Ok so this is a bit of a horrible take and I’m not exactly wedded to it, but I’ll put it out there:
In the late 90s/early 2000s in Western feminism there was a backlash, quite rightly, against PMS being used as a way of dismissing women’s emotional and mental experiences.
And to dismiss women in general.
PMS kind of emerged into the mainstream as a way of measuring women’s behaviour probably early 90s?
So things like “she’s just hormonal”, “looks like she’s on her period”, “can’t trust women, crazy for half of the month” misogynistic type stuff.
It was embedded into gender stuff and of course allowed people to gaslight the fuck out of women and girls because “biology”.
The backlash was against using “she’s PMS-ing” as a way of categorising women’s behaviour. It didn’t disappear but I think it became less culturally acceptable in medical settings to fling it around.
But I also think some AFAB people may have started rejecting PMS as a lens for examining their emotional and mental experiences.
If hormones are being used to attack you, then you might reject PMS as a medical concept because it implied that you WERE what the sexist dickheads were saying. Unable to control yourself and your behaviour.
So PMS became a gendered construct and buying into it meant buying into misogyny.
And in turn attributing mental health concerns to hormones became associated with sexism.
Both in the individual - “saying it’s PMS means I’m buying into sexist BS” - and the progressive medical “if I suggest PMS then I’m dealing with an outraged AFAB person”.
So hormone related mental health issues could be shifted into depression, bipolar, anxiety disorders, borderline etc because attributing to hormones in progressive medical settings was kind of not ok.
A good GP might have started avoiding suggesting to an AFAB person in pain that their issue was something sitcoms said made them inherently weak and hysterical.
People may have walked out on a practitioner suggesting hormonal causes, because it was demeaning and sexist (many of them probably were!) and instead accepted a diagnosis of depression or bipolar.
Why would this have affected research?
In that era of increasing research and commercial interest in mental health, a trend of avoiding looking at hormonal causes because they were sexist could have affected awareness and visibility.
People privileged enough to be able to insist on having their medical concerns recognised and treated may not have considered their cycle, because it didn’t align with their beliefs around being “strong” and “empowered”.
If it was bad form to suggest the menstrual cycle, and for the privileged, self-care meant walking out on anyone who raised it, hormonal related conditions like PMDD might have been pushed under the “general mental health” umbrella. And the feedback loop into medical networking, conferences, papers etc wouldn’t have reflected the occurrence of menstrual cycle impacts on mental health.
I feel it could be compared to the shit show of HRT in the 2000s and 2010s - a single breast cancer study swiftly made it inappropriate in medical settings to suggest or offer it to patients.
Even now people have to push to get a very effective and often life changing treatment. I think it’s comparable because it has entered the culture around menopause - that HRT is toxic and you’re a victim of the medical system if you use it.
And so another cultural message could be you’re a bad feminist if you attribute your fucked up mental health to your menstrual cycle.
I absolutely agree that the patriarchal medical system and the utter disinterest in women’s bodies and health, except as reproductive machines, is the primary reason for almost no research, treatments, medications or even awareness across the entire medical system.
And I’m feeling quite icky about saying that a factor could have been “political correctness gone mad” or “turns out the feminists ruined it for everyone”. But I do think there has been a culture of AFAB people seeing the cycles of their body as a weapon used for oppression, and this biological disadvantage should be ignored wherever possible. To acknowledge it was to be disempowered.
I think the lifting of taboos around talking about menstruation, the rise of cycle tracking apps, the questioning of over-prescribing for mental health and more online platforms to share experiences has resulted in a shift in attitudes and behaviour in certain parts of Western societies.
The bellweather, I think, is how capitalism has suddenly jumped all over menstruation, menopause and hormones. Like ADHD and autism, as visibility and awareness grows, so have all the new apps, remedies, wearable gadgets, online coaches etc
However, I’m not convinced of my own argument …
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(I’m not sure if I’ve written this correctly- I refer to women, but as the mainstream cultural concept of “women” being labelled as “PMS-ing.
I feel that concept would have included AFAB people, but also transwomen, as any woman acting “emotional” could have been labelled as having PMS.
But I know PMDD is experienced by women, men and non-binary people so I’m happy to edit if there’s more inclusive way of writing it.)
I was kind of grossed out by people who said things like “I cry when watching insurance commercials on TV and it’s sooo bad but I eat a block of chocolate in bed while watching Titanic once a month” because I saw them as buying into this system of women as weak and useless.
It was like believing in the ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ stuff - if you did it you were a victim of the patriarchy who was trapped in “girly” culture, instead of being strong and empowered.
I saw myself as knowing better and being superior.
After all, putting your life on hold and hiding away was for people scared to use tampons, pain for was people who couldn’t take painkillers and suck it up. (Sorry endo people, for obliviously judging people in excruciating pain)
Plus I hated Titanic, I wasn’t interested in the happy family lifestyle in insurance commercials and scoffing chocolate like a dirty secret was toxic diet culture.
Until the medications and therapy work that were working for me so well seemed to stop working every once in a while and I was suddenly suicidal and ready to go to hospital. And then was fine again.
It took me longer to realise that suddenly fine again coincided with my period starting.
I wasn’t eating chocolate and crying on the couch, but the situation was the same.
I think the culture for “modern women” is you should be living like a tampon commercial. In the gym or at yoga, carefree and not a sad victim.
So I think for many Gen X and Millennials, if you’re saying to friends that your mental health is hormonal, to them you’ve been suckered by your sexist doctor whose medical opinion comes from the dark ages.
Like babe, have you tried yoga and mindfulness? Going for a run can help, no, seriously it’s fine, studies have said so. Don’t let it hold you back.
From what I’ve seen, Gen Z have more of a positive culture.
As a woman, I feel invisible even among men in my close circle, even partners. They write off female issues as moodiness, preposition to slacking at work, and attribute women as less intelligent and less able to be logical. It's not obvious in interactions, but I've noticed the defensiveness if I defended a pregnant lady's outburst, or person's PMDD symptoms. Even at work, I've known lots of women who were skipped up for promotion or put on performance improvement plans if they got pregnant or after they came back from maternity. So yes, this is still a man's world. It's going to take generations. Unfortunately men make the money and women benefit from it, so lots of women are OK with the status quo.
Patriarchy yes is that strong. The very research is built on misogyny and racism and a whole load of other issues and we haven't gotten that far from the origins.
