Pain and the sexes

The painful truth

‘That the sexes handle pain differently won’t arrive as news to any woman who has nursed a man through a mild respiratory infection, while feeling pain, from say, multiple fractures.’ MARNI JACKSON reports on an emerging new science — men, it seems, can’t even begin to ‘feel your pain’

Men and women are different. We respond differently to stimuli. We rate pain differently. This article lays out the differences in pain perception and explores possible reasons.

Anita Unruh began her talk at the congress with an anecdote. “I had left my purse back in class and when I went back to get it, there were two men in the office. As I overheard them talking, a third man joined them, and he was limping. ‘Still limping there, eh Joe,’ one of them said. ‘Well, I just had surgery two weeks ago,’ Joe replied. ‘Two weeks!’ they said, ‘bit of a wuss then, aren’t you?’ The two men chuckled, and a slightly chagrined Joe joined the laughter. It was all very good-natured.”

Nevertheless, Ms. Unruh thought the story revealed a number of things about the way we think about other people’s pain. “It implies a kind of intolerance of pain, a behaviourial inhibition of pain, and an appraisal of pain as a challenge — as something to be overcome.”

She added, “I can’t really think of a situation in which women would speak in this way to another woman in pain.

“Girls appear to feel free to express their pain, and boys may receive more negative consequences if they do. Girls also anticipate more pain when it comes to needles or other painful procedures. If you think about that, it could be a problem of girls being more afraid,” she said, “but it could also be that if you anticipate more pain, you prepare yourself to cope better with pain when it occurs to you.”

I think this is a very interesting observation. The article’s author has a very interesting web site – Pain: The Fifth Vital Sign by Marni Jackson.