Ladies of the earth, in order to move forward, I fully believe we must take inspiration from menfolks, and demand that our needs be met. For starters, we deserve to have our physical pain taken seriously, and not ignored like the natural consequence of our wombs roaming free all over our bodies.
For example, every medical test for women is horrible: squish this between two plates, scrape that with a stick, etc., and if you ask if it will hurt, you’ll hear, “It’ll be uncomfortable.” (Which means yes, and shut up.)
Do you think for one second that men would put with this shit? They would not. If you told a man, “We’re going to screen you for testicular cancer right now. The process for this is to put your nuts on this plate and wait for them to be squashed by this other plate. No crying,” what do you think he would say?
I think his response would be a resounding, “Fuuuuuck yooooou. I’m gonna get out of this dump, and do anything else but that. In fact, I’m going to race out of here, still in my plastic-paper gown, and head toward the nearest woods. There, I will fight a bear, and if I live, I’ll take that as a sign that I don’t have ball cancer … AND IF I DIE, I SHALL GO TO VALHALLA WHERE THE BRAVE LIVE FOREVER.”
(See that, dudes? I like you a bunch. Don’t believe what those MRAs tell you; we hostile feminists don’t want to destroy you, we just want some of that cultural acceptance mojo. But I digress.)
My point is, women’s pain needs to matter. It’s not a question of male doctors vs. female patients, because all genders have to deal with unconscious bias, since it’s apparently part of the human condition. But for God’s sake, if you’re a healthcare provider, please ask yourself one question before telling a woman that a procedure will be “uncomfortable”: would you say the same thing to a man? And even if you would, might you not offer him some pain relief to go along with it?
For the rest of us non-doctors and non-nurses, the way forward is equally challenging and necessary. Women, we’re going to have to demand to be treated and taken seriously. And men, when your favorite female people tell you that they’re in pain, you’ll have to believe them.
Photo Credit: Tambako the Jaguar/Flickr
Jennie Smash 