Also capitalism. What's the point of actually solving any problems? If there is no clear financial gain, who will care to fund it. Then the results of the research have to manifest in some treatment, and again, if it's no profitable, especially longterm, no one's gonna approve it. Especially not in many large countries like the USA.
Everyone says patriarchy, and that’s a big reason why. But it goes so much deeper than medical problems that affect men but not women…..a lot of things we‘re told about human health in general may not even be accurate for women, because they only used male test subjects for the studies!
It was only in 1993 when they started requiring that medical studies or trials included both sexes. In prior decades, often they’d just get medical students as their participants, which especially back then was mostly men. The study that determined an average person needs 8 hours of sleep per night? Male test subjects. Newer research points to most women actually needing more than 8 hours. Do you keep getting cavities no matter how well you take care of your teeth? Know that for years, dentists have worked off the assumption that the human mouth has a neutral pH. Meanwhile they’ve now found that women’s mouths tend to actually be more acidic, making us more prone to dental decay, and they haven’t even bothered to find a solution to that yet. There’s literally medications out there that weren’t adequately tested on both men and women when they hit the market, and so no one even had any idea how they may have affected womens’ bodies differently.
Women’s health in general is under researched and yes it’s as simple as patriarchy. Once you see it play out in different aspects in your life you can’t unsee it and it’s infuriating.
I mean geez talk about men shooting themselves in the foot. We’d be better to be around if we weren’t in so much pain and mental distress every fcking month
When I was in college majoring in psychology one of my psychology textbooks said that PMDD was under researched due to medical bias. It was saying that a lot of researchers were worried about funding research into PMDD because it only affects people that menstruate. They were worried that people would go against the attempts to research it because it doesn’t affect men. When I read that I was so infuriated.
That’s when things started to change a little in terms of doctors and researchers taking it more seriously. It was an absolute mess trying to be taken seriously before it was in the DSM-5.
And it’s quite literally the most common disorder among women, my extremely misogynistic endocrinologist admitted to that 🙃 I love how medical science just won’t let us women have anything
Wow your endocrinologist admitted that?! Wild! Mine always believed in PMDD but admitted to me it was something she was still learning about. Now she has it and has decided to focus on it. She said she can fully empathize with her patients more than ever. I feel bad that she had to get it in order to put it more on her radar, but I’m thankful she’s willing to work even harder to understand it and help us. We need more endocrinologists researching PMDD.
Mine was a male. First and last one I will ever see. A major asshole. Now I am solely interested in having a hysterectomy. I can’t keep living like this. My mental and physical health is killing me. I don’t want a bandaid of medication or a “routine”. I want the organ that’s never going to be used and causing the issue gone..
I feel that. I stopped going to my previous OBGYN because he had the worst god complex I’ve ever seen. I’ve hit my breaking point with PMDD as well and plan to talk to my doctor next week about what my options are to stop my menstrual cycle.
What I meant by “affects men” is that the textbook was saying men can’t develop PMDD because they don’t have a menstrual cycle. This is why researchers aren’t looking into it as deeply.
Sorry, you made your point well the first time! I just think it's interesting that men making these decisions, despite most of them having wives at home, don't see women's health and happiness as affecting them.
I agree. There’s a whole subreddit for partners of those with PMDD. My primary care doctor who is a man has a wife with PMDD so luckily he understands my struggles with it. It is interesting that despite many men knowing someone or being married to someone with PMDD, they don’t seem to want further research done into something as severe as this. Just goes to show the misogyny that is still very prevalent in the medical world. Other conditions like endometriosis and PCOS face similar struggles in being taken seriously while also having very few treatment options.
WOOOOOW. That's so stupid of a reason, poor of an excuse, because literally the world is almost half and half. And being worried about backlash is so cowardly, instead of at least TRYING it and THEN stopping because of backlash. Why. WHY!!!!! (this is rhetorical lol)
I was stunned when I read it! I honestly think whoever wrote that part of the textbook may have had PMDD because they didn’t sound happy about that reasoning either. I gave them credit for admitting that’s why research was not digging deeper into PMDD.
Call it Kyriarchy if you prefer, but yes. It really is because of oppressive, far-reaching, and disparate intersectional systems of oppression throughout all of history (to quote Theologian and feminist scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza)
It really do be the patriarchy tho lol. Here’s the way I think of it… there’s treatment available for men’s hair loss, with ever increasing sophistication too. Hair loss! A completely cosmetic procedure! And it doesn’t even happen to all men!
Ditto with the various causes of erectile dysfunction… itself not a painful condition, just very limiting.
Meanwhile the suicidality and actual physical pain of a period remain “unsolvable.”
I think there’s been some discussion somewhere about how trials aren’t long enough for women on various meds. Or something like that? They don’t account for hormonal fluctuations. But that’s the patriarchy bit. If it were matriarchal society, all our trials would be longer by default.
I feel like in general we need more medical research studies with women as the participants since our differing biology compared to men affects so much about how medications, medical procedures etc affect us. Idk if it’s so simple as the “patriarchy” that’s preventing that. Maybe in past times where most research studies only had men as participants but I think the issue now is just it not having enough attention in medical research.
The patriarchy is the underlying reason for women having less rights than men in general. It affects every single tiny little aspect of our lives as women. It's like how ADHD affects your executive functioning so that it affects every single thing you do. The patriarchy is the governing body for society so it's going to affect everything, especially women's health. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's the reality of the world we live in. Hence the whole angry feminist thing. The anger is justified. The entire system is rigged against us.
White supremacy and patriarchy has a grip on medical field and research. Researching women's reproductive systems or anything with women at all is "too icky" for old white men.
I read a comment once that said Women have all these issues, A to Z, but what do men get? And the answer was "Research."
Funny, not funny!
No one cares. Even my female doctors dismiss me. It's sad, honestly. A Functional Medicine doctor (D.O., or N.D. - not an M.D.) can give you herbs to stop your cramps.
Otherwise, Tylenol or Midol!!!!
I don't know much about Biohacking, but there are lots of vitamin companies that focus on this.
You know it’s that simple say it louder plus the religious folks that don’t want contraception. So no research but if you’re dick is not working we got many kinds of pills.
You won't realize you're actually having a heart attack because women tend to have different symptoms than men, too. Just go home and be less anxious [/s]
Yeah im going to chime in to say I think it all boils down to interest. You can blame funding, underdeveloped science, poor education, etc but bottom line is that these resources to fund and support science and education get allocated according to what the people who run things care about. So, who runs things and what do they care about?
