning to the doctor, stubbornly refusing to be saved.”
That last phrase was exactly the attitude I got at my previous GP.
On my last visit to this arrogant dr a student was present. Without even examining me he declared my crippling headaches to be ‘a different type of migraine’, leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and swivelling the chair towards the student said “ that’s another one cured”.
She looked as embarrassed as I was angry.
And he was wrong. If he’d bothered to examine me he should have found a piece of displaced bone that was causing the pain.
Yes, I too was with a Specialist and his student. This was a second visit. He had given me medicine the previous time and when I said it had made no difference, he and the male student exchanged a "knowing look" between them. Then he asked me if I had a boy friend and was I unhappy being in the new city I was in. I said I had a boyfriend and I was sick. I don't have a boyfriend and I am sick. I enjoyed where I came from and I enjoy being where I am and I am sick.
At the end of the visit (which I had to pay good money for) I went out and asked to see another doctor. As it happened the next doctor gave me the name of a doctor who was able to help me. It turned out I had a massive reaction to gluten which had been robbing me of energy for years and causing me for eight years to wake up in the middle of the night vomiting every couple of weeks. Yes, it was hypochondria and depression due to a lack of a boyfriend!
Oh yes, I still remember the man who refused to run tests on me which I knew I needed at the time. It turned into an argument where I just had enough and burst into tears and said "is it that you CAN'T help me, or don't WANT to help me?" Because the way it looks you don't do anything which may bring light to the situation." He had no answer for me, all he said was he treated me the same as he would any of his family member.. and that as he had told me previously, "I would get better in time (not telling me what's wrong) with no interference needed", I just needed to stop looking for what's wrong and take it easy.. 🤦🏼♀️
Or the female doctors: 2 or 3 of them in fact, who told me things along the lines of "are you working or studying? Married, with kids?"
- "It must be hard for you at work / home"..
or flat out told me I was depressed and needed to see a psychiatrist and not an endocrinologist.. because apparently to her "the problem is with me not loving myself enough!" - I couldn't make all the bullshit up I heard from these medical "professionals" if I had tried. If I could sue them all I would.
And the doctors who actually we're helpful and knew what needed to be done mysteriously disappeared from my referral waiting lists. Never to be heard from again.
“In the early 20th century, the endocrine system, which produces hormones, was discovered. To medical minds, this represented another difference between men and women, overtaking the uterus as the primary perpetrator of all women’s ills.”
And yet they can’t even get that right! I think it would be more accurate to say that it’s believed that the endocrine system, particularly and often only in relation to reproduction, has overtaken the uterus as the primary perpetrator of all women’s ills.
Great article... I work in the world of science surrounding by men. I often find my findings/opinion/suggestions dismissed only for a few weeks later one of my male colleagues to find/suggest the exact same thing as I did and this time the findings acted on or taken forward... but it wasn't good enough when it came from me! I'm not shy at pointing this out... which had led to me labelled as "being difficult" at work. We just can't win sometimes.
It has always astounded me at the lack of research on women... considering we live soooo much longer than men... why would you not want to heavily invest to investigate every single aspect of that!
It's so frustrating to have to live with blatant sexism in the work place and in health care. Ignoring the issue won't make it solve itself just like our health.
You should know all about that !"It's so frustrating to have to live with blatant sexism in the work place and in health care. Ignoring the issue won't make it solve itself just like our health." People suffer from all forms of injustice every day, We not just women suffer.
Never said men don't. In fact myself and many people including stated that they get treated the same from both genders. However the post is highlighting the treatment of women. So naturally many women would come forward with their stories. If you have a story to share feel free to do so, all of us will sympathise! instead of trying to nitpick an argument.
"sympathise" these posts are nothing short of blatant sexism, change "man or male" in these posts to black or muslim but you wont dare but man or male its open season.
I'm sorry you feel that way. I have nothing but sympathy towards anyone who has experienced sexism and dismissal of serous health issues by their medical health care professionals.
As Glaciera says we're relating frustrating experiences. When I hear women saying things like only women can multitask or women who think if women ruled the world, there would no wars, don't really understand the human condition. There are just as many women who overly desire power and arrogant women (eg the women doctors mentioned above).
The majority of doctors I've met are men - I can't change that. I've also seen some women take on an "only females can do this properly" attitude which must annoy the men just as some builders or mechanics wanting to think that only men can understand what they are talking about frustrates me. Any type of pigeon holing whether it be on looks, gender, race, age …….. it hamstrings all of us.
