Previously unmentionable: A change in attitude about women's health care

The impact of the women's rights movement changed women's care -- making formerly taboo topics now a part of everyday medicine.

By Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli, amednews correspondent. Oct. 4, 2004.

In the blush of post-war 1950, women were silent about their bodies. Topics such as menopause and sexual health were rarely discussed, even in the exam room.

Gender-based treatment differences were not considered disparities. And, until recently, the understanding of the feminine experience with illness and disease generally came from studying men.

"The majority of practitioners at that time were men," says Sheila C. D'Nodal, MD, the medical director of South Nassau Women's Health Center in Oceanside, N.Y. "Perhaps because men were financially, socially and politically the dominant sex and women were usually portrayed as subservient housewives, medical complaints of women were often seen as a result of a woman's emotional natures and of lesser consequence."

But the times, they are a-changing. Actually, they already have. A historical perspective conveys how the women's rights movement and related political forces spilled over into the health care arena -- revising the way women's health is viewed by both medical professionals and patients alike.

It also reveals how women now make up a critical segment of the health care marketplace, both because they are generally high utilizers of health care services and because they often make the health care decisions for their entire families.

As a result, physicians must figure out ways to meet the needs of this patient population -- a challenge that often requires a different bedside manner and a heightened awareness of health care's gender gap.

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