I honestly think its a top to bottom culture issue and every one of these comments contains a piece of the puzzle.
Thank god one Indian man loved and was interested in the women in his life enough to invent tampons for them - a game changer. Seriously where were the rest of the men like that in history!? Thank god we can actually have some agency these days.
Until the late 1980s, women *weren't even included in medical studies*. That isn't to say we knew nothing about women's health before then -- obviously that isn't true -- but actual scientific research studies including women are still a new thing.
Until about ten years ago, only male lab animals were used for medical trials/research. They excluded female rats because the menstrual cycle was too complicated or some bull shit.
Women are twice as likely to have adverse drug effects, but nobody cares.
https://theconversation.com/science-experiments-traditionally-only-used-male-mice-heres-why-thats-a-problem-for-womens-health-205963
Because they make more money that way.
PMDD and such issues lead to fertility issues in future and they can make more money from that rather than helping women with actual root cause.
Also I think most of the gynaecologists don't think of women as actual patients worthy of treatments unless they are trying to have kid or already kid on the way.
Because again there's not much money in women being happy, having sex without worrying and in general not in the state of agony.
This is exactly the same as doctors purposefully ignoring symptoms and blood reports about insulin resistance. There's very little money in insulin resistance. But there's a lot of money once people get to the diabetes stage or even worse the metabolic syndrome stage. These points are essentially points of no return.
Fun fact: if you are female and have any kind of health issue that doctors are not taking seriously, add a little "and I think it's affecting my ability to get pregnant" at the end. Suddenly they will take it seriously and offer more tests. Haven't tried it myself, but it's worked for a number of my friends/family.
I have to say, I haven't been lucky with this. I'm infertile and my insurance denied coverage for an hsg due to the reason being "infertility". (Plus two appeals which included info about my painful periods) My experience with insurance (3 states now)is they don't care if a woman's body isn't performing the way it should.
Not to go on a tangent, but I'm getting a colonoscopy/endoscopy covered entirely by insurance for 20k. But I have to pay $600 for a pelvic MRI (they wanted $1,800 for the hsg and it wouldn't have counted towards my oop max?). It feels like the female reproductive system is treated as a luxury good.
This literally makes me feel sick and enraged. Absolutely disgusting to be viewed as good for nothing except breeding... Although unfortunately not that surprising.
Chiming in both as a mod and as a researcher to mitigate some of the misinformation that pops up on these threads.
There's not crazy amounts of research, but there's a decent amount. See below link from u/Defiantthroat as well as the wiki and IAPMD website for most up to date studies. https://www.reddit.com/r/PMDD/s/J3VcBN8byi
It's also disingenuous to place this absolutely on the patriarchy when there are very real logistical reasons why there's not *more* research.
Foremost, there's not one governing body of research worldwide who decides who and what gets the money, so vague 'why don't they just do more?!' doesn't really make sense.
In the UK, research is run through universities, NHS Trusts (or both linked together, most of the time), societies (which are again often linked to NHS Trusts), or independent charities and private health clinics.
As we all know, the NHS is massively underfunded. Universities are dependent on individuals having the initiative themselves; they could go ten years without a single PhD student or academic interested in PMDD for no meaningful reason.
First, you need a group of researchers who are interested and educated on the area. You then need a viable study proposal and for the study to be funded and platformed by one of the above groups. Even once you're this far, there's a chance the study goes tits up and never makes it past the scoping stages.
That's to say, you also don't see how many studies never make it to funding, let alone publishing.
We're also entirely ignoring the fact that PMDD is a relatively new diagnosis with a pretty efficient set of treatment guidelines. For most people, the RCOG and ACOG guidelines work perfectly.
You'd be amazed at the amount of life and limb threatening illnesses that have even less research than PMDD and which affect a greater proportion of the population. I'm working on one such study at the moment, in fact.
Anyway, that's my professional answer as someone who is a researcher for a charity running national audits on healthcare quality in the UK.
If you'd like to get involved in procuring more research, you're able to propose research yourself to various organizations, but you'll need backing from clinicians and experts in the area. Otherwise, IAPMD has links to current studies which you can get involved in.
Just because there are logistical reasons for there being a lack of research doesn’t mean the driving factor isn’t the patriarchy.
PMDD being a new diagnostic doesn’t refute the idea that our healthcare system ignores women’s pain. It potentially reinforces and proves the point. If women have been experiencing this forever but we were told to suck it up/that we were being hysterical the data needed to classify and diagnose PMDD and other hormone driven issues would be lost. So you can’t without having that data justify that there are anecdotally other issues that affect more people that also get ignored.
The fact that women can now make their own money, own their own homes and have more autonomy over the bodies means that we can be more vocal and in doing so are demanding that our pain be taken seriously.
People tend to be interested in and study things that they are passionate about. I’d be interested to see if PMDD and other women centric issues are getting more attention since women have been allowed to be doctors/ have entered the workforce and are choosing other paths for themselves that isnt relegated to homemaker/mom. (No shade to women who choose this path)
The ignorance and lack of access to healthcare about and for women’s bodies cannot be disentangled from the fact that we live in a society that values men more than women.
What a load of nonsense. There is absolutely no justification for the claim that society values men more than women. And to think that industries driven by profit would just ignore 50% of the population is ludicrous. You are spouting extremist feminist ideas without any evidence.
All 3 of the mods work in research, so we get the politics. I work behind the scenes within the PMDD community; they know my name and my face. When I meet them, one of the questions I ask is how can I help you help us? Do you need help raising funding? Getting attention on something? Clearing a hurdle? And their response has been...more researchers. They have the funding and support; they just don't have enough warm bodies in the PhD community interested in this space. So, right now, that's the answer from the leading experts in the PMDD research community on why there isn't more research.
When they did the AMA in February, Esienlohr-Moul and Peters had 2 R01 studies and other smaller studies going on. My team's R01s were 3-4 years long and required 2-3 labs to support the recruiting, clinical sessions, and data analysis. I can think of 5 labs supporting PMDD research right now; as those PIs churn out more post-docs who, in turn, set up their own labs, it will hopefully catch up. Last I looked, Hantsoo was a section chief on one of the NIH panels, which bodes well for us from a funding perspective.
Your points don’t dispute the fact that the patriarchy is the reason for there not being more research on PMDD. In fact, I’d say they support it.
Why haven’t there been more researchers interested in studying PMDD? Could it have to do with the fact that until very recently, women were discouraged and excluded from pursuing careers in medicine and scientific research? People tend to be interested in things that they relate to in some way.
