For Women, Medical bias extends beyond the body
The history of how women have been treated by the predominant medical practices of their time is a fraught one. The patriarchal belief in the inferiority of the female body led to thousands of years of women suffering through inane beliefs around hysteria and wandering uteruses. (Which is provably untrue, as if it was, our uteruses would be out there ovary-punching some misogynists).
The misdiagnosing of women’s mental health conditions (and also the very normal reaction to being oppressed under patriarchy) as hysteria is the most famous form of medical bias that has impacted women, but it’s truly the tip of the iceberg.
For the vast majority of human history, women were excluded from medical research - and often still are - with clinical trials focusing on men, and the results being extrapolated to female and intersex individuals. The predominance of BMI (Body Mass Index), a data set originally created by a nineteenth-century mathematician, using exclusively European men, in our current day health care shows how deeply entrenched these biased data sets can be.
And this bias extends deeply into the understanding and diagnosis of neurodivergence in women as well.
“I thought I was just lazy and disorganized. I thought that if I could just try harder, I would be ok. But no matter how hard I tried I failed...and then felt like a failure.”
Recent data shows the ratio of boys to girls diagnosed with ADHD as 3:1, whereas for adults it is closer to 1:1. Even with the modern improvements in diagnostic criteria, the gender bias in expectations around how ADHD should present still dominates. And even once women are diagnosed, there is still a discrepancy in the prescription of medication, even in severe cases. This holds true for other types of neurodivergence as well.
This means that it’s becoming more and more common for adult women to only begin to understand their neurodivergence later in life - an experience that many members of July Society have dealt with first hand.
Member Elianna was diagnosed just before her 40th birthday. “Pre-diagnosis, life was so tiring because I was masking most of the time and didn’t even know I was doing it”, she says. “Post-diagnosis I am able to understand why I feel and have always felt different”.
Member Jo Anna had a similar experience. “I thought I was just lazy and disorganized. I thought that if I could just try harder, I would be ok. But no matter how hard I tried I failed...and then felt like a failure.”
Getting a diagnosis is no easy feat for adult women - Elianna’s insurance still used tests based on elementary school-age boys - but she believes the process was worth it. “I’m so glad I persisted and got the information and resources that work for me.”
Jo Anna also felt immense relief when she was able to get her formal diagnosis. “It was only then that I could start to get the help I actually needed. And it was only then that I could let go of the stories I had about myself and see how much I had actually accomplished.”
Medical bias against women has existed for millenia, and is not going anywhere soon. But there are ways for the women of today to fight back, advocate for themselves, and find support - including in women-led spaces like July Society.
If you’d like to learn more about neurodiverse-friendly strategies for your own life and workplace, come join July Society at our special event with Gillian Forth. Gill is a workplace Behavior and Communication Coach with expertise in the field of ADHD and neurodiversity.