I'm a learning support teacher and was told not to take a certain child into my group because she was intellectually impaired and it would be a waste. First no learning is a waste. Second she was keeping up so I annoyed this fellow teacher by keeping her in the group against her recommendations. That year the child had her biennial IQ tests. These tests showed she wasn't intellectually impaired but had difficulty with Speech and Language. The trouble with pigeon holing is it can hinder the person from improvement.
Unfortunately there is a lot of pigeon holing in the world and as people who have a health condition, we get to see it very clearly in the medical profession. Most of my friends who were healthy didn't understand where I was coming from until they grew older and had to deal with it themselves - men and women.
I would recommend you read the article. It explains the distortion in medical research quite well.
Women are more likely than men to suffer hypothyroidism, so I wonder if you potentially had a battle on your hands to be diagnosed, if your doctor initially ruled it out due to your gender? Women have the same problem with other conditions, such as heart attacks. 60% of heart attacks are in men, but that means that if a man and a woman present to A&E with the exact same symptoms, a woman will typically be made to wait in the waiting room and be told she has anxiety, while a man will be rushed through and investigated for a heart attack straight away.
If you did have that experience with your thyroid, perhaps it will help you appreciate why some are raising this. It's not about man hating, saying men deserve less, or dismissing men. It's about saying we're all equal, and we all need to be treated as such.
Thank you for your reply, I was in and out of my doctors for 12 years or more and was made to feel my illness was in my head, like others I was really ill and was over joyed to find a lump on my thyroid, like others life is not easy for me, I do not think of myself as lucky, these posts are man bashing just read them, I wont say any more .
I really don't think they are man bashing, just frustration coming out.
I'm very sorry you had such a battle on your hands for your thyroid. People have an idea in their heads of what a certain condition looks like, and if you don't fit the trend, you tend to be dismissed (breast cancer, heart problems etc). It does neither gender any favours. I guess I'm just trying to explain why some worry: Imagine T4 was tested only on women, because it's primarily a woman's illness, and tests showed you need a higher dose 2 weeks of the month due to hormone fluctuations. Would that not worry you?
If certain men listen to women less closely than they do men (in the medical world) and those women then bang their head on a shut door, sometimes for years.. what you see here is the result of all of these years. And calling this writing and depth of feeling “man bashing” would also be “women bashing”.
I hope my daughter will, during her life, by listened to by her doctors as much as my son is. My brother in law is a self-avowed hypochondriac. Yet not once would anyone call him “neurotic” or “hysterical”.
As I said I was ill for years, I work as part of a team, as time went by, I could do less and less,I was mercilessly bullied at work, I was told to "Man up! I was letting others do my work, I was made to feel worthless, I was told I was letting people down. I must add this was said by men and women, No one believed me,I was alone. I found a lump on my thyroid and I was over the moon. I came to this forum, because no one I know understands how hard life can get for us, I understand most who suffer hypothyroidism, are women and I dont mind threads that talk about hypothyroidism as if its a womans problem. we are all in the same boat,Women are not believed because they like to complain and men arent believed because they have to "Man up"
As a male with hypothyroidism, I do consider myself relatively lucky. No-one tried to put things down to oestrogen, menopause, hysteria or any of the other possibilities which are all too often blamed in women who are hypothyroid.
I have seen the gender issue in thyroid medicine all too many times, on this forum and closer. For that reason, any possible apparent imbalance in this thread is entirely understandable.
Perhaps this leg of the thread could be left now without further comments? I think the comments so far have probably covered most of the ground.
I'd rather not close the whole thread to replying.
Acknowledging that a particular group may suffer particular difficulties, especially as a direct result of being in that group, does not immediately preclude or invalidate anybody else’s experience. It merely serves to highlight that the experience may be different. No better, no worse.
Somehow it seems that doctors - male or female they’re both as bad as each other - seem to see a female patient and think ‘hypochondriac’ or ‘menopausal’ or possibly ‘obese and wanting levothyroxine to help them lose weight’. That’s the only good thing about being ancient - at least they no longer think you are menopausal.
Been through the over anxious mother stage - at one point I found it so annoying I refused to take my kids and sent my husband who of course wasn’t ever seen as an over anxious father, if it hadn’t been so annoying it would have almost been funny.
The stupidest comment I’ve seen recently was a couple of weeks ago - a newspaper doctor commented ‘When I see a patient glide into my room, I know they’ve got an inner ear problem’. Oh yeah! Why not check them out before coming to a conclusion.
It ranked with the doctors we have all heard about who ‘know’ what is or isn’t wrong with you without doing any tests or the ones whose patients who have something dreadful wrong with them who bleat that their patient was too young to have bowel cancer/ breast cancer / or whatever nasty they ruled out based on the patient’s age.