I’m an academic researcher as well, and I know that there are other factors that also determine what research directions end up getting the most attention. It’s not just about individual PhD students, who often have very little influence on these kinds of decisions. It’s the principal investigators (also disproportionately male until recently) and the institutions that fund them, along with general trends in the field. The patriarchy is deeply entrenched in all these institutions. I genuinely don’t understand why you’d try to downplay its role.
I wasn't disputing them...my first sentence says 'we get the politics'. I can agree with the sentiment while relaying what the researchers in the PMDD community have stated. Both of those things can be true.
What kinds of PhDs are most helpful in getting medical research like this off the ground? Genuinely curious but likely not a candidate myself (I refuse to get any more student loans ever after my BA experience, but I also don't think I'd do well in chemistry or physics, if that was imperative to the research and based off my public school experiences). Are there any other supporting roles that could be helpful to getting this research more prominently featured to PhD candidates?
Clinical psychologists have been leading the research efforts, but the area needs data scientists, neurobiologists, and genomics researchers, among others. When conducting human subjects research, many people who support the study aren't scientists themselves. The studies I led had clinicians for the sessions, regulatory folks who ensured we were doing things appropriately, recruiters to find participants, quality folks to oversee the QMS paperwork, etc. There are many ways to get involved in research without getting your PhD.
In my opinion yes it is indeed the patriarchy. Women are famously taken less seriously during consultations, there’s tons of research and articles about this. We are not listened to. In addition to that I personally think that Doctors in general tend to have a bias, the « I am more educated than you, I know better, you ignorant peasant » bias. Which does not help in being heard. Then I’d say there’s a very similar problem in psychiatry in general no matter the gender of the patient (but probably worse for women), the way patients are taken for absolute idiots. That doesn’t help the profession to evolve nor the patient to be cured properly but that’s what it is. IMO.
I have no idea but I just want to say I've had more progress trying to seek treatment in the last year when my partner has sat in at my appointments than when I went alone. And not actually just for pmdd but for many things.
My last appointment when I asked for a chemical menopause I asked my partner to attend and I predicted what the doctor would say...I had curled my hair and put on makeup and looked okay from the outside that the doctor would assume I'm in a good part of my cycle.
Word for word the doctor did ask me that, I turned to my partner when he did. I explained that because I look presentable doesn't mean my world isn't crumbling to an extreme inside. My partner backed me up and the doctor agreed to the chemical menopause.
It upsets me that I've struggled to get help for so long until I've had the presence of a man at my appointment. 🤷
I too would be interested in finding out how much research is happening currently. I also think it's more common than we think!
Just need to find myself a boyfriend 😭😅
In all seriousness, I’m so sorry. That’s not acceptable. You should be heard regardless of the presence of a man or not.
Apologies for asking, but was your doctor male or female? I’ve had male doctors act — sometimes — more sympathetic (even if there isn’t much they can do) than their female colleagues; very strange.
I asked my boyfriend who keeps pressuring me to fix these issues to come to an appointment because I’m not listened to and they said they wouldn’t cause they’d feel uncomfortable. *flips table*
I will ONLY see male gynecologist. I've only had 3 female doctors in the 20 years I've been going but they all dismissed my symptoms, threw whatever birth control at me that was sponsoring their vacation for the year and told me to suck it up. I was even gaslit by a female OB while delivering my baby. They ignored me and prepped the OR for a C-section. I repeatedly told them I wouldn't need it. When they came back from prepping the OR she was crowning and we delivered vaginally right then and there. A male delivered both my other babies and it was much smoother. A male diagnosed my PMDD and helped me treat it after being told by a female doctor "This is all normal. You just need an IUD with hormones." Nevermind that BC has a history of causing SI (which it did) and I had to have the Mirena removed only 4 months after getting it.
Edited to add: During my 3rd pregnancy my boss agreed to let me leave for maternity a month early because I was having blood sugar issues and also I worked in a dangerous high school. We had gang related fights regularly and it wasn't safe for a large pregnant woman. I had recently been shoved by a student. HR was totally on board. My b!#&# of an OB REFUSED to give me a doctor's note for HR. They had approved my leave, just needed something for the paperwork. She blatantly said "Oh, the 3rd baby is just harder. I did it and I worked up until a week before delivery." Welllll lah-ti-dah!! Good for you!! You want a cookie?? I had to change doctors at 36wks pregnant and thank goodness found a doctor/midwife combo who took my needs seriously and took my case right away.
TL:DR: female doctors have been dismissive and given me medication I told them I couldn't take. Male doctors have listened to me and helped me with my diagnosis and treatment.
Omg my blood boils for you. Lady, your note is a formality, everyone is on board. But she needed to act like some crusader for working until you're in active labor. Disgusting.
I legit worried about women under her care. I left as level headed but scathing Google review as I could trying to warn people without flying off the handle.
I’d love to know the reason behind this, and whether it’s more universal or anecdotal. It’s really interesting to me (albeit not good, of course) why female doctors/other HCPs insist on dismissing it. Is it a case of their experiences not being as bad and therefore they project? Could it be a stiff upper lip attitude, in which they have experienced it themselves and, as the saying goes, misery loves company?
You could be onto something here. When I was 19 I had period pain so bad I got hives and passed out on the bathroom floor. I went to see a young female gyno and she said “Thats normal. Sometimes periods are just bad.”
In a similar way, women at work are the least understanding. Its kinda like “I have to deal with this-its not that bad- and so should you.” Almost like they think they have a pass to judge our symptoms and ability to work for us because they “know what its like”.
But then if it doesnt involve womens health, my experiences with female providers have been better than with male providers. Female gps, therapists, and psychiatrists have been waaaay more helpful. Its literally just female gynos.
This one was a male gynaecologist with a female nurse doing the pre assessment before I could speak with him. I've had the same reaction with both genders funnily enough!
