Women’s health concerns are often treated like an afterthought by the Western medical establishment.
As a result, far too many endure unnecessary discomfort, sometimes remaining unaware that help for their condition exists. It’s long past time to break the silence.
Discussing common women’s health issues that we don’t talk about enough opens the dialogue necessary for sparking change. Medicine will catch up to reality more quickly by openly exploring the issues half the population faces all the time, leading to improvements for everyone.
1. Birth Control Side Effects
Why does the onus for birth control fall on women’s shoulders when it takes two to tango?
While two potential methods remain in the development stage, researchers scrapped earlier studies after participants complained of side effects. However, males aren’t unique in experiencing unwanted impacts.
Women can endure a host of unwanted side effects from hormonal birth control, including:
- Irregular bleeding
- Headaches
- Mood changes
- Breast pain
- Weight gain
- Decreased libido
- Nausea
- Bloating
- Acne
- Hair loss
- Fatigue
Of course, many decide that preventing unwanted pregnancy makes braving the side effects worth it, but that doesn’t change what birth control does to their bodies. At the very least, you’d think it would make their male partners a bit more empathetic to their plight instead of considering themselves entitled to sexual contact.
Opening up about these issues can help break the lingering taboos about participating in sexual activities that won’t result in pregnancy. Yes — people need primers on how to please their partners safely.
For example, mutual masturbation can be intensely pleasurable and may help close the orgasm gap, and you don’t have to be on the pill to enjoy it. It’s long past time both partners experience pleasure, and the standard P&V intercourse model rarely cuts it.
2. Periodic Woes
You need look no further than the current election season to see many men still hold seriously outdated attitudes about menstruation, and it affects women’s health care. Feminine hygiene products are basics — like toilet paper — but few public facilities offer them for free. It’s a particularly insidious example of the pink tax, which strains women’s finances even as it makes them grit their teeth in rage at the inequality.
Furthermore, could you imagine what the typical advertisement would look like if men bled once a month without dying?
You’d rarely hit a commercial break without a flurry of spots for how, when and where to get care. In contrast, it takes the average woman over eight years to get an endometriosis diagnosis — a condition one in 10 has.
Society still treats menstruation like a dirty secret, even though it happens to nearly everyone with a uterus.
As a result, some women still reach puberty unprepared for the reality of menstruation, like a nightmare out of “Carrie.” Talking freely about this simple reality of life would improve the quality of care and provide women with the tools they need to manage their periods regardless of their socioeconomic status.
3. Stress Urinary Incontinence
Nearly half of all women have occasional urinary incontinence, with 10% experiencing it more frequently. It becomes more common after childbirth, but you seldom hear people discuss it. Even among close friends, women stay mum.
However, you have treatment options. Many women respond well to exercises that strengthen the pelvic floor. Sling surgeries or less invasive procedures involving bulking with macroplastique can also help in more severe cases.
4. Constant Time and a Half
Stress can increase systemic inflammation — a hallmark of multiple illnesses that can result in ongoing pain. Unfortunately, tough as they are, women have more than their share, which may partially explain why they have higher rates of chronic diseases like arthritis.
The pressure comes from continuing to do 40% more unpaid labor than their male counterparts, usually in the form of housework and child-rearing.
The time is now for women to speak up about their unpaid second shift. There’s much talk in politics about increasing the birth rate, but not a corresponding amount about boosting the social services necessary to support women, infants and children.
Expanding the social safety net isn’t lazy or entitled — it’s a necessary prerequisite to creating the kind of civilization where little ones thrive. It truly does take a village, and it’s high time women step up and demand it.
5. Medical Gaslighting
Medical gaslighting runs deep. For example, the IUD has existed since the 1960s, but it was only now — in 2024 — that the CDC offered new guidance on pain management for its insertion and removal.
Before that, women were just supposed to grin and bear having a foreign object shoved into their body without so much as an analgesic.
The results of medical gaslighting and dismissing women’s legitimate pain doesn’t only result in suffering — it can be fatal. For example, women manifest heart disease differently than men, but ER doctors often dismiss their complaints as stress or anxiety.
Addressing medical gaslighting improves the quality of care for all patients. It may even aid in scientific breakthroughs. For example, relatively few clinical trials include women, but medications often interact differently with their physiology. Including them in more tests could result in treatments that work for a wider range of individuals.
Common Women’s Health Issues
Women’s health issues often go overlooked. Opening up a dialogue can improve care outcomes. Talking more about these five issues above builds the awareness necessary to bring about societal change.
