Women not being taken seriously by medical practitioners

[Donna Walker]

I have witnessed this firsthand but mostly because my partner, being a chiropractor is a considered a "doctor." I find it really annoying when practitioners would rather speak to him about my health than speak to me the patient! He insists on coming with me to appointments. Last time I just got up and walked out of the room. "You don't need me right?" They just both stared at me. Ridiculous. I can only imagine the discrimination when talking about your child's health. Women being ignored by medical practitioners is very wrong and something that does need addressing.

[Samina Moiyadi]

On the contrary, I have seen doctors talking to me when it concerns my children. The same thing happened when my Grandma was hospitalized. The doctor ignored my father and talked to my mother. He said that she is the primary caregiver for my Grandma, so she should be the decision-maker. The same happened in schools, too, with both my mother and me.
But there was this one teacher in my school who would not talk properly with my mother because he thought that women should not be allowed to step out of the house. It is good that we had to bear him for just a few months.

[Schyk Marcus]

I found this to be very interesting. I have never experienced this myself so I can't really confirm or deny the statement. However, women are more emotional than men in the general sense. Maybe this is why they are taken less seriously.

[Rishaunda Lynnette Britton]

Health centers are always a place of drama, and I don't really use the action of one person or a few to judge the rest. Yes, son doctors can be cold to women in son circumstances but I don't think this attitude is being put out by every doctor.

[Bettny Andrade]

I think that would depend on the place and the culture. Truly, I have not witnessed first-hand any similar event that occurred in my community or those close to me. Obviously it happens, and I think it is part of everyone's upbringing as a person, regardless of whether they are a doctor or any other profession or trade.

[Yasmine ZM]

I personally did not experience much of this type of prejudice from healthcare professionals. When this happened (probably twice or thrice in my life), I brushed off the obvious condescendence, and kept on asking as many questions as possible until all was clarified. As women, we need to keep on insisting to have all the answers we need.

[Malthide Jones]

While I have never had such an experience, it is quite sad that women have to go through such demeaning situations. They are better and should be treated better.

[FunkyFlowerLady]

This was a really intriguing point to me as well, and it still occurs. That's just one symptom of the ongoing issues where women's medical problems and opinions are treated less seriously. Sadly, it's a common occurrence in the chronic illness sector.

[Zainab Wasif]

Indeed, this is the truth. Women are sidelined and their concerns are often ignored by the medical professionals. I have a feeling that they think that women make a mountain out of a molehill and raise a lot of hue and cry over something insignificant. But, I think it is a good idea to educate them and address their concerns in a satisfactory manner.

[Dalia Chf]

This is a very important point and an even more important topic. I can say from experience that the majority of doctors are men, and most of them haven't taken me seriously, especially when it comes to female-only problems. I objectively know that not every bump on my breast is a bad sign, but I can't help but worry. Whenever I go to get a scan and the doctor is male, they treat me like I'm a hypochondriac. Not going to lie though, it happened with a couple of female doctors too, so I think that sometimes it could be due to stress and too many patients.

[Chimezie Agbata]

I wont deny have I had no idea about. I am surprised about this because I have not heard of or witness this form of discrimination against women by health practitioners. Healthcare should be one basic thing accessible to any human and living thing I see no reason for the discrimination.

[Marie Chalupová]

I guess the doctors might be thinking that the mother is more likely to overreact when it comes to protecting her child. I definitely see myself worrying about everything slightly suspicious when it comes to my future child.

That being said, ignoring mother's voice completely is not right either, obviously. There needs to be certain balance.

[Anil G]

In my country, Mother had given priority when it comes to child's health care. Coming across with this topic, it surprised me that there are places which do not recognize the support and sentiment a mother has in terms of Medical and Health care for children.

[Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha]

That's really sad because mothers stay closer to children when they are ill and can provide more information and feedback to medical teams about how the child is doing. However, the attitude of not taking mothers seriously might be because in dire situations, they may feel that mothers are more emotional and perhaps are avoiding having difficult conversations with them. That's totally wrong though because some women are emotionally stronger than some men.

[ViviVivid]

Times are changing, and women's voices are heard more now. Women had to face many forms of discrimination throughout history, and it doesn't come as a surprise if it happened in healthcare as well. Women weren't even provided proper healthcare in most of the world until recently. But times are changing.