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When It Comes to Pain, Who’s the Weaker Sex?
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Allison Ford | DivineCaroline
June 26, 2009
Real Men Don’t Have Pain
Many other factors influence how we respond to pain, including psychological conditions, intelligence, and emotional balance. Focusing on the physiological differences ignores the different ways that men and women are socialized to react to pain. Boys are often encouraged to deny it and its accompanying emotions, since weakness or displays of emotion are unmasculine. Researchers have found that it’s only after starting school that boys begin to report less pain and their expression of emotions becomes noticeably less than girls’. Adult male pain research subjects have reported that they feel obligated to downplay or deny their pain to preserve their masculinity. And in studies, whether a man is interviewed by a male or female researcher affects his reporting of pain. Men report less pain in front of women than they do in front of other men.
Considering the sociological differences between men and women, scientists now theorize that it’s incorrect to label all women “wimps” about pain; maybe it’s just that women are more perceptive about their pain and they report it more honestly. Women are known to describe their pain in greater detail and precision, and to better express how the pain makes them feel. It’s widely acknowledged that women are far more likely to seek medical attention for pain, but their complaints often don’t raise concern in their doctors and they’re less likely to be taken seriously or be treated effectively. In what some clinicians have dubbed “The Yentl Syndrome,” women generally have to display more prolonged or serious symptoms of pain in order to receive the same level of treatment as men.
Although the science might come down slightly on their side, it’s hard to take studies seriously that claim women can’t handle pain. My boyfriend takes the day off from work every time he has a bellyache, but I suffered through kidney stones, the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, and only agreed to go to the hospital because I couldn’t sleep. My best friend described childbirth as “not really that bad.” I knew ballerinas who would dance until their feet were bloody and battered. No matter what these scientists say, I know far too many men who cry over a stubbed toe and way too many women who put up with chronic and excruciating pain to believe that women really are the weaker sex.
LizbethAS
4 months ago
8 comments
I would say that any study of how men are different from women when it comes to pain is going to have some serious flaws. Like the article says, men will not own up to it but also, women probably feel to some degree that they should play up their pain-- like they need to be rescued from the pain. But if you could just study people and their reactions to pain, without asking them about it later on, just follow them around and see what they do, I would bet money that women express less pain than men. And if there were some way to actually measure the pain felt by men and women, I would say that for equal amounts of pain, men make a bigger fuss about it. At least that is what I have observed in my own experience.
CandaceEllis
4 months ago
2 comments
As a woman and a mother I believe that men are the weaker sex. Yes they may be able to deal with it longer, but do you really think they can handle labor or deal with running screaming kids when you are sick as a dog. Yes they may be able to work threw it but I am a mother of 3 and my fiance is just plan lazy. Dealing with pain is one thing but being in pain while taking care of a house and kids is only something a woman can do.
Crissy
4 months ago
6 comments
the man