# Women gimpier than men? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 22, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401 "2011-04-22T20:22:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/1 "2011-04-22T20:22:30Z")
For lack of a better way to describe it in the title, why are women gimpier than men? It seems to me that the women of my acquaintance, whether family, friend, college women in my dorm, or co-worker have been more prone to somewhat unprovable ailments like migraines, or just get sick easier, and seem to spend more time sick than the men of my acquaintance do. I have a friend with chronic bronchitis, diabetes and hemochromatosis, and he’s less gimpy than some of the women I know, who aren’t diagnosed with anything. I’d say the women at the office seem to be out sick if not twice as often as the men, half again as often for sure. Why is this? Is it a social conditioning thing- do men suck it up and soldier on, while women take a break when they feel bad? Are women really more prone to being sick? Is it a sample size issue? My wife claims it’s because there’s more research done on male ailments vs. female, but I think that’s antiquated feminist BS. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/2 "2011-04-22T20:42:41Z")
My guess is it’s mostly social conditioning. IME women get sympathy and support for minor ailments, men are dismissed are told to suck it up. And similarly women provide sympathy more readily (to either gender) while men won’t give much sympathy unless someone is practically hospitalized. That’s a strong social disincentive for men to shut up and suffer while women share their ailments. And of course, human nature being what it is, a handful of women exploit these social tendencies and exaggerate or even fabricate such ailments. (I’d love to see some psychological or sociological research on this topic, my experience could be entirely wrong and my memory is probably biased at least a little bit…) Though your wife’s comment that more medical research on males is correct in a sense. Currently most research subjects are men, except for with diseases that predominantly affect women. This isn’t some direct attempt at exclusion by The Patriarchy, but rather researchers are very hesitant to do any testing on women who are pregnant or might possibly be pregnant in the near future. There’s lots of published literature on this problem (along with lots of crazies that pop up on google searches) but [here’s one](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/160310/full/464332b.html) respectable bit of science journalism on the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/3 "2011-04-22T21:05:45Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Why is this? Is it a social conditioning thing- do men suck it up and soldier on, while women take a break when they feel bad? Are women really more prone to being sick? Is it a sample size issue? Sounds like someone’s come down with a full-blown case of confirmation bias! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/4 "2011-04-22T21:10:23Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Why is this? Is it a social conditioning thing- do men suck it up and soldier on, while women take a break when they feel bad? Are women really more prone to being sick? Nope. Women, and for the matter most mammalian females\* get sick less often. They have a more aggressive immune system, better resistance to parasites. Testosterone appears to weaken the body in several ways like that, no one knows why. It’s social conditioning or instinct; they don’t mind asking for help or admitting to weakness nearly as much. > [@bump](#): > > My wife claims it’s because there’s more research done on male ailments vs. female, but I think that’s antiquated feminist BS. That much is true; men are considered more expendable if matters go wrong. The sexism here is actually anti-male - just imagine the reaction if it was, say mostly black people being used in medical experiments. Most people in that case would correctly interpret it as about blacks being regarded as expendable, instead of trying to claim that being regarded as expendable is a privilege as is done with men. \*An exception being female hyenas, who are both the dominant gender and somewhat masculinized physically ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/5 "2011-04-22T21:43:42Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That much is true; men are considered more expendable if matters go wrong. The sexism here is actually anti-male - just imagine the reaction if it was, say mostly black people being used in medical experiments. Most people in that case would correctly interpret it as about blacks being regarded as expendable, instead of trying to claim that being regarded as expendable is a privilege as is done with men. No, just…no. The numbers aren’t just for “experiments” but “research.” I’m not sure if you’re imagining all medical research involves injecting potentially dangerous chemicals into people’s eyeballs without telling them what it’s for or whatever here, but much research is simply observation of populations. Following people through their ordinary lives and finding how patterns of behavior relate to patterns of health. And historically, most of the observing has been of men only, in part to cut down on the number of variables to take into account when finding patterns. Men have been the default, and the conclusions have been applied to women without consideration of whether, for example, how heart disease progresses in men actually has any relationship to how it progresses in women. After finally studying heart disease in women, they’re finding out there are differences. Women have been left out and getting substandard treatment for decades, not because of some noble “protect the wimmens” notion but because it wasn’t considered necessary. Not to say there haven’t been horrifically abusive studies out there (I take it you’re thinking of the Tuskeegee syphilis study) but in reality, there need to be MORE medical studies of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women etc., because it’s becoming more and more obvious that the default conclusions don’t apply to everybody. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/6 "2011-04-22T21:55:42Z")
