It’s a commonly held belief that women are better able to tolerate pain than men. The reasoning behind this is often that women are built to withstand pain because of how frequently they experience pain in their lives from events such as periods and childbirth. On the other hand, when a typical man gets a cold he’s often laughed at for suffering a bout of “man-flu”.
There are clear and consistent gender differences in the perception and experience of pain. But are such views really a helpful way of thinking about men and women’s pain? After all, men will never experience period pain or childbirth, so why are we speculating how they would cope in such a situation? Why do we dismiss male pain responses as exaggerated and trivial, and what effect does the normalisation of women’s pain have on treatment?
If we’re really to understand the differences, we need to move beyond simplistic generalisations. To read the full article, written by Dr Edmund Keogh, a Reader in Psychology at the University of Bath, visit: https://theconversation.com/do-men-have-a-higher-threshold-for-pain-or-are-they-just-a-bit-emotionally-repressed-25681