What women’s pain reveals about structural stigma in healthcare
“Medicine has… not always done very well at grappling with women’s accounts of pain.”
That’s how Professor Kate Seear, lawyer, sociologist and ARC Industry Fellow at Deakin Law School, opened our recent Spotlight on Stigma webinar. It turned out those words were quite the understatement.
Because what followed wasn’t just a discussion about women’s pain. It was a closer look at how stigma is embedded within healthcare systems, and how those systems continue to produce the same outcomes: dismissal, delay, and doubt.
The session centred specifically on findings from Australia’s first inquiry into women’s pain, completed as part of the Victorian Government’s Women’s Health and Wellbeing Program.
The inquiry was designed to respond to what has been described as the “gender pain gap”, the growing recognition that women’s pain is not taken as seriously, or managed as effectively, as men’s.
It brought together over 13,000 perspectives from women, carers, clinicians, researchers and organisations, creating one of the most comprehensive pictures of this issue in Australia to date.
Rewatch the full webinar here and read the key takeaways below.
“There is nothing abnormal except her sensitiveness”
To explain where we are now, Kate started the webinar by taking us us on a historic journey of women’s pain.
Historically, women’s pain, particularly menstrual and pelvic pain, was not treated as something that required investigation. Medical texts didn’t just overlook it either; they actively framed it as inconsequential.
In one example, a physician wrote that a patient might “suffer much” from menstrual pain, but that:
“there is nothing abnormal except her sensitiveness.”
Kate discussed how, throughout history, there is evidence of women being described as:
sensitive
weak
psychologically unstable
or simply overreacting
And the role of the doctor? Often to reassure, rather than investigate
It’s tempting to see this as outdated. But that’s exactly the point Kate was making.
“These histories… linger in the present,” she said. “They continually resurface and continue to shape how women’s pain is conceptualised and managed.”
Not just attitudes. Systems.
Stigma is often thought of as something individuals are responsible for, such as clinicians not listening or getting it wrong. But the Inquiry found something deeper.
Over time, structural decisions have shaped how women’s pain is understood:
Research
Women’s health is historically underfunded
Women have been excluded from clinical trials because hormones were seen as “too complex”
Clinical frameworks
Diagnostic categories that have framed pain as psychological
Ongoing influence of outdated assumptions
System design
The male body is treated as the default
Women’s experiences are seen as deviations from the norm
As one clinician quoted in the inquiry put it:
“Our health system is based on the male body as the standard and is inherently patriarchal.”
And that consistently has consequences for how women are diagnosed and treated.
Stigma that reshapes daily life
The Inquiry into Women’s Pain Report confirms what many women already know through lived experience. We heard:
90% of respondents had experienced pain lasting more than a year
Over half reported daily pain
89% said it impacted their mental health
Common conditions included:
menstrual and hormonal conditions
endometriosis
musculoskeletal pain
migraines
But the numbers only tell part of the story. What emerged more clearly was the pattern around care.
Women described:
being dismissed
having pain normalised
experiencing long delays to diagnosis
That’s stigma in action. In some cases, it leads to delays in treatment that stretch across years, even decades.
And stigma rarely exists in isolation either. As Kate Seear noted, research suggests that around two-thirds of women report experiencing bias or discrimination in healthcare, despite legal protections designed to prevent it.
“This is just how it is”
One of the more subtle points in the discussion was how these patterns are reinforced over time.
For webinar speaker Kat Stanley, a provisional psychologist and advocate with lived experience of pelvic pain, the findings themselves weren’t surprising. But seeing them laid out at scale was confronting.
The ideas around women’s pain, she explained, are often passed down.
“This is our lot. This is kind of how it is - that’s what people think,” Kat said.
When pain is repeatedly dismissed, it becomes normalised not just in healthcare, but in families, communities, and everyday life. By the time someone seeks care, they may already have internalised that their experience isn’t something that will be taken seriously.
The cost of navigating the system
Even when people do seek care, access is far from straightforward. The inquiry highlighted structural barriers that shape what care looks like in practice:
high out-of-pocket costs
long wait times for specialists and surgery
limited services in rural and regional areas
the need to travel long distances, sometimes interstate
All of this nuance shapes the day-to-day decisions of women seeking pain.
Clinicians are navigating the same system
Another key finding is that many clinicians feel underprepared when it comes to women’s pain.
Around 70% reported limited knowledge or skills in this area
Many pointed to gaps in training and evidence
This directly reflects what has been prioritised when it comes to clinician training, or in this case, and what hasn’t.
The conversation also extended beyond clinical care to questions of system accountability. Recent high-profile cases have raised concerns about complaints processes, whistleblower protections, and whether people working within the system feel safe to speak up.
What needs to change
The inquiry’s recommendations reflect the scale of the problem, spanning research, workforce development, models of care, and access.
The good news is that some systematic changes are already underway. In Victoria, this includes the rollout of “green whistle” pain relief in 20 services for procedures such as IUD insertions, along with the opening of a dedicated children and adolescent gynaecology clinic in early 2026.
For Kat, though, one of the clearest starting points is research.
Without a stronger evidence base, those gaps continue to flow through into clinical training, service design, and ultimately the care people receive.
There is also a need to move beyond working in silos.
“We can sometimes stick in our lanes,” Kat concluded. “Researchers can stay in research lanes, clinicians in clinician lanes, and lived experience… when actually, we need to do as much working together as possible.”