The Women’s Marches that took place across the country this past week have prompted mixed responses, many of which condemned modern feminist movements as being “unnecessary” or even “coddling.” Indeed, American women in the current century have come a long way from the blatant sexism of the 50’s and 60’s, let alone the suffrage movements from decades before.
The implications from years of discrimination against women have not been erased from existence, however. One particular example, and one that doesn’t get as talked about nearly as much as more controversial feminist issues, is in medical research. Women have been placed on the back-burner when evaluating and researching even well-known diseases and disorders, and as a result, only in the past decade has medical science made more discoveries how their presence in women is different from their male counterparts.
1. Heart Disease
Symptoms for heart attacks are well-known: feeling tight in the chest with a tingling sensation in your left arm. However, research has in the past few years has uncovered that women display slightly different symptoms. According to the American Heart Association, women may not experience chest pressure at all and instead attribute it to other ailments like acid reflux or even the flu. People often overlook the fact that heart disease is the number one killer in our country.
2. ADHD
Psychologists have discovered how women and men with ADHD often present it differently. When we think of kids with ADHD as being hyperactive and loud, but as more research is being performed, girls with ADHD present quieter symptoms quieter symptoms. Even if they aren’t outwardly hyperactive or impulsive, girls with ADHD may be simply talkative or even quiet, but inattentive. Women often do not go diagnosed with ADHD until adulthood because the expected behaviors of the disorder are more seen in male children than female children. As WebMD notes, this can have complications because women with ADHD are often more risk-taking than other women.
3. Liver Disease
Women indeed suffer more from alcoholism than their male counterparts. Gastroenterology & Hepatology notes women with alcoholic liver disease may develop fibrosis more rapidly, and it persists even after they’ve stopped drinking. Women are also more prone to acute liver failure than men are and are 10 times more likely to have cirrhosis and hepatitis. The reasoning for this is still unknown, but much of it narrows down to our sex hormones.
4. HIV
Lack of research for women with HIV is especially detrimental for the countries where it is an epidemic exacerbated by poor socioeconomic conditions. Its historical attributions may have influenced the fact that its prevalence in younger women is double that of men in the same age categories. While more research is desperately needed in this area, scientists have learned the immune system’s response to these diseases are different in women than men and report different types of side effects.
5. Eating Disorders and Body Dissatisfaction
Unlike the previous listings, this is an area where women are overwhelmingly researched. True feminism seeks to defy gender biases and stereotypes across the board and that also means bringing to light how illnesses historically characterized as "female diseases" are present--and just as serious--in men. One example that has gotten recent attention is in eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. Many men want to build muscle, but men who have concerning symptoms may become preoccupied with it to the extent it manifests into an unhealthy obsession—working out when injured and anxiety when not working out are a few warning signs of possible eating disorders in men. Obsession for over-exercising may be overlooked in men because of cultural ideas that can encourage this behavior, but while men and women may have many notable biological differences, but we are often susceptible to the same societal pressures of perfection.
