Academic Review 2024

34 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

Stereotypes towards women which exacerbate discrimination in healthcare To understand the current stereotypes which affect women we must look at the past. In Ancient Greece male superiority was shown by denigrating the female anatomy (Fornaro, Clementi, & Fornaro, 2009). Women’s bodies were medically defined as “faulty” “defective” and “deficient” (Cleghorn, 2021). “Exaggerating”, “it’s all in your head,” “hypochondriac” and “hysteria” are the words/ phrases which many healthcare providers use to diminish women’s symptoms. Hysteria is defined as ‘exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement’. The word comes from the Greek word hystera meaning womb (Kapsalis, 2017). The idea that the uterus migrated through the body and caused women’s health problems as it applied pressure on the vital organs is a theory known as the “wandering uterus” (Traniello, 2019). Hippocrates who is commonly known as the “father of medicine” said that the womb is the origin of all diseases (Dusenbery, 2019). His hypothesis heavily influenced Western medicine. Even though we “ Pharmacokinetics show us that drugs remain longer in the female body than the male body... ”

are relevant as many different factors make the female and male body different such as surface area, body weight, extracellular and intracellular water. Pharmacokinetics show us that drugs remain longer in the female body than the male body (Soldin & Mattison, 2013) but drugs are still administered in a gender-neutral manner (Hillman, 2020). The exclusion of women from trials after the thalidomide disaster was a form of explicit bias known as exclusion bias.

are aware that the uterus is not to blame for all female health problems this misinformation shaped medicine for a millennium and may still affect attitudes to women. Dr Silas Weir Mitchell was an American neurologist in the 19th century who was interested in hysteria and well known for his “rest cure” (Peacre, 2004). His view was that women should not be educated between the ages of 14 and 18 because from puberty to menopause and in pregnancy women were believed to have “ill health.” Women’s bodies have been seen as different in a negative way. Stereotypes about women being fragile and oversensitive make it harder for them to receive adequate healthcare. Implicit bias because of these stereotypes leads to discrimination of women and to their symptoms being ignored. In 1986 a study was carried out which showed that most patients who were diagnosed with hysteria or a functional disorder had serious neurological disorders. The common thing about all of these people was they were all women (Dusenberg, 2019).