For what it’s worth (and my anecdote is worth the same as yours) I get sick a lot more often than my wife does. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/7 "2011-04-22T22:02:41Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > Women have been left out and getting substandard treatment for decades, not because of some noble “protect the wimmens” notion but because it wasn’t considered necessary. There’s nothing noble about it. If a man dies due to an experimental treatment, almost no one cares. If a woman dies, people get outraged. They have _reluctantly_ started using women because it’s necessary, despite the resulting backlash whenever something happens to women. > [@Jenaroph](#): > > Not to say there haven’t been horrifically abusive studies out there (I take it you’re thinking of the Tuskeegee syphilis study) but in reality, there need to be MORE medical studies of blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women etc., because it’s becoming more and more obvious that the default conclusions don’t apply to everybody. I was thinking of normal experimentation, not Tuskegee. And I never said I thought it was a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/8 "2011-04-22T22:10:58Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Sounds like someone’s come down with a full-blown case of confirmation bias! It is factual that women are [more likely to visit doctors than men.](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/01news/newstudy.htm) > [@](#): > > A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examines women’s use of ambulatory medical care in 1997 and 1998 and finds that in many significant ways their care differs from men. Even excluding pregnancy-related visits, women were 33 percent more likely than men to visit a doctor, although this difference decreased with age. However, from this [study in Manitoba:](http://mchp-appserv.cpe.umanitoba.ca/reference/sexdiff_summ.pdf) > [@](#): > > There’s an old saying in the health community: Women are sicker, but men die quicker. This sprang from the fact that females visit doctors more often than males, suggesting they are sicker. However, males die at younger ages. > > Our study suggests an update is in order: Men die quicker, but aren’t any sicker. When males and females are compared across a variety of diseases, the burden of illness seems fairly even: for some diseases there is no sex difference; for some the rates are higher for males; for others the rates are higher for females. > > … > > In short, women are no more or less healthy than men. Yes, females visit physicians more often, but that doesn’t mean they’re sicker. When we exclude visits for pregnancy, birth, and other reproductive health reasons, this difference > is cut in half, and their hospitalization rates become lower than males (Fig. 1). ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/9 "2011-04-22T23:25:25Z")
What are the actual rates on taking time off for sickness? (Of course, it’s worth noting that women are in a way “ill” at least once a month.) ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/10 "2011-04-22T23:57:29Z")
> [@](#): > > It seems to me that the women of my acquaintance, whether family, friend, college women in my dorm, or co-worker have been more prone to somewhat unprovable ailments like migraines ??? Women have long been noted to get migraines at three times the rate of men. Why are you calling it an “unprovable ailment”? That implies you believe they’re faking it. Either you think women are gimpier, or you think they’re faking it. Make up your mind. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/11 "2011-04-23T02:00:42Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > What are the actual rates on taking time off for sickness? > > (Of course, it’s worth noting that women are in a way “ill” at least once a month.) [woman](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204212846.htm) apparently. I’d guess the difference is a combination of menstrual distress (might be interesting to run the same comparison for older men and post-menopausal woman), a difference in cultural expectations (Finland, where the study took place, is famous for having something of a “macho” culture) and woman bearing more of the burden of raising children, and thus more likely to be stressed out from “working mom” syndrome. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/12 "2011-04-23T02:32:08Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > It is factual that women are [more likely to visit doctors than men.](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/01news/newstudy.htm) Perhaps so, but it doesn’t go one iota to establishing the threshold assumption of the OP: that women are “gimpier” (a never-defined characteristic) than men. Indeed, even the putative examples of “gimpiness” (susceptibility to what the OP believes are fake ailments (another obscure category), taking personal time for minor illnesses, and the like) don’t appear to have much to do with visiting physicians. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/13 "2011-04-23T02:48:24Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Perhaps so, but it doesn’t go one iota to establishing the threshold assumption of the OP: that women are “gimpier” (a never-defined characteristic) than men. Indeed, even the putative examples of “gimpiness” (susceptibility to what the OP believes are fake ailments (another obscure category), taking personal time for minor illnesses, and the like) don’t appear to have much to do with visiting physicians. You would have done better, then, to have asked him to define his terms and examine his assumptions rather than just posting a snarky and rather useless one-liner. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/14 "2011-04-23T04:02:17Z")
