Let’s get one thing straight before we dive in, scalpel-first: women’s pain is real. That statement, in the year of our chronically underfunded reproductive research, 2025, still feels radical. Welcome to the land where a woman can give birth to a 9-pound baby without screaming but is still told she’s “exaggerating” when her IUD is inserted without anesthesia.
And so, ladies, gentlefolk, and those still recovering from their last pelvic exam (or gaslit ER visit), I bring you this searing, snark-drenched sermon on the state of women’s pain. Spoiler: it’s bad. But don’t worry—we’ll cry about it later. Quietly. In a bathroom. Like we were trained to.
Chapter 1: A Brief and Infuriating History
Once upon a time, a woman said, “Ouch,” and a man said, “Hysteria.” Thus began a centuries-long game of medical hot potato, where female suffering was passed around and dropped into the abyss of “It’s probably just anxiety.” In the ancient world, they thought the uterus literally wandered around the body causing mischief. “The uterus is migrating,” they’d say, as if it were a hormonal hobo looking for trouble. Solution? Smelling salts. Or a good marriage. Or leeches.
Fast forward a few hundred years, and modern medicine’s made some progress. We no longer prescribe leeches—just SSRIs. Got endometriosis? Here’s an antidepressant. Ovarian cysts? Take a Tylenol and journal about your feelings. You’ll be fine. After all, “women are just more emotional,” right?
No. Wrong. Bad doctor. No biscuit.
Chapter 2: The Invisible Patient
Women are 50% of the population and about 85% of the people being ignored in waiting rooms. Especially if you’re Black, Indigenous, fat, poor, queer, trans, disabled, or some intersectional cocktail of humanity that doesn’t fit the Aryan Princess archetype with a platinum health plan and a squeaky clean medical record.
Let’s talk pain thresholds. Studies have shown that women report pain more frequently, but doctors are more likely to attribute those reports to psychological causes. Translation? If you’re a man and say you’re in pain, you get an MRI. If you’re a woman, you get told to breathe deeply and maybe consider yoga.
And God help you if you show emotion. Cry, and you’re a basket case. Stay stoic, and you must not be in that much pain. It’s a lose-lose. You have to perform your agony just right: not too loud, not too cold, not too angry. And if your pain is chronic? Oh, sweetheart, now you’re just being difficult.
Chapter 3: The Great Endometriosis Black Hole
Let’s dive into the most under-diagnosed, misunderstood chronic pain condition this side of “Is she faking it?” Endometriosis affects roughly 1 in 10 women. That’s about the same as diabetes. Know how long it takes to diagnose endometriosis on average? Eight. Years.
Eight. Freaking. Years.
That’s eight years of missed work, misdiagnoses, and misplaced medical files labeled “hypochondriac” in invisible ink. You go in for debilitating period pain that feels like a gang of wasps took up residence in your abdomen, and your doctor’s like, “Have you tried not thinking about it?”
No, Chad, I haven’t. But thanks for the TED Talk.
The worst part? There’s still no cure. We can remove some lesions. We can chemically shut down your ovaries. Or we can gaslight you into thinking it’s just “bad cramps.” But actual research? Clinical funding? Comprehensive, specialized care? Ha! That’s cute.
Chapter 4: Pain Scales and Other Cruel Jokes
You’re familiar with the “rate your pain from 1 to 10” scale, right? The one with the increasingly sweaty smiley faces that go from cheerful to screaming agony like a Pixar fever dream? That’s what we’re using to treat complex, subjective experiences shaped by gender, trauma, biology, and bias. A cartoon emoji pain scale. Genius.
But here’s the kicker: women consistently score themselves lower on pain scales than men, despite experiencing more intense or prolonged symptoms. Why? Because they’re conditioned to downplay it. You get bonus points for being “low maintenance,” and punishments for being “too much.”
Meanwhile, men come in with a paper cut and get Vicodin, a hospital bed, and a sympathy card. Women with a ruptured cyst are told, “Take an Advil and call us if you pass out.” Fantastic system. Really killing it.
Chapter 5: The Medical Research Desert
You want to know why we don’t treat women’s pain better? Because we never studied it. Historically, medical research has been conducted on men, by men, for men. Until the 1990s, women were often excluded from clinical trials—because hormones make us “too complicated.”
Imagine designing airbags based on crash dummies shaped like Arnold Schwarzenegger and then wondering why women are more likely to die in car accidents. That’s the logic. That’s the entire playbook.
We didn’t include women in drug trials. We didn’t test how medications worked across menstrual cycles. We didn’t bother with female-specific diseases unless there was a PR campaign and a ribbon attached.
