When President Donald Trump warned pregnant women to “fight like hell not to take Tylenol,” he unlocked a brand new level of anxiety for a population already battling so many stressful decisions. (Is it safe to stay on an antidepressant? Should they stop taking their prescription blood thinner? Or discontinue their acne medicine or nasal decongestant?) He claimed, without sufficient scientific backing, that acetaminophen use in pregnancy could be linked to autism. On Truth Social, he doubled down in his signature all caps: “Pregnant women, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.” Even though expecting women have been taking the fever and pain reducer safely for decades, doctors warn they’re now already seeing patients panic about Tylenol after Trump’s remarks.
But here’s the truth: Tylenol is one of the safest medications available for pregnant people. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the United Kingdom, and numerous peer-reviewed studies all support its safety when used appropriately. In fact, both organizations recommend acetaminophen as the safest drug for pregnant people. Medical experts say it’s dangerous to encourage women to suffer in silence and “tough it out.” Untreated pain and fever during pregnancy not only increase the risk of congenital disabilities but can also cause preterm birth, low birth weight, miscarriage, and other health problems. But when have facts ever stopped men from dictating women’s pain management?
Trump’s comments shouldn’t be viewed in isolation. They are part of a larger, deeply entrenched pattern: women’s pain being minimized, politicized, or outright dismissed.
This topic is very personal for me. While researching for my book, The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women, I spoke with almost a hundred women with various medical issues, such as endometriosis, sickle cell anemia, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and ovarian cysts. For many women, living with these extremely painful yet “invisible” conditions means waiting seven to ten years before anyone takes their symptoms seriously enough to make a diagnosis. All the women I spoke with had their pain dismissed by medical professionals — usually men — and were told their symptoms were “all in their heads” caused by depression, anxiety, or stress. Very quickly, a pattern emerged: Every woman has a sexist medical story of not being believed or knows a woman who does.
I myself nearly died giving birth in one of America’s top hospitals when my epidural fell out and my pleas for help during a 33-hour labor went ignored. My debilitating pain was dismissed until the staff finally realized what had happened. This culture of disbelief is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, women’s pain has been minimized or pathologized, often written off as “hysteria,” a term used for centuries to explain away women’s physical and emotional suffering.
And the legacy of “hysteria” lives on. Today, we see the same pattern play out in pregnancy and labor, where women are encouraged to minimize suffering, even when untreated symptoms pose greater risks than the medications meant to relieve them.
Current research shows that 81 percent of women between 18 and 24 report having their pain dismissed or minimized by healthcare professionals, often with real consequences for their health, careers, and mental well-being. In comparison, men’s pain is taken more seriously. Researchers find that women in pain are much more likely than men to receive prescriptions for sedatives rather than adequate pain medication.
Most research and experts suggest women are actually more sensitive to pain than men.
The irony here is that while the idea that women have a higher pain tolerance has been around forever, most research and experts suggest women are actually more sensitive to pain than men.
But it’s not just reproductive health where women’s pain is minimized or the blame is placed on them. Take heart disease, the leading cause of death for women in America and the world. Yet, because we still view it as a largely “male disease,” women are more likely to have their symptoms written off as anxiety and get dismissed from the hospital mid-heart attack (!).
There’s more: Women make up the majority of people who suffer from chronic pain conditions, about 80 percent, yet a study by Academic Emergency Medicine finds that women who went to the emergency room (ER) with severe stomach pain had to wait almost 33 percent longer than men with the same symptoms.
Even birth control isn’t free from our refusal to believe women about their bodies. Intrauterine devices (IUDs) have been on the U.S. market for nearly four decades. They are one of the most common and effective forms of contraception, yet the excruciating pain many women endure during insertion has long been minimized or ignored. For decades, women were told that the procedure involved only “mild discomfort,” even though countless patients described the pain as agonizing. Despite this, the medical establishment offered little acknowledgement and no formal guidance until last year, in 2024, when the CDC finally updated its guidelines, recommending that clinicians counsel patients on the “potential pain.” Finally, new guidelines from them and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) stress discussing medications and methods available to manage pain and anxiety during an IUD procedure.
It took a social media movement — not professional expertise — to have women’s pain recognized as real.
And why now? Not because of decades of women’s complaints documented in exam rooms, but because hundreds of women flocked to TikTok to share their horror stories. Only when those stories went viral did the medical community finally take notice. It took a social media movement — not professional expertise — to have women’s pain recognized as real.
When leaders undermine trusted medical advice, it’s women who pay a higher price. We already live in a healthcare system where women are encouraged to “tough it out.” We already face systemic underfunding of research into health conditions like endometriosis, fibromyalgia, and migraine. Now, we have political leaders fueling fear around safe medications. The Tylenol panic is a symptom of a bigger problem: a society still unwilling to believe women when they say they are in pain and something is wrong.
Women’s pain isn’t a footnote; it’s data. We must start taking it seriously. We must demand that we will not go back on pain relief or on any other aspect of women’s health. Trump’s Tylenol comments were not just misguided; they were a window into the much deeper issue of medical misogyny. For centuries, women’s pain has been minimized, whether in delivery rooms, emergency rooms, or doctors’ offices, and too often women have been told to just “deal with it.”
However, women are no longer willing to suffer in silence. Why should we? The science is clear, the stories are endless, and the evidence is undeniable. The question now is whether we are finally ready to listen — and to close the pain gap in women’s health once and for all.
Anushay Hossain is an author, women’s health advocate, and host of The Pain Gap podcast. You can follow her on Substack and Instagram.