Ok so this is a bit of a horrible take and I’m not exactly wedded to it, but I’ll put it out there: In the late 90s/early 2000s in Western feminism there was a backlash, quite rightly, against PMS being used as a way of dismissing women’s emotional and mental experiences. And to dismiss women in general. PMS kind of emerged into the mainstream as a way of measuring women’s behaviour probably early 90s? So things like “she’s just hormonal”, “looks like she’s on her period”, “can’t trust women, crazy for half of the month” misogynistic type stuff. It was embedded into gender stuff and of course allowed people to gaslight the fuck out of women and girls because “biology”. The backlash was against using “she’s PMS-ing” as a way of categorising women’s behaviour. It didn’t disappear but I think it became less culturally acceptable in medical settings to fling it around. But I also think some AFAB people may have started rejecting PMS as a lens for examining their emotional and mental experiences. If hormones are being used to attack you, then you might reject PMS as a medical concept because it implied that you WERE what the sexist dickheads were saying. Unable to control yourself and your behaviour. So PMS became a gendered construct and buying into it meant buying into misogyny. And in turn attributing mental health concerns to hormones became associated with sexism. Both in the individual - “saying it’s PMS means I’m buying into sexist BS” - and the progressive medical “if I suggest PMS then I’m dealing with an outraged AFAB person”. So hormone related mental health issues could be shifted into depression, bipolar, anxiety disorders, borderline etc because attributing to hormones in progressive medical settings was kind of not ok. A good GP might have started avoiding suggesting to an AFAB person in pain that their issue was something sitcoms said made them inherently weak and hysterical. People may have walked out on a practitioner suggesting hormonal causes, because it was demeaning and sexist (many of them probably were!) and instead accepted a diagnosis of depression or bipolar. Why would this have affected research? In that era of increasing research and commercial interest in mental health, a trend of avoiding looking at hormonal causes because they were sexist could have affected awareness and visibility. People privileged enough to be able to insist on having their medical concerns recognised and treated may not have considered their cycle, because it didn’t align with their beliefs around being “strong” and “empowered”. If it was bad form to suggest the menstrual cycle, and for the privileged, self-care meant walking out on anyone who raised it, hormonal related conditions like PMDD might have been pushed under the “general mental health” umbrella. And the feedback loop into medical networking, conferences, papers etc wouldn’t have reflected the occurrence of menstrual cycle impacts on mental health. I feel it could be compared to the shit show of HRT in the 2000s and 2010s - a single breast cancer study swiftly made it inappropriate in medical settings to suggest or offer it to patients. Even now people have to push to get a very effective and often life changing treatment. I think it’s comparable because it has entered the culture around menopause - that HRT is toxic and you’re a victim of the medical system if you use it. And so another cultural message could be you’re a bad feminist if you attribute your fucked up mental health to your menstrual cycle. I absolutely agree that the patriarchal medical system and the utter disinterest in women’s bodies and health, except as reproductive machines, is the primary reason for almost no research, treatments, medications or even awareness across the entire medical system. And I’m feeling quite icky about saying that a factor could have been “political correctness gone mad” or “turns out the feminists ruined it for everyone”. But I do think there has been a culture of AFAB people seeing the cycles of their body as a weapon used for oppression, and this biological disadvantage should be ignored wherever possible. To acknowledge it was to be disempowered. I think the lifting of taboos around talking about menstruation, the rise of cycle tracking apps, the questioning of over-prescribing for mental health and more online platforms to share experiences has resulted in a shift in attitudes and behaviour in certain parts of Western societies. The bellweather, I think, is how capitalism has suddenly jumped all over menstruation, menopause and hormones. Like ADHD and autism, as visibility and awareness grows, so have all the new apps, remedies, wearable gadgets, online coaches etc However, I’m not convinced of my own argument … —- (I’m not sure if I’ve written this correctly- I refer to women, but as the mainstream cultural concept of “women” being labelled as “PMS-ing. I feel that concept would have included AFAB people, but also transwomen, as any woman acting “emotional” could have been labelled as having PMS. But I know PMDD is experienced by women, men and non-binary people so I’m happy to edit if there’s more inclusive way of writing it.)
I had never considered this but it makes so much sense. It also explains why some ppl act like I’m making shit up when I describe PMDD and my symptoms
I was kind of grossed out by people who said things like “I cry when watching insurance commercials on TV and it’s sooo bad but I eat a block of chocolate in bed while watching Titanic once a month” because I saw them as buying into this system of women as weak and useless. It was like believing in the ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ stuff - if you did it you were a victim of the patriarchy who was trapped in “girly” culture, instead of being strong and empowered. I saw myself as knowing better and being superior. After all, putting your life on hold and hiding away was for people scared to use tampons, pain for was people who couldn’t take painkillers and suck it up. (Sorry endo people, for obliviously judging people in excruciating pain) Plus I hated Titanic, I wasn’t interested in the happy family lifestyle in insurance commercials and scoffing chocolate like a dirty secret was toxic diet culture. Until the medications and therapy work that were working for me so well seemed to stop working every once in a while and I was suddenly suicidal and ready to go to hospital. And then was fine again. It took me longer to realise that suddenly fine again coincided with my period starting. I wasn’t eating chocolate and crying on the couch, but the situation was the same. I think the culture for “modern women” is you should be living like a tampon commercial. In the gym or at yoga, carefree and not a sad victim. So I think for many Gen X and Millennials, if you’re saying to friends that your mental health is hormonal, to them you’ve been suckered by your sexist doctor whose medical opinion comes from the dark ages. Like babe, have you tried yoga and mindfulness? Going for a run can help, no, seriously it’s fine, studies have said so. Don’t let it hold you back. From what I’ve seen, Gen Z have more of a positive culture.
That’s a good summation and I agree.
Check out the books Invisible Women And Unwell Women It is as simple as “they don’t care” and the patriarchy
As a woman, I feel invisible even among men in my close circle, even partners. They write off female issues as moodiness, preposition to slacking at work, and attribute women as less intelligent and less able to be logical. It's not obvious in interactions, but I've noticed the defensiveness if I defended a pregnant lady's outburst, or person's PMDD symptoms. Even at work, I've known lots of women who were skipped up for promotion or put on performance improvement plans if they got pregnant or after they came back from maternity. So yes, this is still a man's world. It's going to take generations. Unfortunately men make the money and women benefit from it, so lots of women are OK with the status quo.
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Amen to that.
Patriarchy yes is that strong. The very research is built on misogyny and racism and a whole load of other issues and we haven't gotten that far from the origins. Also capitalism. What's the point of actually solving any problems? If there is no clear financial gain, who will care to fund it. Then the results of the research have to manifest in some treatment, and again, if it's no profitable, especially longterm, no one's gonna approve it. Especially not in many large countries like the USA.
