How Taboos Around Women’s Bodies Still Sabotage Healthcare

It’s 2025, and yet women are still not receiving the healthcare they deserve. Despite decades of progress, cultural taboos and systemic biases around women’s bodies continue to shape medical research, diagnosis, and treatment, often with devastating consequences.

When women’s needs are dismissed

Take the case of Professor Bronwyn Graham, director for the Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine at the George Institute for Global Health. When she was bitten by a dog while 12 weeks pregnant, doctors refused her the standard preventative antibiotics because they weren’t listed as “safe” in pregnancy. They only treated her after the wound became infected—exposing both her and her baby to more risk, not less.

This is not an isolated case. Women around the world continue to experience a healthcare system that hesitates, delays, or dismisses their needs because their bodies are viewed as “too complicated” or “too risky.”

The gender health gap in numbers

• Women are underrepresented in clinical trials, even when they make up the majority of those living with a condition. For example, women account for 60% of psychiatric patients, yet make up only 42% of trial participants.

• Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, killing three times as many women as breast cancer. Yet symptoms are still taught as though they present in men only, leading to underdiagnosis.

• Funding disparities are stark: Between 2014 and 2023 in Australia, endometriosis research received $9.6 million, while vulvodynia research received $0, despite affecting up to 1 in 5 women in their lifetime.

• Pregnant and breastfeeding women are excluded from most medical trials, leaving doctors with little evidence to safely treat them.

  
  

The legacy of taboo

Much of this stems from the way medicine has historically viewed women—as reproductive bodies first and people second. The thalidomide tragedy of the 1950s and 60s, where a drug for pregnancy sickness caused severe birth defects, led to an overcautious exclusion of women from clinical trials. Instead of careful inclusion, women of childbearing age were broadly shut out, creating a knowledge gap that persists today.

Taboos around menstruation, vulvas, and fertility also stifle research. Breakthrough studies—like research showing that menstrual fluid could help heal chronic wounds—struggle for funding because of the stigma attached to women’s biology.

Progress, but slow

There are signs of change. Some funding bodies now urge researchers to consider sex and gender differences in study design, and more conversations are happening about inequity in healthcare. But in many countries, this remains guidance—not policy.

Experts stress that inclusion of women—especially pregnant and breastfeeding women—in trials is essential. As Professor Amanda Henry of the University of New South Wales points out, “Pregnant women are fully functioning adults. They deserve access to effective, safe, and evidence-based medicine.”

Why this matters

This is not just about fairness—it’s about outcomes. Women continue to be misdiagnosed, undertreated, or given the wrong medications because their bodies are not properly represented in research and healthcare design. Ignoring half the population has consequences: longer diagnostic delays, unnecessary suffering, and avoidable deaths.

The way forward

• Mandate sex and gender inclusion in all clinical trials.

• Fund research into female-prevalent conditions such as endometriosis, vulvodynia, and autoimmune disorders.

• Normalise discussion of women’s bodies—from menstruation to menopause—so stigma no longer blocks progress.

• Trust women to make informed decisions about participation in research, rather than protecting them through exclusion.

  
  

Women deserve healthcare that sees them as more than wombs, symptoms that are taken seriously, and treatments grounded in evidence, not taboos.