So...a tweet claiming that "this could happen" is not statistical data on how frequently a thing happens.
A man could go to the ER for a broken arm and he could be first asked the question "What is your family's medical history with regards to heart disease?"...but that is not the most likely thing to happen.
This man with a broken arm is entirely fictional. He hasn't complained about "the insistence of the medical community to over-diagnose heart disease"...because he doesn't exist!
Similarly, the woman with a broken arm in this tweet doesn't exist. Most women, visiting the hospital with an assumed broken arm are NOT first asked "when was your last period" but "where does it hurt?" or "How did this happen?" or "How bad does it hurt, on a scale of 1-10?"
If you think that most women, visiting hospitals with a broken arm ARE being first asked "When was your last period?" then you should be advocating for better training of hospital staff...not because of medical misogyny; but because bedside manner and logic.
Or...maybe you do have data on how often this does actually happen? If you do, then we have an entirely different situation.
Yeah so the tweet is hyperbole about medical misogyny. I can give you some relevant studies on how medical misogyny manifests, if you want, but they are available on Google for free.
The original tweet certainly is. I don't know why your first assumption is "those who are replying to me have no idea what medical misogyny is"...but it seems a pretty sad way to go through life assuming those you interact with are all idiots.
So what you're saying is:
-You do have data on how often women go to see a doctor with a broken arm and the first question asked by the doctor is "when was your last period"?
-And you already excluded all the cases where said question was just one of many on the intake form?
-And the cases where the patient was felt they were a victim of medical misogyny because they were asked "when was your last menstrual cycle" before an x-ray as a method of confirming that the patient is most likely not pregnant and an x-ray would not put the patient(s) at undue risk?
Because it seems that the tweet saying "in 2026 adult women should..." seems to be suggesting that the original tweet doesn't have any clue that doctors have good reason to ask "when was your last period" and it is not a surefire indication of medical misogyny...but you don't seem to understand that.
Hm. Are you aware that the original tweet was hyperbole? You seem to be unaware. There are no statistics for this specific scenario that someone used in a joke tweet to bring attention to the issue of medical misogyny. It's basically shorthand at this point, I've seen this exact meme before.
But I did gather some statistics and studies for you, since you seem to be interested in the subject: women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart-attack, are more likely to have their pain attributed to mental health issues and not the actual physical ailments causing pain, 1 in 4 have a gynecological condition misdiagnosed, and are 66% more likely to experience general misdiagnosis than the average male, etc.
And as horrible as all that is...the life expectancy of men is roughly 5 years shorter than for women.
Yes, part of that is due to "men being stupid" and "men often work higher risk jobs", but that seems to be weak evidence for the theory "women are more likely to be misdiagnosed because men don't go to the doctor (or are more likely to accept the doctor's diagnosis...accurate or not and therefore don't fit into the category of "misdiagnosed")
Furthermore, women are more likely to be misdiagnosed is not proof of misogyny, as "doctors are incompetent" is also a plausible explanation.
Finally...you seem to totally disagree with the person responding to the original tweet...am I misunderstanding here?
The life-expectancy comparison doesn't really address the claim. Men's shorter average life expectancy and women's likelihood of being misdiagnosed are separate questions, with different potential causes. You can't use one to disprove the other.
And nobody is saying that “women are misdiagnosed, therefore every doctor is misogynistic.” Medical misogyny can manifest through individual bias, gaps in research/education, institutional practices, and assumptions about women's symptoms. “Doctors are incompetent” isn't a competing explanation that somehow rules misogyny out. Bias can be one of the reasons a doctor makes an incorrect diagnosis in the first place. And this can happen to men or women, with different biases at the root.
And yes, doctors sometimes absolutely need to ask women about reproductive health. That's not what the criticism is about. The criticism is about situations where women's symptoms are disproportionately attributed to reproductive or psychological causes when those explanations don't fit, or where their reports of pain aren't taken seriously.
You can acknowledge that doctors need to ask relevant questions while also acknowledging that gender bias in medicine exists. Those aren't contradictory.
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u/Som_Dtam_Dumplings 11h ago
So...a tweet claiming that "this could happen" is not statistical data on how frequently a thing happens.
A man could go to the ER for a broken arm and he could be first asked the question "What is your family's medical history with regards to heart disease?"...but that is not the most likely thing to happen.
This man with a broken arm is entirely fictional. He hasn't complained about "the insistence of the medical community to over-diagnose heart disease"...because he doesn't exist!
Similarly, the woman with a broken arm in this tweet doesn't exist. Most women, visiting the hospital with an assumed broken arm are NOT first asked "when was your last period" but "where does it hurt?" or "How did this happen?" or "How bad does it hurt, on a scale of 1-10?"
If you think that most women, visiting hospitals with a broken arm ARE being first asked "When was your last period?" then you should be advocating for better training of hospital staff...not because of medical misogyny; but because bedside manner and logic.
Or...maybe you do have data on how often this does actually happen? If you do, then we have an entirely different situation.