At the annual Women in Power event, Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast cancer oncologist and associate professor, medicine, at NYU Langone/Grossman School of Medicine, asked the women in the audience to raise their hand if they’d ever been called hysterical. Many hands flew up — reflecting the larger sentiment behind Comen’s presentation, that women’s health care has a long way to go.
“Women’s wellness is fundamentally unwell,” said Comen, who is also the author of the bestseller “All In Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today.”
Due to a lack of research and the shame placed on women’s bodies, most are not receiving effective health care, Comen said. In her own practice, she finds that patients are constantly apologizing, whether it be for not shaving ahead of their appointment or having to ask something they consider to be an embarrassing question.
“The number of apologies that I have heard from women range from just sad to absolutely absurd,” she said.
During her presentation, Comen walked the audience through some shocking statistics, advertisements and medical concepts that have circulated through the years related to women’s health. She called attention to the fact that women weren’t required to be in clinical trials until 1993; that women’s reproductive organs were previously represented in medical textbooks as an inverted penis, and that advertisers tried to sell women Lysol-based douches.
The most notable and immediate concern when it comes to women’s health is the lack of research, Comen said, leading to symptoms and conditions that go undiagnosed. Many medical interventions treat women as if they are smaller versions of men, which is biologically not true, Comen said, adding that care for women’s bodies has been “fragmented” — and women haven’t been cared for holistically.
“We all want to feel seen and validated and heard as whole people, and that has not been the history of women’s health,” she said.
Additionally, women’s health specifically is widely underfunded and under-researched, she said.
“This insidious incuriosity that has woven itself through the tapestry of health care for women is terrible and continues to play out today,” Comen said.
However, experts say investment in women’s health would be beneficial across the board. According to McKinsey & Co, solving the gap in women’s health could increase the global economy by $1 trillion by 2040.
Comen explained there is not a 10-step quick fix to solving the many issues within women’s health care. However, she did offer attendees practical tips to advocate for themselves and be in control of their own health care journey, even in the face of a broken system. She recommended:
- Bring somebody with you.
- Bring a list of questions.
- Know your medications.
- Identify who is on your health care team.
- Establish the best means of communication or messaging.
“We have felt disempowered in our own bodies,” she said. “I would invite you to think about… how you can imagine telling a different story for yourself.”
