In their article, “Epistemic Injustice and Resistance in the Chiapas Highlands: The Zapatista Case,” Sergio Gallegos and Carol Quinn discuss how indigenous women in Mexico continue to be oppressed on their own land through their less than satisfactory-to say the least-access to healthcare. This occurrence is not an uncommon one. The gender disparity and discrimination against women in healthcare are systematic and global in nature and are both a cause and result of female oppression.
The most obvious way in which the healthcare system is rigged against women is the fact their lack of bodily autonomy and reproduction rights. Women are often denied hysterectomies simply because their hypothetical male partner might want to use their body later to make babies. This happens despite how much pain-sometimes lethal in nature- their uterus may be causing them and even when the woman has already been labeled as infertile. Meanwhile, a man can simply wake up one day and get a vasectomy, no questions asked, as early as the age of 16. Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization, 45% of abortions are unsafe, leading to 4.7% to 13.2% of maternal deaths. This is because abortion is still illegal in most countries, and conditionalized, complicated and taboo in others. Ironically enough, these laws to govern female reproductive rights are made by people who do not have uteruses themselves.
The reproductive rights of women, or lack thereof, may be the most well-known as they are considered controversial and hence covered in the media, however, gender discrimination in healthcare affects women at all levels and in a multitude of other ways. An important source for this issue is Maya Dusenbery’s book, Doing harm: The truth about how bad medicine and lazy science leave women dismissed, misdiagnosed, and sick. She speaks about instances such as when women suffering from a heart attack were sent home from the ER with just anti-anxiety medication, 911 callers complaining about severe menstrual pain were ignored and ended up dying consequently, and women with autoimmune diseases were simply labeled “chronic-complainers” and dismissed without a diagnosis or treatment. Ironically enough, women make up over 70% of patients with autoimmune diseases, however, they are diagnosed at a later age than their male counterparts, not for lack of trying to get said diagnosis. Women are often told that their symptoms are all in their head, instead of being taken seriously by their doctors, usually male doctors, about the symptoms THEY are experiencing in THEIR own bodies. Additionally, trans-women cannot simply get gender-affirming surgery when they come out or decide they want it. Them saying they are women and would like to change their bodies is not enough, they must get letters from at least two mental health professionals before they can be considered for gender-affirming surgery. This is the only medical service that requires such double diagnosis, and therefore creates additional financial and emotional costs for trans women. According to scientific journal editor and trans woman herself, Dr. Isabel Goldman, “There’s a tax on trans women to be part of the women’s club.”
Knowledge is power. That much is clear to me from my time taking a course titled “Ways of Knowing.” That being said, the fact that medical researchers choose to take a “one-size fits all approach: that of a 70-kilogram white man,” shows how the oppression of women in the healthcare field is so deeply ingrained that despite the fact that we now have more female doctors than ever before doesn’t even seem to matter. Women are often told they do not have a particular condition simply because their symptoms differ from those of men, but the ones doctors are taught about in medical school are only men’s. Moreover, 90% of pain medication is only tested on men.
This is simply one of the many ways in which society chooses to ignore, neglect, and simply not believe women. The fact that the health care system can get away with this kind of blatant, voluntary ignorance of the female body is perhaps one of the biggest examples of how epistemic injustices continue oppressing marginalized communities.