Hysterical and in Pain: How Medicine Silenced Women’s Suffering

I recently revisited what I consider one of the most disturbing films, ‘The Virgin Suicides.’ Based on the book of the same title, this cinematic exploration triggered a realization that forms the heart of this blog series—unveiling the mysteries of womanhood and the often-faltering attempts by men to decipher and simplify it to their comfort.

The film follows a group of boys attempting to unravel the reasons behind the suicides of the Lisbon sisters. Their explanations range from the seemingly hilarious to the profoundly tragic. What struck me, and many others, was the tragic aspect, as these boys never bothered to listen or inquire about the pain and struggle the girls faced within the stifling suburban fantasy that confined and cruelly moulded them during adolescence.

The boys’ indifference, coupled with a male gaze of fascination, resonated on a deeper level, prompting me to reflect on how this experience of ‘indifference with a male gaze’ echo throughout various aspects of our social spheres and institutions, and even my own life. This recurrence is not coincidental but rather a reflection of the inherently male-defined and male-dominated nature of these institutions.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I have described how women’s health and her body has this a centaur complex- both mysterious and their existence being a fantasy rather than a reality to be taken seriously or even investigated. Data bias is a real thing, and maybe in the world where we praise objectivity and reason above emotions, we don’t realise that the data we have that shapes our existence from apps to health infrastructure and care is biased, subjective, and for people who do not fit the ‘white male- heteronormative’ standard is dangerous.

In this blog post, I aim to delve deeper into this secrecy, exploring the mysteries of female anatomy as a reflection of institutional male indifference, compounded by the pervasive male gaze that can, at times, verge on aggression.

History of exclusion

Majority of women’s illnesses since antiquity had been equated to hysteria which ironically came from the Greek word ‘hystera,’ the ancient Greek for uterus. Since all women’s illnesses had been pathologized to uterus troubles that itself was described by the first European physicians as such untameable organs that women were at their mercy. Any illness that affects women relates to her reproductive organs and of course, the only solution to save a woman from her evil uterus is to get married and have babies. Lots of babies. That was the only solution (Cleghorn, 2021)

As mentioned earlier, the institutional indifference prevalent in male-dominated sectors is starkly evident in the historical treatment of women’s bodies, as exemplified by the physicians of antiquity and the Middle Ages who espoused theories about the ‘untameable uterus’ without conducting thorough investigations or autopsies on women (Cleghorn, 2021).

During these periods, obtaining human cadavers for research was strictly forbidden on religious and cultural grounds. While this began to change around the 15th and 16th centuries, female cadavers remained difficult to procure. The majority of cadavers were sourced from individuals convicted of crimes punishable by death, with men outnumbering women in these cases. Despite the scarcity of research on actual female bodies, male physicians continued to propagate various theories about women.

One such physician, Andreas Vesalius, conducted an illegal autopsy on a female cadaver without family consent. As the woman was a sex worker, her body was deemed expendable, and Vesalius seized the opportunity for his research. His autopsy, though controversial, was remarkably thorough, yet it perpetuated the male-centric view of female anatomy. For instance, he depicted the vagina as resembling a male erect penis, neglecting essential elements such as the clitoris.

Andreas Vesalius was not the first, nor would he be the last, to perpetuate the suppression of knowledge concerning the clitoris and its significance. Until 2005, the gynecological community actively suppressed information about the clitoris, relegating it to a footnote in medical discourse. It wasn’t until Helen O’Connell, an Australian urologist, meticulously detailed the anatomy and importance of this organ, shedding light on its role in sensation restoration surgeries for victims of female genital mutilation, injury, and sexual violence (Cleghorn 2021, NewScientist 1992)

Where are the women?

Unfortunately, such pathological descriptions of female anatomy persisted into the contemporary era. The omission of organs like the clitoris reflects a broader pattern of skewed scientific presumptions.

In the United States, women were not included in medical trials until the 1990s and even today, they are often excluded from research studies. Shockingly, even animal testing is not immune to medical sexism and ignorance, with lab mice predominantly being male, despite testing drugs that predominantly affect women, such as those used to treat depression (Perez 2017).

This systemic bias is particularly dangerous in treating non-communicable diseases, notably cardiovascular diseases, which remain the leading cause of death in the contemporary era. Despite stereotypes associating heart problems primarily with men, data reveals that females are the primary victims of heart attacks and cardiovascular diseases. For example, in the UK, coronary heart disease claims twice as many women’s lives as breast cancer. Alarmingly, over 10 years, this scientific bias led to the deaths of 82,000 women in the UK alone due to heart attacks, as neither women nor medical professionals were adequately educated on recognizing and treating heart attack symptoms in women (British Heart Foundation).

Reports often reveal a disturbing pattern: women’s symptoms are dismissed as psychosomatic manifestations of anxiety and depression, leading to delayed diagnosis and treatment. It is often only in the direst circumstances, such as when a woman is on the brink of death in the emergency room, that doctors consider the possibility of a heart attack (British Heart Foundation, BBC 2022)

Your Pain is Imaginary

This brings me to my second point: when every expression of pain from a woman is dismissed as a ‘hormonal outburst’ or a mental manifestation, merely written off as being ‘all in her head,’ women are often prescribed medication to silence them rather than to address the underlying illness they may be experiencing. Medicine has a history of silencing women, sometimes invasively.