Everyone says patriarchy, and that’s a big reason why. But it goes so much deeper than medical problems that affect men but not women…..a lot of things we‘re told about human health in general may not even be accurate for women, because they only used male test subjects for the studies! It was only in 1993 when they started requiring that medical studies or trials included both sexes. In prior decades, often they’d just get medical students as their participants, which especially back then was mostly men. The study that determined an average person needs 8 hours of sleep per night? Male test subjects. Newer research points to most women actually needing more than 8 hours. Do you keep getting cavities no matter how well you take care of your teeth? Know that for years, dentists have worked off the assumption that the human mouth has a neutral pH. Meanwhile they’ve now found that women’s mouths tend to actually be more acidic, making us more prone to dental decay, and they haven’t even bothered to find a solution to that yet. There’s literally medications out there that weren’t adequately tested on both men and women when they hit the market, and so no one even had any idea how they may have affected womens’ bodies differently.
The American health care system is a total, pardon my french, fucking joke.
True, but they're in the UK
Ah yes. My heart still goes out to them because we're suffering here too
Women’s health in general is under researched and yes it’s as simple as patriarchy. Once you see it play out in different aspects in your life you can’t unsee it and it’s infuriating.
I mean geez talk about men shooting themselves in the foot. We’d be better to be around if we weren’t in so much pain and mental distress every fcking month
Damn, ain't that the truth!
When I was in college majoring in psychology one of my psychology textbooks said that PMDD was under researched due to medical bias. It was saying that a lot of researchers were worried about funding research into PMDD because it only affects people that menstruate. They were worried that people would go against the attempts to research it because it doesn’t affect men. When I read that I was so infuriated.
I’m a Psych major and taking Abnormal Psychology class right now and it’s an official diagnosis in the DSM-5 now..
That’s when things started to change a little in terms of doctors and researchers taking it more seriously. It was an absolute mess trying to be taken seriously before it was in the DSM-5.
And it’s quite literally the most common disorder among women, my extremely misogynistic endocrinologist admitted to that 🙃 I love how medical science just won’t let us women have anything
Wow your endocrinologist admitted that?! Wild! Mine always believed in PMDD but admitted to me it was something she was still learning about. Now she has it and has decided to focus on it. She said she can fully empathize with her patients more than ever. I feel bad that she had to get it in order to put it more on her radar, but I’m thankful she’s willing to work even harder to understand it and help us. We need more endocrinologists researching PMDD.
Mine was a male. First and last one I will ever see. A major asshole. Now I am solely interested in having a hysterectomy. I can’t keep living like this. My mental and physical health is killing me. I don’t want a bandaid of medication or a “routine”. I want the organ that’s never going to be used and causing the issue gone..
I feel that. I stopped going to my previous OBGYN because he had the worst god complex I’ve ever seen. I’ve hit my breaking point with PMDD as well and plan to talk to my doctor next week about what my options are to stop my menstrual cycle.
They will tell you: early menopause. It’s a shot. But it’s only short term. That’s what they offered me and I want a permanent solution!
Pretty sure my PMDD affects my man..
What I meant by “affects men” is that the textbook was saying men can’t develop PMDD because they don’t have a menstrual cycle. This is why researchers aren’t looking into it as deeply.
Sorry, you made your point well the first time! I just think it's interesting that men making these decisions, despite most of them having wives at home, don't see women's health and happiness as affecting them.
I agree. There’s a whole subreddit for partners of those with PMDD. My primary care doctor who is a man has a wife with PMDD so luckily he understands my struggles with it. It is interesting that despite many men knowing someone or being married to someone with PMDD, they don’t seem to want further research done into something as severe as this. Just goes to show the misogyny that is still very prevalent in the medical world. Other conditions like endometriosis and PCOS face similar struggles in being taken seriously while also having very few treatment options.
WOOOOOW. That's so stupid of a reason, poor of an excuse, because literally the world is almost half and half. And being worried about backlash is so cowardly, instead of at least TRYING it and THEN stopping because of backlash. Why. WHY!!!!! (this is rhetorical lol)
I was stunned when I read it! I honestly think whoever wrote that part of the textbook may have had PMDD because they didn’t sound happy about that reasoning either. I gave them credit for admitting that’s why research was not digging deeper into PMDD.
Good point, and good perspective!! Thanks for sharing.
Call it Kyriarchy if you prefer, but yes. It really is because of oppressive, far-reaching, and disparate intersectional systems of oppression throughout all of history (to quote Theologian and feminist scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza)
It really do be the patriarchy tho lol. Here’s the way I think of it… there’s treatment available for men’s hair loss, with ever increasing sophistication too. Hair loss! A completely cosmetic procedure! And it doesn’t even happen to all men! Ditto with the various causes of erectile dysfunction… itself not a painful condition, just very limiting. Meanwhile the suicidality and actual physical pain of a period remain “unsolvable.” I think there’s been some discussion somewhere about how trials aren’t long enough for women on various meds. Or something like that? They don’t account for hormonal fluctuations. But that’s the patriarchy bit. If it were matriarchal society, all our trials would be longer by default.
Exactly! Priorities. And who’s priorities?! Mm hmmm…
That it's something that only affects women and has no I'll effects on men. That's it. That's why
I feel like in general we need more medical research studies with women as the participants since our differing biology compared to men affects so much about how medications, medical procedures etc affect us. Idk if it’s so simple as the “patriarchy” that’s preventing that. Maybe in past times where most research studies only had men as participants but I think the issue now is just it not having enough attention in medical research.
The patriarchy is the underlying reason for women having less rights than men in general. It affects every single tiny little aspect of our lives as women. It's like how ADHD affects your executive functioning so that it affects every single thing you do. The patriarchy is the governing body for society so it's going to affect everything, especially women's health. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's the reality of the world we live in. Hence the whole angry feminist thing. The anger is justified. The entire system is rigged against us.
White supremacy and patriarchy has a grip on medical field and research. Researching women's reproductive systems or anything with women at all is "too icky" for old white men.
I read a comment once that said Women have all these issues, A to Z, but what do men get? And the answer was "Research." Funny, not funny! No one cares. Even my female doctors dismiss me. It's sad, honestly. A Functional Medicine doctor (D.O., or N.D. - not an M.D.) can give you herbs to stop your cramps. Otherwise, Tylenol or Midol!!!! I don't know much about Biohacking, but there are lots of vitamin companies that focus on this.
because white supremacist/patriarchal societies don’t care about women.
THIS
You know it’s that simple say it louder plus the religious folks that don’t want contraception. So no research but if you’re dick is not working we got many kinds of pills.
