[Story and evidence about pain and gender. "The Princess on the Pea"--a myth about femininity penetrating to sciences?]

Abstract

Gender perspective aims at shedding light on how the body as well as the social circumstances that men and women live in contribute to different expressions of pain. This database research reveals that sex differences are described, but gender perspective is missing in the medical understanding of pain. Experimental studies are small and have little power. Still, generalisations about men and women--their different biology and personality--are made. Therefore aspects of bias in experimentally-demonstrated sex differences must be discussed: VAS measurements are certainly influenced by gender. Occurrence of sex differences is overestimated by publication bias and research strategies. For instance, "gender" is linked to sex genotype, thus differentiation. Biological and psychosocial explanations of different expressions of pain risk being gender blind unless understood in a gender context. Scrutinising research can make us aware of our own contribution to gendered pain constructions--in our approach to science and to patients in encounters.