For generations, women have faced an invisible but deeply damaging phenomenon in healthcare — being gaslit by medical professionals. The term “medical gaslighting” refers to situations where a patient’s symptoms are minimized, dismissed, or misattributed to emotions or stress rather than taken seriously as legitimate medical concerns.

While anyone can experience this, research shows that women are disproportionately affected, leading to delayed diagnoses, inadequate treatment, and lasting distrust in the healthcare system.

What Is Medical Gaslighting?

Medical gaslighting occurs when doctors or healthcare workers downplay a patient’s symptoms or make them question their own perception of illness. Comments like “It’s probably just anxiety” or “You’re overreacting” can make patients doubt their experiences and delay seeking further care.

This issue is especially common in women’s health. Studies suggest that gender bias in medicine contributes to a pattern where women’s pain and symptoms are seen as less credible or overly emotional.

The Gender Gap in Medical Care

1. Women’s Pain Is Often Undervalued

Multiple studies show that women’s pain is taken less seriously than men’s. A landmark study by Hoffman et al. (2001) found that women are less likely to be given pain medication — and when they are, it often takes longer for them to receive it.

Conditions like endometriosis, autoimmune diseases, and chronic fatigue syndrome are notoriously underdiagnosed and often dismissed as stress or psychological issues. Many women report years of medical consultations before receiving a correct diagnosis.

2. Emotional Bias in Diagnosis

Research shows that women are more likely to have their symptoms attributed to mental health causes, even when physical explanations exist. A 2018 Yale University study found that women experiencing chest pain were less likely to be referred for cardiac testing compared to men, despite having similar symptoms (Greenwood et al., 2018).

3. Impact on Trust and Health Outcomes

Being dismissed repeatedly can erode confidence and discourage women from seeking medical care. This delay can have severe consequences — especially for chronic or life-threatening conditions. According to Samulowitz et al. (2018), many women internalize this medical invalidation, which can worsen both mental health and disease progression.

The Need for Change

To address medical gaslighting, both systemic and cultural change are needed. Medical schools and healthcare systems must prioritize gender-sensitive training, teaching practitioners to recognize and reduce unconscious bias.

Patients, too, can advocate for themselves by keeping detailed symptom records, seeking second opinions, and bringing a support person to appointments. Women’s health advocacy movements — from endometriosis awareness campaigns to maternal health reforms — are helping shift this conversation globally.

Most importantly, healthcare providers must remember that listening is a form of healing. When women feel heard, they are more likely to trust, engage, and recover.

The Bottom Line

Medical gaslighting is not about bad doctors — it’s about a system built on biases that have long silenced women’s voices. Recognizing and addressing these biases is essential to creating a healthcare system where women’s experiences are not minimized, but believed.

Because every woman deserves to be heard — and healed.

References:

• Greenwood, B. N., Carnahan, S., & Huang, L. (2018). Patient–physician gender concordance and increased mortality among female heart attack patients. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(34), 8569–8574. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800097115

• Hamberg, K. (2008). Gender bias in medicine. Women’s Health, 4(3), 237–243. https://doi.org/10.2217/17455057.4.3.237

• Hoffman, D. E., & Tarzian, A. J. (2001). The girl who cried pain: A bias against women in the treatment of pain.Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 29(1), 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2001.tb00037.x

• Samulowitz, A., Gremyr, I., Eriksson, E., & Hensing, G. (2018). “Brave men” and “emotional women”: A theory-guided literature review on gender bias in health care and gendered norms towards patients with chronic pain. Pain Research and Management, 2018, 6358624. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6358624