Our C1.2 English class has decided that it is time for the general public to become more aware of those issues which affect women across the board on a daily basis. They may not be the headlines of our newspapers, nonetheless they still need fixing. We hope this article makes you rethink many aspects of our society.
Car design
Did you know women are 3 times more likely to injure their neck in a car accident and that they have 13% more risk to die in one?
Women have a different leg length and spine curvature than men, which requires their physiological test to be completely separate from men’s. Men’s crash test dummy heads are originally designed to be placed at 1’75 cm, whereas women’s were later designed to be placed at 1’63 cm. Same happens with seatbelts, which weren’t manufactured for women’s chest nor their standard height, making it not only extremely uncomfortable, but an increment on injury and death risk in car crashes.
Since the 70s, evolution revolving around road safety began with one single goal; men on the road.
Until now, these utterly unequalled safety protocols had not taken into account the high risks women were affected by while driving. But it all changed when a Swedish inventor named Astrid Linder, horrified by this matter, invented the first road trip safety test including a crash test dummy that was loyal to women’s anatomy, which for the first time raised awareness about this phenomenon to road trip safety developers and also society.
Changing Tables
A lot has been done towards achieving more equality and fairness in society between genders, but there are still many aspects of our daily life which continue to provoke some inequality. A good example of this is the location of changing tables in women’s bathrooms! What at first sight seems insignificant is in fact contributing to an ageold belief, that only women are the caregivers. Despite some places making changes such as airports and shopping centres, there is still a long way to go in this regard.
Gender Bias in Medicine
Despite the numerous advances in medicine in the last 100 years, women’s health isn’t a priority: shown by the lack of improvement of tools like the pelvic floor extractor or the reiterated dismissal of period pains. Not only is the evolution of tools ignored, but the treatment as well, contraceptive pills for women have an endless adverse effects list, between the most common are: irregular periods and flow, mood changes or even blood clots, strokes or ovarian cysts being the most serious ones.
What is even more baffling is the lack of research for women’s specific conditions and medications: such as the many investigations where the most important topic is the beauty a woman has during her period. Ridiculous as it may seem, we still haven’t any answers for actually serious experiences like the immense suffering some women have the misfortune of feeling every month. Meanwhile men’s health and worries are the top one concern of scientists and doctors alike. In our current reality, men live comfortably while women sadly go through dystopian experiences.
The history of medical gender bias is one of patriarchal-style research practice that left a huge gap in the knowledge of women’s health and reinforced stereotypes and prejudices. Up until 1993, clinical trials included few if any women. Even now, the medical world tends not to address the extent to which most drugs and equipment work in women.
Historically, physicians have regarded the bodies of women as outliers and the bodies of men as the standard «norm,» even though women make up nearly half the earth’s population. While political and social shifts in the 1990s reversed this trend somewhat, women continue to be underrepresented in medical studies—sometimes dramatically. Moreover, policies aimed at shielding unborn children from drug and treatment exposure, together with persistent difficulties in the recruitment and retention of participants of both genders in clinical trials, continue to constrain the comprehension of how women—in particular, women of color—become ill and react to treatment. Even many investigators avoid using female mice in experiments because of the increased cost of keeping both sexes and the concern that the fluctuation in hormones that occur in females might complicate the outcomes.
The underrepresentation of women in clinical trials is a cause of healthcare disparities because sex differences might affect disease course as well as responses to treatment. Historically the underrepresentation of women has resulted in most of the side effects of medications being observed in men, in part due to the difference in how they metabolize drugs. Gender bias in health care is the cause of sex-based differences in diagnosis, treatment, research, as well as between patients and physicians. This bias is expressed in the undertreatment of women’s pain, explained as caused by menstruation and by lifestyle.
Inequities of care further manifest in the realm of heart treatment, handling of pain, and the implantation of medical equipment such as metal hip implants that can malfunction as a result of unmapped anatomical dissimilarities. Disorders of development such as ADHD and autism are commonly underdiagnosed among females and female children. Further, females tend to be more likely to receive sedatives instead of analgesics for their problems, perpetuating the misconception that their problems are emotional and not physical.
Including women in clinical trials is essential to understanding how to treat 51% of the population effectively. While women may have distinct healthcare needs, they are not a «separate population.» Recognizing and addressing gender bias in medicine is crucial to creating equitable healthcare for all.
Contributors – Nora Alcón, María Llanos García, Isabel López, Sara Delgado, Fernando Doncel
Link to radio programme – https://radioedu.educarex.es/radiobabel/2025/05/14/invisible-womens-issues/