**bump** , I suggest you tell a migraine sufferer your theories. They’d probably be interested. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/15 "2011-04-23T14:58:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > There’s nothing noble about it. If a man dies due to an experimental treatment, almost no one cares. If a woman dies, people get outraged. They have _reluctantly_ started using women because it’s necessary, despite the resulting backlash whenever something happens to women. You completely missed my point. I’m not talking about experimental treatments, I’m talking about research. Data collection. Nobody EVER died from filling out a questionnaire. Nobody ever got outraged at the idea of a group of women anonymously answering questions about their health or having test results and measurements collated and studied. And yet that was as a rule not done because those kinds of studies done with men were considered applicable for everybody. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/16 "2011-04-23T15:09:51Z")
Hmm, migraines. That’s might be an interesting example… I’m a dude who gets occasional migraines. They’re not too severe as migraines go, as long as I take handful of painkillers and vasodilators as soon as I detect an aura. But even then I still have to go find a completely dark and silent room and wait for a few hours until the crippling headache becomes merely a severe headache. Meanwhile my aura is usually a big blind spot right in the center of my vision, so even if I wanted to “suffer through” I still couldn’t do anything useful. After a few hours I can tolerate very dim lights and sounds, well enough to at least distract myself. Without medication, of course, it’s all much more severe and lasts for at least a day. When I explain this to my mostly female coworkers (after they ask me why I locked myself in a closet the day before) most will attempt to commiserate. Inevitably someone will say that they too suffer from migraines… and then describe what I would consider a moderate headache. And I know that women have more severe migraines at much higher rates. Again, in my admittedly limited experience, those that do have migraines are more willing to share, because it’s socially expected. And inevitably there will be some small number of women who “round up” pedestrian headaches to full-blown migraines so that they too can commiserate. What they describe to me frankly sounds like a fairly moderate headache. In contrast, the usual response from a man is “that sucks” follows by a very quick change of subject. ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/17 "2011-04-23T15:10:20Z")
Perhaps women get sick less, but take better care of themselves when they do. Not going to work (and getting everyone else sick if you are contagious) and going to the doctor are not necessarily bad things. “Soldiering on”, as you put it, is also not always a good thing. Especially if it is code for being too scared to see a doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/18 "2011-04-23T15:26:23Z")
> **[Female illness rates and illness behavior: testing hypotheses about sex...](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10241504/)** > > Health surveys repeatedly show that females have higher rates of illness, disability days, and health services utilization than do males. Numerous reasons for these sex differences have been hypothesized, based on four general factors thought to... Don’t have access to the article itself, but the abstract seems pretty solidly on the “women have more problems” side. However, it also seems to indicate that not much has been proven one way or the other about WHY women are reporting sickness more often than men. In a related note, it’s been researched and proven pretty solidly that women are more sensitive to pain than men are. [http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51160](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51160) Based on that, some small portion of that “gimp” response from women may be in reaction to pains and aches that everyone gets, but that men’s nervous systems simply aren’t picking up on as important. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/19 "2011-04-23T20:45:15Z")
The OP is hinting at psychosomatic illnesses or illnesses that probably have some psychosomatic element, and while there is probably some truth to it, it’s probably also much more complicated than it looks at first. Everyone, at times, somatizes their emotions- be it an upset stomach when you are stressed, the physical symptoms of a panic attack, lethargy when you are feeling blah, etc. I think men and women tend to have a different ways of somatizing emotion. Men are somewhat more likely to transform emotion into anger. When men do turn their emotion inwards, alcohol is more likely to be involved, which on the surface seems to provide a “reason.” How many of you know a guy who is never at his best because he tends to be slightly hungover? That’s probably actually the same story as the miserable woman who always has dubious health problems. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2011, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401/20 "2011-04-23T23:10:38Z")
Of some peripheral relevance, I recall reading that the U.S. Navy was annoyed that women on aircraft carriers were consuming a disproportional amount of medical attention, mostly gynecological in nature. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-gimpier-than-men/579401.md?page=2)