Oh yes! One doctor told me im too young to be menopausal and another told me I'm experiencing early menopause. Third told me im just ageing and my symptoms are part of getting old. ( I was 26 when I saw her)
I felt the bias recently while looking online for a good multivitamin without iodine in it. A major U.S. pharmaceutical company carried only one selection, designed for men. Why only men?
I just thought to add, my mother saw doctor on many occasions, was told she was a hypochondriac, this was in the 1960's complaining of feeling exhausted. Sadly just being Christmas 1969 she died. She was 40. It may not have anything to do with thyroid but she was anemic, written on her death certificate congestive heath failure due to anemia. I am 56 been very unwell labelled chronic fatigue. M. E, 6 Years of feeling very poorly, now on levo, private gp listened, recently did tests. I pray this is my illness as I was a P. E teacher and had to stop work. Early days on medication and forum helping. I just wanted to say how important it is we need to be listened too. I am adamant now about things when I see NHS gp. I have a lot to be grateful for 2 beautiful grandsons and another granddaughter on the way. My mum never saw me grow up. So everyone should be assertive and find a more compassionate and understanding and proactive doctor.
I'm sorry to see the circumstances around your mother's death. My mum was dismissed in a very similar manner, and it's just awful thinking how someone could have listened and saved their life at least through their treatment (or lack of), we will know to push harder for ourselves
thank you , it makes me wonder if my mum had thyroid issues, with the anaemia and she put alot weight on , obviously heart congestion and then failure. My cholesterol has kept rising but know I know why and I am probably half the weight my mum was before she died. I read heart problems if thyroid not diagnosed and treated. 😌
After thyroidectomy my health was deteriorating fast and I could see the train wreck getting ready to happen and no matter what I said to these Endos (Females) included they all chalked me up as needing a psychologists help because I was unhappy with my treatment after thyroidectomy and should seek out a support group because my lab numbers were perfect and my complaints about excessive joint pains and excessive weight gain weren't thyroidectomy related its something I was doing "eating too much" not even close to the truth fastest answer when doctors don't know something blame the patient. I still get mad that these people destroyed my health and get away with it ....it's like they committed and attempted murder.
Fast forward to today ....housebound for almost 3 yrs because they would never address or acknowledge my joint pains finally sent me to John Hopkins Rheumatology dept and I was diagnoised with (psoriatic arthritis ) only after I threw a tantrum did they send me but the delay of treatment destroyed my body. They also refused for a while to give me ultrasound on my neck to check for recurring thyroid cancer even though Im high risk due to multiple cancers and when they finally did the US 2 yrs later the US and then Biopsies on lymph nodes revealed a possible problem now I'm currently doing low iodine diet so I can swallow Radioactive iodine next week to get a full body scan to see if I have recurring thyroid cancer.
I bet a man would not go through half of what I had to go through over these 3yrs of hell.
A colleague at work has been unwell lately. He has presented himself and been given CTI scans and all sorts. I’m glad that they are ruling things out and being really thorough with him, but for over a year I kept going back to the Drs with the same set of symptoms and all I got was “how are things at work?” Anti depressants and eventually the CFS diagnosis. Admittedly, he could be offering other symptoms to initiative such tests, and he could have family stuff i am not aware of. Either way, I feel completely abandoned and dismissed by my Drs 😢
It's definitely a problem, a very serious one. It also happens the other way around, but to a much lesser extent.
Before my thyroid issue was diagnosed and I suggested it runs in the family so might be worth checking, 2(!) GP's laughed in my face that thyroid issues are female issues and not to worry as they proceeded with cancer screenings and mri's. Wasted a lot of the NHS money and 8 months of my time.
Yep they also wasted alot of NHS money sending me to wrong people who had nothing to do with my health problems. ( Breathing doctor?! Because apparently I don't breathe properly.. I take too long to breathe in? Comical really..) They wasted theirs and my time and my husband is convinced they put me on a black list. As they refused to treat me even when I brought private tests and scans to them. They just said it's impossible as im too young / underweight etc.. ( yet one of then told me I'm just ageing lol ) They don't forward anymore of the referrals I requested for or any letters sent to me from previous doctors who were more helpful.. They tried to put my symptoms down to "depression", "ageing", "stress" and "hysteria" that didn't sit well with me, wanting real answers and treatment. I guess they sussed i called bs.
I feel your pain. I was not convinced that my levo dosage really agreed with me 100% but they wouldn't refer me to an endocrinologist and told me to wait 3 more months. They did this 3 times. Eventually I kicked off, made the doctors name public on social media, complained to the NHS Trust and constantly harassed them. 10 months later I got my appointment and I was right.