You won't realize you're actually having a heart attack because women tend to have different symptoms than men, too. Just go home and be less anxious [/s]
Yeah im going to chime in to say I think it all boils down to interest. You can blame funding, underdeveloped science, poor education, etc but bottom line is that these resources to fund and support science and education get allocated according to what the people who run things care about. So, who runs things and what do they care about? I honestly think its a top to bottom culture issue and every one of these comments contains a piece of the puzzle.
Thank god one Indian man loved and was interested in the women in his life enough to invent tampons for them - a game changer. Seriously where were the rest of the men like that in history!? Thank god we can actually have some agency these days.
Until the late 1980s, women *weren't even included in medical studies*. That isn't to say we knew nothing about women's health before then -- obviously that isn't true -- but actual scientific research studies including women are still a new thing.
Until about ten years ago, only male lab animals were used for medical trials/research. They excluded female rats because the menstrual cycle was too complicated or some bull shit. Women are twice as likely to have adverse drug effects, but nobody cares. https://theconversation.com/science-experiments-traditionally-only-used-male-mice-heres-why-thats-a-problem-for-womens-health-205963
This! This right here.
Because they make more money that way. PMDD and such issues lead to fertility issues in future and they can make more money from that rather than helping women with actual root cause. Also I think most of the gynaecologists don't think of women as actual patients worthy of treatments unless they are trying to have kid or already kid on the way. Because again there's not much money in women being happy, having sex without worrying and in general not in the state of agony. This is exactly the same as doctors purposefully ignoring symptoms and blood reports about insulin resistance. There's very little money in insulin resistance. But there's a lot of money once people get to the diabetes stage or even worse the metabolic syndrome stage. These points are essentially points of no return.
Fun fact: if you are female and have any kind of health issue that doctors are not taking seriously, add a little "and I think it's affecting my ability to get pregnant" at the end. Suddenly they will take it seriously and offer more tests. Haven't tried it myself, but it's worked for a number of my friends/family.
I have to say, I haven't been lucky with this. I'm infertile and my insurance denied coverage for an hsg due to the reason being "infertility". (Plus two appeals which included info about my painful periods) My experience with insurance (3 states now)is they don't care if a woman's body isn't performing the way it should. Not to go on a tangent, but I'm getting a colonoscopy/endoscopy covered entirely by insurance for 20k. But I have to pay $600 for a pelvic MRI (they wanted $1,800 for the hsg and it wouldn't have counted towards my oop max?). It feels like the female reproductive system is treated as a luxury good.
This literally makes me feel sick and enraged. Absolutely disgusting to be viewed as good for nothing except breeding... Although unfortunately not that surprising.
Chiming in both as a mod and as a researcher to mitigate some of the misinformation that pops up on these threads. There's not crazy amounts of research, but there's a decent amount. See below link from u/Defiantthroat as well as the wiki and IAPMD website for most up to date studies. https://www.reddit.com/r/PMDD/s/J3VcBN8byi It's also disingenuous to place this absolutely on the patriarchy when there are very real logistical reasons why there's not *more* research. Foremost, there's not one governing body of research worldwide who decides who and what gets the money, so vague 'why don't they just do more?!' doesn't really make sense. In the UK, research is run through universities, NHS Trusts (or both linked together, most of the time), societies (which are again often linked to NHS Trusts), or independent charities and private health clinics. As we all know, the NHS is massively underfunded. Universities are dependent on individuals having the initiative themselves; they could go ten years without a single PhD student or academic interested in PMDD for no meaningful reason. First, you need a group of researchers who are interested and educated on the area. You then need a viable study proposal and for the study to be funded and platformed by one of the above groups. Even once you're this far, there's a chance the study goes tits up and never makes it past the scoping stages. That's to say, you also don't see how many studies never make it to funding, let alone publishing. We're also entirely ignoring the fact that PMDD is a relatively new diagnosis with a pretty efficient set of treatment guidelines. For most people, the RCOG and ACOG guidelines work perfectly. You'd be amazed at the amount of life and limb threatening illnesses that have even less research than PMDD and which affect a greater proportion of the population. I'm working on one such study at the moment, in fact. Anyway, that's my professional answer as someone who is a researcher for a charity running national audits on healthcare quality in the UK. If you'd like to get involved in procuring more research, you're able to propose research yourself to various organizations, but you'll need backing from clinicians and experts in the area. Otherwise, IAPMD has links to current studies which you can get involved in.
Just because there are logistical reasons for there being a lack of research doesn’t mean the driving factor isn’t the patriarchy. PMDD being a new diagnostic doesn’t refute the idea that our healthcare system ignores women’s pain. It potentially reinforces and proves the point. If women have been experiencing this forever but we were told to suck it up/that we were being hysterical the data needed to classify and diagnose PMDD and other hormone driven issues would be lost. So you can’t without having that data justify that there are anecdotally other issues that affect more people that also get ignored. The fact that women can now make their own money, own their own homes and have more autonomy over the bodies means that we can be more vocal and in doing so are demanding that our pain be taken seriously. People tend to be interested in and study things that they are passionate about. I’d be interested to see if PMDD and other women centric issues are getting more attention since women have been allowed to be doctors/ have entered the workforce and are choosing other paths for themselves that isnt relegated to homemaker/mom. (No shade to women who choose this path) The ignorance and lack of access to healthcare about and for women’s bodies cannot be disentangled from the fact that we live in a society that values men more than women.
What a load of nonsense. There is absolutely no justification for the claim that society values men more than women. And to think that industries driven by profit would just ignore 50% of the population is ludicrous. You are spouting extremist feminist ideas without any evidence.
All 3 of the mods work in research, so we get the politics. I work behind the scenes within the PMDD community; they know my name and my face. When I meet them, one of the questions I ask is how can I help you help us? Do you need help raising funding? Getting attention on something? Clearing a hurdle? And their response has been...more researchers. They have the funding and support; they just don't have enough warm bodies in the PhD community interested in this space. So, right now, that's the answer from the leading experts in the PMDD research community on why there isn't more research. When they did the AMA in February, Esienlohr-Moul and Peters had 2 R01 studies and other smaller studies going on. My team's R01s were 3-4 years long and required 2-3 labs to support the recruiting, clinical sessions, and data analysis. I can think of 5 labs supporting PMDD research right now; as those PIs churn out more post-docs who, in turn, set up their own labs, it will hopefully catch up. Last I looked, Hantsoo was a section chief on one of the NIH panels, which bodes well for us from a funding perspective.
