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It's Hard to be a Woman

24/1/2012

2 Comments

 
Picture
It's nothing, I don't need a cold compress
We already know man flu is a fallacy and that it is painful for women when men try to joke about suffering from it. Man flu discussions usually lead to conversations concerning women’s endurance of pain in comparison to men. The thought being women cope with higher levels and therefore might feel less pain.

However, a study published in the wonderfully named Journal of Pain (even more wonderful than their emo teen diary title is their rapper website jpain.org) found on average women scored their pain levels 1 point higher than men.

Disappointingly the study was not comprised of poking 100 volunteers with sticks and asking them to rate the pain.

Scientists examined the pain scores of over 72,000 patients, who were asked to rate their pain on a scale of 1 to 10, 0 being no pain and 10 being ‘worst pain imaginable’. The study revealed on average women reported feeling more pain in 39 of the 37 common health problems.

The authors of the study said: "Our data support the idea that sex differences exist, and they indicate that clinicians should pay increased attention to this idea"

Women reported to experience more joint pain, digestion trouble (maybe those yoghurt adverts aren’t so peculiarly marketed), migraines and breathing disorders.

Once again however social and cultural programming rears its ugly, science results skewing head. Atul Butte from Stanford University in the US, the senior author of the study acknowledged the desire to be macho might hinder men from admitting the amount of pain they are in.

Butte said: "Men may be under-reporting it, say if they are being seen by a female nurse"

It is possible therefore, that men and women do experience the same levels of pain and the only difference is how and when they report it.

Previous studies on pain have revealed women’s pain perception can be effected by their levels of the hormone oestrogen. During childbirth high levels of oestrogen stimulate the production of endorphins which suppress pain. 

Kate
2 Comments
Glen
23/1/2012 08:41:06 pm

This 'experiment' is so full of holes it's amazing that objectivists can even take them selves seriously anymore. Desperately trying to prove their own flawed understandings of the world to be absolutely true but with nothing remotely approaching the technological or epistemological means to do so.

It would be sort of pathetic if they didn't soak up so much of the damn funding available to research, thus depriving other projects and fields of the ability to propagate themselves.

All this article actually tells anyone is that men and women say different numbers when ostensibly exposed to vaguely similar conditions and stimuli. Nothing else.

Banal barely even stretches far enough to cover my disdain.

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Squeamish Kate
23/1/2012 10:27:04 pm

There seems to have been a recent glut of these types of experiments, in which women are shown to be SCIENTIFICALLY a bit rubbish. Followed by the disclaimer 'of course, people lie, cultural pressures, etc'. More articles poking holes in them are required until they stop getting funding.

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