Such a shame but being nice, understanding and patient gets zero results. Smack them with your own blood test results and research materials from official medical journals and stop being nice = result.
I don't belong to the NHS system but it seems they risk spending a heck of a lot more money down the road for a serious health problem that might have been corrected by treating someone with proper test and medication earlier.
I go through opposite with my military healthcare they do everything but the one thing that could make a difference for me ..for example my TSH shot up for absolutley no reason and I had sudden breathlessness and instead of raising my thyroid meds (no thyroid) my male endo said I need to see heart doctor, come on really going to pi$$ money away on heart specialist vs. Upping my thyroid meds....the whole health system is mentally ill!
My mother went to her GP whom she trusted, as she had found a lump in her breast. He dismissed her, She died a year later of breast cancer.
I went to the GP with heavy periods. He said "oh you all think that!" I then had to apologise as the tampon and pad had become soaked and I had left a puddle of blood on the chair. He was disgusted! I was then fitted with a mirena coil by another doctor, which sorted the problem.
That's terrible! I'm so sorry for your loss and their incompetence I hear this happens all too often. I myself had to have a breast scan done privately, as they didn't want to do it. The scan and nurse doing it told me I have abnormal lumps possibly due to serious hormonal imbalance and I need to have a mammogram urgently just to make sure all is ok. I went to my NHS and asked for one. They just laughed at me and told me I'm too young to have one (mammogram and breast cancer) They reluctantly repeated a scan which was rushed and (without any visible to me proof), just told me "all looks normal" and then point blank refused to do a further mammogram. Yet I have a private scan that clearly shows cysts. I found out later it is indeed due to problem with my hormones. I should get a mammogram to be on the safe side but NHS won't do it. So I can imagine many others must struggle to simply get checked out.
It does depend on your age to some extent. If you are under about 40, usually your breast tissue is too dense to see much in a mammogram. A CT scan can find most lumps if you dont have much up top!
I always say I cannot get a chest cold as there is nothing there for it to stick to!
I have had a similar problem - doctors unable or unwilling to think through problems linked to a reproductive system that are not about fertility, but really affect your happiness. I’m so sorry you had to go through it too.
Oh yes that's another issue I had too. I have POS and inspite of having all symptoms and getting tested and scanned for it (of course privately again) because they didn't want to look into it unless "I had trouble conceiving" I also most definitely have endometriosis. But again getting it diagnosed by NHS when you are young is impossible.
I watched a documentary the other day about endocrinology on prime and it said they used to remove the ovaries of women to eliminate mental health problems and stuff like that. This was only like 100 to 200 years ago. Eliminating the ovaries made it worse btw because it would just bring on the symptoms of menopause.
These accounts, so sad to read over, all lead back to this: we think less of what a woman has to say than a man and we value a man’s time more highly. The bias is so pervasive that we do it ourselves, too.
And to the question: how should we bring up our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, students, so we don’t keep compounding the problem?
I worked on a trading floor a few years ago. Chatting to the back office staff (100% women, unlike the 100% male traders), I remember joining in with these women in their chat about how bad they (all) were at maths. And yet these were people with huge responsibilities for keeping this FTSE 250 company in check, and all were incredibly competent and reliable (unlike some other counterparts!) in ensuring that the numbers added up and that trades were correctly documented. The job was undervalued and they also undervalued themselves.
I may have gone too far off message for a thyroid forum but, having a thyroid problem and two often sick kids, I spend a lot of time with doctors and notice how often my words are dismissed without the problem itself being diagnosed. A partial diagnosis (it’s not serious but I don’t know what it is) where actually a full diagnosis is needed. This is happening because my analysis of the symptoms / problem is not believed.
One doctor told me this year, when I had an immune deficiency diagnosis for one child and immediately asked whether the same might apply to the other child “I have never come across a child in practice with an immune problem”. Ignorance masquerading as medical insight. Saw a different doctor two months later who independently (I didn’t raise it) suggested and proved my other child had just the same thing. So much wasted time!
The Apple credit card limit issue emphasises that whatever the logic is, it is getting embedded even in new systems. There was a post recently about Babylon Artificial Intelligence "diagnostic support" treating male and female with identical symptoms very differently.
The ability to reply to this post has been turned off.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
I’m so sorry for your loss, terribly traumatic for you ( my granddaughter was born at 28 weeks, it’s a stressful time) I’d have been suing the ass of that dr. 
Something for the boys!
Improper treatment of thyroid disease and human rights
The impact of complaints procedures on the welfare, health and clinical practise of 7926 doctors in the UK: a cross-sectional survey
