The Gender Pain Gap Is Real

What's going on: There might be a reason you always ask a woman if she has Tylenol. In a study published earlier this month, researchers pooled pain data from more than 6 million people in 118 countries and found women report more pain than men at every one of the 11 body sites they tracked, from head to knees. (And that pain increases the most before age 55.) But here comes the hard part: getting someone to believe you. Now, a new study looking at women with autoimmune disorders (such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus) found that women took longer to get diagnosed, and were more likely to be told their symptoms were psychological . Over a third of women also wait four or more years for a diagnosis, and 43% of women had their physical symptoms attributed to a mental health condition, compared to 33% of men.