Social distrust of women establishes doubt, even with regard to their own bodies, creating fissures in women’s ability to access healthcare. Women struggle to receive equitable care within the healthcare system, creating years of untreated/mistreated chronic pain through lack of research for diseases predominantly affecting women, the consistent dismissal of women’s pain, and the use of sedatives rather than pain medication — actively disabling women and resulting in what I coin the gendered healthcare wealth gap*. Disparities in wealth accumulation between men and women due to exorbitant medical costs (prescriptions, doctors visits, and medical procedures); loss of productivity and diminished participation in the labor force; and increased disability as a result of gender-biased healthcare and pain management, the gendered healthcare wealth gap compounds the gender wage gap representing another quantifiable consequence of gender bias.
by Isabel Fields '21