We Are Not Listening To Women and It’s Getting Expensive and Unhealthy For Everyone.
Women’s Health, Jobs, Income and Start-Ups Numbers Are Trying To Tell Us Something
When I see multiple indicators producing a clear and dangerous signal, it grabs my attention. I’ve been observing a few cross-trends with the same roots for a few years and they all indicate one thing: We are not listening to key women’s health, employment and economic indicators and we should be.
Four are worth keeping a close eye on this coming year: 1. An enormous amount of evidence is mounting that women’s health symptoms are getting ignored. Similarly, it is clear women’s symptoms are different from men’s across a wide swath of medical issues but are not widely understood. 2. Women in the workforce have lost significant ground in advancement since COVID, particularly women in medicine 3. Pay inequity is not getting better for women 4. Venture Capital is still funding male startups almost exclusively.
Women’s Health Is Not Understood. I cannot say it any simpler than this: women’s symptoms and health concerns are not listened to or addressed by healthcare providers nearly as well as men’s issues. Let’s look at heart disease, the number one killer of women. Prevention Magazine reports that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed post heart attack and 33% more likely after a stroke. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that it became required for clinical trials funded by the federal government for women to be included. Similarly, female cancer symptoms vary significantly in some cases from men’s cancer symptoms in illnesses like colorectal cancer, bladder cancer and lung cancer. Further, side effects of oncology treatments are more common in women than men. When presented with these symptoms, doctors tend to not always seem them as significant or urgent. To that end, The Katz Institute has initiated a study of doctors “gaslighting” patients into believing nothing is wrong or “all in your head”. The following vignette says it all.
From the Washington Post, 12/13/22
My wife of 35 years complained of intense abdominal pain for over 5 years. She was dismissed. My wife returned home from work and begged me to take her to the ER because her pain was unbearable. In the hospital a female physician’s assistant did what multiple doctors had not done: She believed my wife. After a series of tests, she diagnosed Stage 3 ovarian cancer, and 18 months later, my wife died.
-MICK, SOUTH CAROLINA, 69
Interestingly, a recent Annals of Internal Medicine study published in April this year found unequivocally after studying 800,000 patients 65 years and older, patients with female doctors were less likely to die or be readmitted to the hospital vs. patients with male doctors. The number one reason: listening and actively be innovative with treatment ideas. Further, “female physicians may have fewer gender biases than male physicians in assessment of symptoms and illness against female patients,” according to the same study.
Women have lost ground in the workforce in recent years. According to a McKinsey study, women are nearly 1.8 times more vulnerable to unemployment, primarily because caregiving falls to them more than men. To make matters worse, childcare is largely unaffordable making up 7-10% of household income. During the pandemic and after, 29% of women surveyed report anxiety, depression or alcohol overuse due to employment issues according to a Compass Rose International report. Because of all of these issues, Fortune Magazine estimates there are nearly 380,000 women at all levels of employment who are “missing”, that is to say, they left the workforce during or after the pandemic for a wide variety of reasons. Further, even though women are 51% of the population, 58% of all college graduates and 47% of the labor workforce, they make up only 10% of F-500 C-suite roles.
Turning to healthcare, female doctors are being “chased out” as the Chicago Sun-Times reported on 6/12/24. According to that same Annals of Internal Medicine study mentioned earlier, “when compared with male physicians, female physicians are more likely to practice evidence-based medicine, perform as well or better on standardized examinations, and provide more patient-centered care”, and yet, “almost 40% of women physicians go part-time or leave medicine altogether within six years of completing their residencies” (University of Michigan 2019 study). The reasons for this departure is they are systemically paid less, overlooked for promotions and in operating rooms face a “likability penalty,” or a gender surcharge, even when they have been encouraged to be assertive or exert leadership.
The gender pay gap, as of 2024 in the United States is still significant, with women earning around 84 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same job. This has changed very little in 20 years. According to Forbes Advisor 3/24 reporting, the gap is even wider for women of color, with rural Black and Hispanic women earning just 56 cents for every dollar earned by rural white, non-Hispanic men. Latinas are paid 55% of what non-Hispanic white men earn, and Native American women earn 59 cents. Important to note, the 84 cents on a dollar widens to 82 cents at the entry or junior level.
Venture Capital organizations continue to have extreme bias toward male founded startups. Studies show that male founders raise almost 50Xs more capital than female counterparts. This disparity can be attributed, in part, to subconscious biases utilized by venture capitalists during the pitch deck stage. While it will be a surprise to nobody that entrepreneurial support is not at all democratic or fair, it is much worse for female founders. In 2023, women made up only 11.1% of founders in the VC space, and less than one in ten new founders in sectors where VCs are most likely to invest. In 2022, companies founded solely by women received only 2% of all VC investment.
Equal Ventures has studied this inequity and reports the lack of diversity in venture capital is significant: 58% of venture capitalists are white men, 20% are Asian men, 11% are white women, 6% are Asian women, 2% are Black men and 1% are Latinx men and less than 1% are Latina. Important to note to better understand the bias, is that the real issue is the leaders, executives, funders and investors in venture capital are 93% white males.
What Does All This Mean? We need to listen to women. Physicians need to listen to women’s symptoms and address them, but also direct more medical studies to the apparent differences in women’s symptoms and conditions. It is also clear, we must find a path to getting those nearly 380,000 women missing from the workforce, back into employment. Regarding the pay-gap, we need legislation to better address this issue and force companies to address it, but also women and men executives have to stand up to bullies in the workforce who discriminate based on gender, specifically in medicine and finance where it is most egregious. Finally, we as a society, must create better access and opportunity for female entrepreneurs and female investors. The best innovations are being starved because we still live in an old boys’ network when it comes to funding startups.
What Would Happen If We Actually Addressed These Issues? Many good things and quickly. We could reduce heart disease and cancer deaths significantly by earlier diagnosis of women’s symptoms. If women’s workforce participation elevated to 50%, the United States would add $1.9 trillion dollars to the economy. As a proof point, across the globe, 4,161 companies increased their revenue by 1-2% when they achieved a 10 % increase in gender equity pay. Women-led startups tend to outperform their male counterparts. Typically, women-led startups provide a 35% higher ROI and a 63% higher valuation. They also tend to hire more women. In the aggregate, more female run companies would produce more revenue and have more women employees.
In practicality, what should we do, day to day?
1. Be your own health advocate, and make certain you or the women in your life, help physicians understand, listen to and address women’s symptoms, earlier
2. Hire women, particularly female doctors
3. Pay women
4. Fund women
Carry on good warriors!
Some Good News: In great news for the climate, the rate of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest halved in 2023. This is the lowest rate of deforestation in 5 years for the world’s largest rainforest.