Every year on International Women’s Day, we rightly celebrate the achievements, resilience, and strength of women around the globe. We talk about breaking glass ceilings, achieving parity in leadership, and honoring those who paved the way.
But this year, as therapists, I want to shine a light on a quieter, more intimate, yet equally crucial battlefield: women’s reproductive health.
Specifically, I want to talk about the millions of women who suffer in daily, debilitating physical pain from conditions like fibroids and endometriosis. And I want to talk about the parallel, under-recognized suffering of their mental health.
The Invisible Epidemic of Pain
For too many women, their reproductive years are defined not by choice or joy, but by chronic pain. Endometriosis – where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside it – is estimated to affect 1 in 10 women globally. Uterine fibroids – noncancerous growths of the uterus – are even more common, particularly affecting Black women.
These aren’t just “bad periods.” This is pain that causes nausea, fainting, infertility, and the inability to work, attend school, or even get out of bed.
Despite their prevalence, these conditions remain critically under-researched. Compared to conditions of similar prevalence and burden that primarily affect men, funding for reproductive health is shockingly low. The resulting reality for patients is heartbreaking: diagnostic delays that average seven to ten years, and a limited palette of treatment options that too often feel invasive, inadequate, or like a series of temporary band-aids.
The Mental Health Impact of Chronic Dismissal
This is where the physical meets the psychological. When you live in chronic pain, your nervous system is in a constant state of high alert. This foundational stress is a direct pathway to anxiety. You become anxious about when the next flare-up will hit, anxious about losing your job due to absences, and anxious that you will never feel “normal” again.
Parallel to this anxiety runs a deep vein of depression. It springs from the erosion of quality of life. Women with these conditions often lose their connection to their bodies, their social lives, and their identity outside of being “a patient.” The unpredictability of the pain can lead to isolation and a profound sense of hopelessness.
But there is a specific kind of trauma that exacerbates this mental health burden, and we need to name it: medical gaslighting.
When Systems Perpetuate Suffering: Medical Misogyny
Too many women have entered a doctor’s office, detailed their debilitating symptoms, and been told: “Your periods are just heavy.” “Everyone has cramps.” “Perhaps you’re just stressed.” “Have you tried getting pregnant?”
This is not merely bad manners; it is the manifestation of systemic misogyny within healthcare. For centuries, Western medicine has pathologized women’s bodies and normalized their suffering. The stereotype of the “hysterical woman” has shifted in modern times to the woman whose physical pain is automatically assumed to be psychosomatic.
When a medical authority figure dismisses your physical reality, they are dismissing you. The psychological fallout is severe:
- Self-Doubt: Women begin to internalize the dismissal, wondering if their pain really is “all in their head.”
- Learned Helplessness: After being dismissed by multiple providers, women may stop seeking help altogether, believing that suffering is their inevitable fate.
- Increased Anxiety and Depression: The lack of validation prevents the processing of the grief and trauma of chronic illness. It keeps women stuck in a loop of fear and invalidation.
Towards A New Standard of Care: Mind and Body
As a therapist, I hear these stories often. My role is to validate what the medical system has dismissed. I want to say to every woman reading this who is in pain: I believe you. Your pain is real. It is not your fault.
This International Women’s Day, advocacy must mean more than just celebrating strength. It must mean demanding that women’s unique healthcare needs are taken seriously.
What does this look like?
- Increased Research Funding: We must demand proportionate funding for female-specific conditions.
- Specialized Training: Medical training must include education on medical misogyny and implicit bias, training doctors to believe women’s reports of pain.
- Integrated Care: We need healthcare models that integrate mental health support from the moment of suspected diagnosis. Living with chronic reproductive pain is a mental health challenge. Women shouldn’t have to seek therapist support only after the system has broken them.
To the medical community: Recognize that your bias directly contributes to systems of depression and anxiety in your patients. Validation is the first step of healing.
To the women in pain: You are not alone, and your voice is necessary. This International Women’s Day, let us honor our strength by demanding that our bodies, and our minds, are no longer underserved.
Meet our women’s health practitioners:
Therapy on the Danforth: 2005 Danforth ave., Toronto, Ontario