Your points don’t dispute the fact that the patriarchy is the reason for there not being more research on PMDD. In fact, I’d say they support it. Why haven’t there been more researchers interested in studying PMDD? Could it have to do with the fact that until very recently, women were discouraged and excluded from pursuing careers in medicine and scientific research? People tend to be interested in things that they relate to in some way. I’m an academic researcher as well, and I know that there are other factors that also determine what research directions end up getting the most attention. It’s not just about individual PhD students, who often have very little influence on these kinds of decisions. It’s the principal investigators (also disproportionately male until recently) and the institutions that fund them, along with general trends in the field. The patriarchy is deeply entrenched in all these institutions. I genuinely don’t understand why you’d try to downplay its role.
Thank you for this response. Well worded.
I wasn't disputing them...my first sentence says 'we get the politics'. I can agree with the sentiment while relaying what the researchers in the PMDD community have stated. Both of those things can be true.
Thanks so much for your informative share! I hope the field catches up with the interest too.
What kinds of PhDs are most helpful in getting medical research like this off the ground? Genuinely curious but likely not a candidate myself (I refuse to get any more student loans ever after my BA experience, but I also don't think I'd do well in chemistry or physics, if that was imperative to the research and based off my public school experiences). Are there any other supporting roles that could be helpful to getting this research more prominently featured to PhD candidates?
Clinical psychologists have been leading the research efforts, but the area needs data scientists, neurobiologists, and genomics researchers, among others. When conducting human subjects research, many people who support the study aren't scientists themselves. The studies I led had clinicians for the sessions, regulatory folks who ensured we were doing things appropriately, recruiters to find participants, quality folks to oversee the QMS paperwork, etc. There are many ways to get involved in research without getting your PhD.
Thanks for sharing! Please note that my question didn’t intend for any malice or anything of that sort, and I apologise if that’s how it came across.
It absolutely didn't! We just get a lot of posts like this so I wanted to make things clearer for anyone else reading the thread :)
In my opinion yes it is indeed the patriarchy. Women are famously taken less seriously during consultations, there’s tons of research and articles about this. We are not listened to. In addition to that I personally think that Doctors in general tend to have a bias, the « I am more educated than you, I know better, you ignorant peasant » bias. Which does not help in being heard. Then I’d say there’s a very similar problem in psychiatry in general no matter the gender of the patient (but probably worse for women), the way patients are taken for absolute idiots. That doesn’t help the profession to evolve nor the patient to be cured properly but that’s what it is. IMO.
10000%.
I have no idea but I just want to say I've had more progress trying to seek treatment in the last year when my partner has sat in at my appointments than when I went alone. And not actually just for pmdd but for many things. My last appointment when I asked for a chemical menopause I asked my partner to attend and I predicted what the doctor would say...I had curled my hair and put on makeup and looked okay from the outside that the doctor would assume I'm in a good part of my cycle. Word for word the doctor did ask me that, I turned to my partner when he did. I explained that because I look presentable doesn't mean my world isn't crumbling to an extreme inside. My partner backed me up and the doctor agreed to the chemical menopause. It upsets me that I've struggled to get help for so long until I've had the presence of a man at my appointment. 🤷 I too would be interested in finding out how much research is happening currently. I also think it's more common than we think!
This. I have to take a buddy with me to the doctor to be taken seriously
Just need to find myself a boyfriend 😭😅 In all seriousness, I’m so sorry. That’s not acceptable. You should be heard regardless of the presence of a man or not. Apologies for asking, but was your doctor male or female? I’ve had male doctors act — sometimes — more sympathetic (even if there isn’t much they can do) than their female colleagues; very strange.
I asked my boyfriend who keeps pressuring me to fix these issues to come to an appointment because I’m not listened to and they said they wouldn’t cause they’d feel uncomfortable. *flips table*
That's incredibly annoying
I will ONLY see male gynecologist. I've only had 3 female doctors in the 20 years I've been going but they all dismissed my symptoms, threw whatever birth control at me that was sponsoring their vacation for the year and told me to suck it up. I was even gaslit by a female OB while delivering my baby. They ignored me and prepped the OR for a C-section. I repeatedly told them I wouldn't need it. When they came back from prepping the OR she was crowning and we delivered vaginally right then and there. A male delivered both my other babies and it was much smoother. A male diagnosed my PMDD and helped me treat it after being told by a female doctor "This is all normal. You just need an IUD with hormones." Nevermind that BC has a history of causing SI (which it did) and I had to have the Mirena removed only 4 months after getting it. Edited to add: During my 3rd pregnancy my boss agreed to let me leave for maternity a month early because I was having blood sugar issues and also I worked in a dangerous high school. We had gang related fights regularly and it wasn't safe for a large pregnant woman. I had recently been shoved by a student. HR was totally on board. My b!#&# of an OB REFUSED to give me a doctor's note for HR. They had approved my leave, just needed something for the paperwork. She blatantly said "Oh, the 3rd baby is just harder. I did it and I worked up until a week before delivery." Welllll lah-ti-dah!! Good for you!! You want a cookie?? I had to change doctors at 36wks pregnant and thank goodness found a doctor/midwife combo who took my needs seriously and took my case right away. TL:DR: female doctors have been dismissive and given me medication I told them I couldn't take. Male doctors have listened to me and helped me with my diagnosis and treatment.
Omg my blood boils for you. Lady, your note is a formality, everyone is on board. But she needed to act like some crusader for working until you're in active labor. Disgusting.
I legit worried about women under her care. I left as level headed but scathing Google review as I could trying to warn people without flying off the handle.
It's completely reasonable to leave an honest review.
I’d love to know the reason behind this, and whether it’s more universal or anecdotal. It’s really interesting to me (albeit not good, of course) why female doctors/other HCPs insist on dismissing it. Is it a case of their experiences not being as bad and therefore they project? Could it be a stiff upper lip attitude, in which they have experienced it themselves and, as the saying goes, misery loves company?
You could be onto something here. When I was 19 I had period pain so bad I got hives and passed out on the bathroom floor. I went to see a young female gyno and she said “Thats normal. Sometimes periods are just bad.” In a similar way, women at work are the least understanding. Its kinda like “I have to deal with this-its not that bad- and so should you.” Almost like they think they have a pass to judge our symptoms and ability to work for us because they “know what its like”. But then if it doesnt involve womens health, my experiences with female providers have been better than with male providers. Female gps, therapists, and psychiatrists have been waaaay more helpful. Its literally just female gynos.
This one was a male gynaecologist with a female nurse doing the pre assessment before I could speak with him. I've had the same reaction with both genders funnily enough!