Even now, pain conditions that primarily affect women—like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and vulvodynia—are under-researched, under-funded, and frequently dismissed. Because we’re not dead—we’re just in pain. Which apparently doesn’t count.
Chapter 6: The IUD Olympics
Nowhere is the “just suck it up” mentality more gloriously on display than in the wide world of IUD insertions. Imagine having a metal rod shoved into your uterus without pain relief. Now imagine someone telling you, “It’ll feel like a pinch.”
They lied.
Women faint. Women vomit. Women scream. And yet, clinics rarely offer sedation. “It’s over in a few minutes,” they say, which is weirdly similar to something else that never impressed women.
If men needed copper coils inserted into their testicles for birth control, you’d better believe anesthesia would be standard—and you’d get a cookie afterward. But for women? You get a pamphlet. Maybe a condescending nurse who tells you, “It’s worth it for the convenience.”
So is not being tortured. But here we are.
Chapter 7: What the Actual Fix Looks Like
Okay, deep breath. Let’s stop hemorrhaging sarcasm for a second and talk solutions. Yes, it’s bad. Yes, it’s institutional. But no, it doesn’t have to stay this way.
Here’s what we need:
1. Believe Women. Revolutionary concept, I know. But if a woman says she’s in pain, start from the assumption that she’s telling the truth. Don’t ask if she’s “sure it’s not anxiety.” She’s sure. Trust me.
2. Train Medical Professionals Better. Pain is not one-size-fits-all. Medical school curricula need a feminist overhaul. Include gendered pain patterns, hormonal fluctuations, trauma-informed care, and cultural competency. Bonus points for “How Not to Dismiss a Crying Patient 101.”
3. Stop Gatekeeping Pain Relief. Women are less likely to be prescribed pain meds—and more likely to be told they’re drug-seeking. Newsflash: wanting to not be in pain is not addiction. It’s sanity.
4. Fund Women’s Health Research. You know how we cured erectile dysfunction in like, five minutes? We can absolutely tackle menstrual disorders and pelvic pain if we cared half as much. But we don’t. Not yet.
5. Make It Equitable. Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Indigenous women have higher rates of chronic illness and lower rates of care. Trans men and nonbinary people with uteruses are almost invisible in gynecological care. Pain justice has to be inclusive, or it’s just more bias with better branding.
Chapter 8: The Feminist Pain Scale
So here’s my proposal: Let’s scrap the smiley face scale and replace it with something more honest. Let’s call it the Feminist Pain Scale.
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Level 1: Mild discomfort. Like someone said “calm down” in a meeting.
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Level 2: Cramps during a Tinder date with someone who calls women “females.”
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Level 3: Enduring a pap smear with a doctor who thinks bedside manner is optional.
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Level 4: Being told your pain is “just stress” while you’re actively vomiting.
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Level 5: Having an ovarian cyst burst during rush hour.
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Level 6: Enduring labor without epidural and being blamed for tearing.
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Level 7: Being told your reproductive pain “might just be IBS.”
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Level 8: IUD insertion with no anesthesia and a pamphlet about empowerment.
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Level 9: The ER gives you a pregnancy test before they give you morphine.
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Level 10: You died, but don’t worry—they still wrote “emotional distress” on your chart.
Chapter 9: Rage as Medicine
If you’ve read this far and you’re not vibrating with rage, congratulations on your emotional stability. The rest of us are about to channel our inner Carrie at the prom.
The only way things get better is if we keep screaming—figuratively, literally, and on every damn platform available. Scream at policymakers. Scream at researchers. Scream at your insurance company while you’re on hold for the 40th minute.
Pain should not be a gendered experience. But since it is, we need to treat it like the public health crisis it is. Not just for women, but for everyone marginalized by a system designed for one type of body and one type of experience.
Final Chapter: Pain Is Political
Let’s be clear. This is not about “awareness.” We are aware. We’ve been aware since the first time a doctor told us to “just relax” while wielding a speculum like a medieval weapon.
This is about justice. About equity. About restructuring the entire scaffolding of a medical model built on the backs of women—and then telling them to be quiet when it hurts.
So next time someone asks, “How can we better treat women’s pain?” you look them dead in the eyes and say:
Step one: Start believing it. Step two: Stop pretending it’s normal. Step three: Burn the damn patriarchy to the ground and build a clinic on the ashes.
With pain meds. And warm socks. And snacks in the waiting room.
Because healing shouldn’t hurt. And if it does, the least you can do is not gaslight the person doing all the bleeding.