It’s been recorded that mainly women are prescribed tranquilizers and antidepressants. In the UK alone, data from 2021 showed that women were 59% more likely to be prescribed benzodiazepines; incredibly strong antidepressants. This data prompts us to wonder whether women genuinely seek help for their mental health problems or if their physical symptoms are ignored by medical professionals and therefore equated to psychosomatic and mental disturbances(The Independent 2022)

The history of labelling women’s pain and silencing them with tranquilizers was not the only course of action advised by medical professionals. Cleghorn outlines in her book a history of lobotomies that were primarily used to silence women who experienced various physical symptoms. Lobotomies involve surgery that severs connections in the brain, specifically in the prefrontal cortex, responsible for executive function and the ability to plan and self-regulate, and is also considered to affect personality (Cleghorn 2021).

Unsurprisingly, the majority of patients prescribed this “miracle cure” were women, even though most institutionalized patients at the time were men. According to records, by 1942, 75% of the lobotomies performed by Freeman and Watts were on women, including Rosemary Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy, because she was experiencing seizures, and also because she was sexually active. She disturbed the norm of what women should behave like (Tone, Koziol 2018).

In the UK, the number of lobotomies equated to 7000. Although it is difficult to research who the main patients of the lobotomies were, we can only assume the same pattern. Freeman called this procedure ‘surgically induced childhood.’ In short, women were turned into pleasant infants, who stopped bothering their husbands and returned to their primary duty in life: being a mother and wife, polite, quiet, and efficient (Cleghorn 2021).

Most diseases affecting women, such as endometriosis, thyroid conditions, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and immune-related diseases such as lupus, are the most difficult to diagnose. They are not easily detectable via standard blood tests or X-rays. These diseases often require physicians to believe their patients’ symptoms and then conduct invasive procedures and various tests to arrive at the right diagnostic conclusion

For example, with endometriosis, a doctor can confirm the diagnosis through laparoscopy, which involves inserting a thin tube through a cut in the belly to examine if the endometrium (uterine tissue) grows outside the uterus. Since pain cannot be easily visualized by physicians, does it not exist? Since it’s not all black and white, and clean-cut, well, it’s better to blame it on women than to do some research and provide quality care to women.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, in the UK alone, it takes nine years for a person to be correctly diagnosed with endometriosis and receive the correct treatment (Devlin, 2024). Also, it didn’t take long with a quick Google search to find stories like Mary’s, who was sent to a psychiatrist despite describing physical symptoms of endometriosis. The psychiatrist diagnosed her with bipolar disorder. Mary eventually had to diagnose herself, pushing for a referral to a gynecological surgeon to perform laparoscopic surgery, confirming that she was right all along (Turner 2022,Fearn 2024).

Perhaps they should because, according to the data, ‘endometriosis costs the UK economy £8.2bn a year in treatment, loss of work, and healthcare costs.’ On the global level, closing this ‘gender health gap’ could add an extra $1 trillion to the global economy ( Royal College of Nursing, Dehghan 2024). Not to mention, it would help women finally enjoy the quality of life. As the majority of counterarguments to women’s discrimination in healthcare is that, ‘why women complain so much they live longer than men.’ Yeah, that’s great until you realize that perhaps enjoying living longer is not such a fair trade-off considering that your pain and your health do not matter to medical professionals (Perez 2017,Dehghan 2024)

How many stories are like that? Countless. How many people in positions of power see and do something about it? Limited.

Of course, gender is not the only dimension to this. Race also plays a role. Black women are 50% less likely to be diagnosed with endometriosis than white women (Women’s Reproductive Health, 2023). Medicine institutionally deemed black lives as less worthy but also because it well-entrenched that black women are somehow resistant to pain, and therefore their cry for help is irrelevant or less important than that of white women. This attitude is also echoed in the fact that very limited research had been done on ethnic and women of colour.

Lupus similar to endometriosis affects women more and is even more prevalent among women of colour. Apart from the pain and tiredness (once again women of colour, specifically black women are treated as less sensitive to pain), one of the key symptoms of lupus which allows doctors to diagnose the patient is a rash that can appear on the skin. However, since any research that has been done on lupus has been portrayed on white skin, well leaves doctors puzzled when it appears on darker skin (Cambow, 2023).

The end of the article mentions that doctors are here to solve the problem, but the truth is, that limited research has been done to treat women’s illnesses. Women’s pain is not only normalised but simultaneously silenced. In the past, they have done so sometimes violently; now the violence is more insidious. The lack of research being done on women-related illnesses is this insidious violence, a symptom of institutionalized male indifference in the healthcare system, a topic that I will explore in the next post.

Dominika Szarek

Hi, I’m Dominika, the sole author of this article. I created this space to connect my ideas and express my political and social commentary in the vast digital void. Here, my consciousness speaks through.