3
" Although a male physician could quite easily, and convincingly, assert that ovarian cancer was “silent,” if you were to really listen to women who have had ovarian cancer speak, you’d find that it wasn’t so much that the disease process was silent—but that they were. Conditions that seem to lurk unnoticed in a woman’s body go unnoticed by others because, for one thing, they are an assumed part of womanhood, and, for another, women are taught to keep those pains private. I’ve often found it curious that when a woman is suffering, her competence is questioned, but when a man is suffering, he’s humanized. It’s a gender stereotype that hurts both men and women, though it lends itself to the question of why there is a proclivity in health care, and in society, to deny female pain. "
― , Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain
8
" But before we can even address the mistreatment that occurs once a woman is interacting with the health-care system, we have to address the fact that some women never get that far. We won’t get a true picture of the incidence of endometriosis until we specifically look for it in marginalized communities. And before we can do that, we have to address the disparity in access. Social epidemiologist Jhumka Gupta has said that endometriosis is a social justice issue. In her speech at the Worldwide Endo March in Washington, DC, on March 19, 2016, she said that endometriosis is a social pathology, which she defined as “gender inequality, social injustice, and attitudes of society that keep women and girls from fully reaching their potential. "
― , Ask Me About My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain
