Some hospitals are suspending gas and air for mothers-to-be in labour, so just when will women’s pain be taken seriously?

GLAMOUR has contacted the NHS for comment on whether they’re investing in alternative pain relief for women in labour and will update this article with further information on the matter. In the meantime, social media has been alight with women sharing their views, with many asking ‘would a man be expected to go through the level of pain childbirth requires without any pain relief?’ One user said her husband was given gas and air just last week for a broken foot. Allow us to introduce you to yet another element of the patriarchy – the gender health gap.

As an example, 50 million Americans have one or more autoimmune diseases. A survey from the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) shows that 62% of people with an autoimmune disease have been labelled ‘chronic complainers’ by doctors. Since more than 80% of these people are women, this attitude affects women disproportionately, sometimes 16 times more than men.

As Pragya Agarwal explains in her book, Hysterical: Exploding the Myth of Gendered Emotions, at Wimbledon in 2021, the British tennis player Emma Raducanu withdrew from her fourth-round match due to medical reasons. She was struggling to breathe and clutching her chest. John McEnroe, the three-times Wimbledon men’s champion commentating on BBC Sport, said that it “had got a little bit too much” for Raducanu, and she could not handle the pressure. 

McEnroe also said: “It makes you look at the guys that have been around and the girls for so long – how well they can handle it.” There was an implication in his comments that Raducanu was not hurt or really ill but that she was perhaps not mentally tough enough to compete at that level.

History (and scientific research) has shown us that women’s testimonies about their bodies are not believed and that it is often attributed to their over-emotional nature or their inability to handle pressure.

“I remember a few years ago; I was suffering from acute abdominal pain, the kind where I could not settle down for a single moment,” explains Pragya in her book. “I went to the local doctor a number of times, and was told that it was perhaps only “stomach cramps,” “you could regulate your diet and notice the difference” and “it is probably gastric.” One doctor suggested that I was being too “dramatic” as he couldn’t see anything wrong. Another told me that some exercise and weight loss would do me good. Every time, the doctor asked me if I was sure of my pain. Once, I looked over at the doctor’s notes, and the woman physician had written, “Looks alright.” I was suffering from acute gallbladder cholesterolosis and needed urgent surgery.”

Although the terms ‘hysteria’ and ‘neurosis’ were removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, women are still likely to be over-diagnosed with a range of psychiatric illnesses, from depression to borderline personality disorder, and over-prescribed medication for mental illnesses. The World Health Organization has warned that women’s physical pain is often underestimated and attributed to psychosomatic causes.

Even when gender roles were changing through the first half of the twentieth century, and there was a resurgence of feminist activism, especially in the United States, hysteria was being ignored by the medical professionals; there was a reappearance of hysteria focused more on a psychological-moral perspective during the 1960s, with the belief that it was “primarily if not exclusively a diagnosis of women, which was rarely found in men.” A patient with hysteria was considered to be “typically attractive and seductive” and “interested in controlling the opposite sex . . . and continuously demanding reassurance, approval and praise.”