The Research Gender Gap: Why Research on All Matters

When crash dummies were first designed, they were often modeled after the average male body. As a result, when a woman is involved in a car crash, she is 47% more likely to suffer a serious injury, 71% more likely to suffer a moderate injury, and 17% more likely to die (Criado, 2019). This isn’t just a reality in the automotive industry, it’s a constant show-up in nearly every other field. From pharmaceuticals to public health, and even on animal testing, women are typically ignored. Research regularly ignores the opposite sex, resulting in a dangerous knowledge gap. Today, let’s explore how research has shaped our world to cater to men and why research on all is essential. 

Dr. Jecca Steinberg, a maternal-fetal medicine fellow at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, tells Time, “Women are still under-represented in research—female representation isn’t proportionate to the burden of disease in many clinical trials” (Colino, 2024). This means that in many areas of medicine, the information, and the knowledge about women’s bodies goes unnoticed. It gives women the wrong treatment for their conditions, especially if there is only male research done on specific treatments. 

For instance, “While women comprise 60% of people with psychiatric disorders, the mean participation of women in psychiatric clinical trials was 42%” (Colino, 2024). For decades, autism was considered a male condition, and women were rarely diagnosed with the disorder. Most research done on autism was done selectively on men, so as a result, men get diagnosed with autism more often than women (UCLA Health, 2023). Even today, most doctors have a weaker understanding of autism in women, and the tools to diagnose ASD are typically based on males. If women don’t present typical ASD traits, then diagnosing autism becomes infinitely more difficult (UCLA Health, 2023). 

Research on conditions that primarily affect women also tend to be underfunded and understudied compared to those issues that affect men. “Migraine, headaches, endometriosis and anxiety disorders, for example, which disproportionately affect women, all attract much less funding in proportion to the burden they exert on the US population than do other conditions” (Smith, 2023). On the other hand, “HIV/AIDS and substance misuse, which disproportionately affect men, get more funding than their corresponding burden might suggest” (Smith, 2023). Even though the issues aren’t burdening everybody in the U.S., they still receive a greater amount of funding based on their gender. 

Thankfully, there has been some progress when it comes to the research gap between men and women. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, researchers were able to deduct the differences between how COVID-19 affected men and women. According to Dr. Marianne J. Legato, “Men were much more likely to die [while] women were much more likely to survive but develop symptoms of what’s called Long Covid,” Colino, 2024). This proves some interesting disparities between the immune systems of men and women and how diseases such as COVID-19 can involve the immune systems, stressing the importance of research to find out what these disparities are. 

Bridging the gender gap isn’t just a scientific challenge, it's a societal obligation that includes us all. Even if there are already steps towards improving the gap, it’s still not enough. For centuries, people have been pushed to work with medicine that isn’t accurate to their bodies, medicine that harms them, and medicine that excludes them. The demand for more diverse studies must increase, not only across women but against everybody who needs it. It is important to hold institutions accountable for this lack of representation so that the representation in medicine arrives. Only then can we ensure progress in medicine and progress in innovation. 

References

Colino, S. (2024, November 1). Does the gender gap in medical research still exist?. Time. https://time.com/7171341/gender-gap-medical-research/ 

Smith, K. (2023, May 3). Women’s health research lacks funding – these charts show how. Nature news. https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-01475-2/index.html 

Criado Perez, C. (2019, February 23). The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes 

Uclahealth. (2023, October 12). Understanding undiagnosed autism in adult females. UCLA Health. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/understanding-undiagnosed-autism-adult-females#:~:text=Physicians%20still%20don’t%20have,match%20what’s%20traditionally%20considered%20ASD.