I don’t take many pills myself — maybe an Advil once in a while for a bad headache — but that’s about it. Over the years, though, I’ve noticed something: almost every woman I know seems to be on some kind of daily medication. Birth control, ibuprofen, anti-anxiety meds like Xanax, and a handful of other prescriptions or supplements.
It’s gotten me thinking — what’s behind this pattern? Are women simply more proactive about managing their health? Are they being overprescribed? Is this a reflection of different societal pressures or medical expectations between genders?
Curious to hear your thoughts or experiences.
Comments
Because they actually go to the doctor and we just rub dirt on ourselves and move on.
Excuse me?
Selection bias, much?
Fellas will get crushed under a tractor, scooped into buckets to be taken to the hospital, and then ask if they can go back to work the next day.
They also tend to live longer.
No connection I’m sure.
Of my 6-8 male friends, I think only 1 of them sees a psychiatrist. Dudes are just not as inclined to seek professional help as much as women are
We seek help and talk through our problems with professionals.
Am a woman. Headache? Advil. Period cramps? Advil. Know I’m not eating enough iron? Multivitamin. Depressed? Lots of Advil. But really, why be uncomfortable if you don’t have to be.
I know many women who only take birth control. That being said, I suspect supplements are more often taken my women, including a daily all round vitamin as well as vitamin D and calcium. Women are prone to osteoporosis – calcium + D are recommended. I do those plus joint supplements and Biotin for hair and nails. Once women hit menopause they may begin to take harmon replacement therapy.
Women are generally much more aware of their health, as evidently shown by the fact women almost always outlive their male partners. That’s disregarding any relationships with age gaps of more than 3-5 years, but even then, we men just take a lot worse care of ourselves.
In terms of birth control (‘The pill’), a lot of women use it because it helps with acne, a lot of women use it because they have insane period cramps, and lastly, probably a decent sized portion use it for it’s intended use, as a birth control. Just because I don’t know of any other uses doesn’t mean there aren’t other uses I’m just not aware of.
For xanax, I mean life is pretty damn stressing, though I believe high xanax usage is pretty exclusive to the united states, which also makes a lot of sense because I honestly can’t think of many western nations as stressing to live in. As a european, I know xanax use here is super heavily regulated, and in almost 9 cases out of 10, it’s only given on a temporary basis, usually a month or two, almost never longer than that. I also say the xanax bit with having experience having personally been put on xanax and flat-out refused a second dose for my own wellbeing when withdrawals hit. Turns out my doctor also fucked up in telling me I was supposed to start lowering my doses to ‘wean myself off’ halfway into the pills I was given.
I’ve met a few men, myself included, that feel meds are for temporary issues. Pain management for an injury? Antibiotics? Fine.
Something long term? Nah. Either the body will heal/adjust or you’ll die.
Many men see ongoing meds as a crutch
Stiff upper lip norms for men
You don’t get a very special trophy for stoicism on your death bed – especially if it entails performative virtue-signalling about how you work through pain. Take the fucking aspirin.
Tylenol works way better for headaches. And its better for you then advil. Advil is for muscle
It’s a really good question. I think it might be something like how a lot of men are more numb to their feelings and a lot of women are more numb to acting on their needs and end up with a body telling us something is wrong. But who knows, I’m sure it’s not one answer for every person.
Mainly because women have problems with depression, 17.7% of them are on SSRI’s for depression and 23% for 40+. women are 2.5 times more likley to be on meds for depression than men.
I think throughout history, men are more biologically disposable than women (wars, labour, workplace injuries, professional sports, women and children first) so there could be a built in instinctual drive to “keep calm and carry on” . Also between male to male competition dynamics, getting something looked into medically and having it known could be looked at as a vulnerability to be exploited by others. So deny and keep trucking.
Of course there’s also cultural influences that could impact this more than instinct
That’s just your opinion man.
Hi I’m a female and a nurse. It’s because you guys are stubborn and don’t go to the doctor. Or you do go to the doctor, take your meds for a little while then stop taking them.
Studies show that married men live longer than unmarried men and the reason is their wives make them go to the doctor.
Women tend not to neglect their health.
Well birth control is obvious because it has to be taken daily and there is no male equivalent. Painkillers can be the bad headaches and cramps from menstruating. Antidepressants like Zoloft could be because woman are more likely to speak/seek help around mental health. For benzos like Xanax, women are twice as likely to suffer from panic disorder than men. My point is: there’s a lot going on in there.
I take daily vitamins, and I’m proud that I’ve never been on any kind of mental medication.
The birth control is self explanatory. Women generally seem to be more prone to headaches. Of course there is period pain as well.
Women are also more prone to anxiety disorders. Statistically they are higher in the neuroticism personality trait.
Why women generally see a doctor more often when they get sick
Women tend to deal with more health problems they say like 80 percent of autoimmune disorders are women.
Also having a menstraul cycle can affect in different stages of your life things like headaches.
Women are also chronically gaslight at apts and have to go through so much red tape to speak.
I was read a stupid buzzfeed article that was like what did you not know about women until your moved in with your Gf and this guy was like the med stuff, my gf begged me to go to an apt to take her seriously. And said he was shocked, when he went he had full evaluation, care, test ordered.
Medical doctors are very quick to explain away women’s medical issues as depression or anxiety.
And birth control serves countless purposes beyond just preventing pregnancy.
Same reason they believe in magic rocks and astrology
I work in healthcare and aside from birth control which is uniquely female, I don’t notice a particular trend in medication taking between males and females.
Unless it’s medically needed/necessary we can handle our own shit
Women are more concerned with their health than men are, and they tend to have higher agreeableness.
As a gen X male I had a significant “men don’t need doctors and don’t take medication ” kind of upbringing in the area I grew up. I was also dirt poor so doctors for anything less than life threatening injuries was out of the question.
It took me a long time to adapt to preventative care and medication use when I moved and met my wife. The bigger city the changing times and money they had growing up they went to doctors what seemed to me like all of the time. It really took years before I settled into actually using modern medicine regularly.
Meet more women. Live more years. This is dumb
They go to the doctor more on average than men because men don’t go unless it’s in an ambulance.
My husband takes more pills than me, for his Pokemon collection of diagnosed mental health issues. I take one allergy pill a day, and both of us take a multivitamin.
I have been on birth control pills (no oral option for men), supplemental iron (deficiencies are much more common in women), and prenatals when we were trying for a kid. Part of it is just that there are more things women can maintain and treat with a pill, and part of it is getting the diagnoses in the first place, which women are more likely to seek out.
Lots of men take medicine aswell, but we dont tell anyone. I should be taking pills myself and no one knows about it
There are several factors.
First, constantly changing hormone levels during our normal monthly cycle comes with a wide range of symptoms, including, but not limited to, headaches, cramps, bloating, skin and joint sensitivity, and more. Women deal with pain more frequently in general but are still expected to be functional. Therefore we’re more inclined to use medications to help manage these symptoms.
Second, the patriarchy has conditioned men to suck it up and live with the pain because it’s the masculine thing to do. Women do not have these expectations.
Third, statistically, women are more proactive about their health in general. When something is wrong, they are more likely to seek out a medical professional early. They are also more likely to participate in preventative medicine.
Fourth, women are more likely to seek out mental health professionals than men. Therefore they have higher rates of prescriptions for antidepressants and anti anxiety meds. Additionally, the normal fluctuations of hormones they experience come with a greater risk for mood disorders.
Fifth, women have higher rates of some pain causing conditions like autoimmune disease and joint disorders, which cause chronic pain and inflammation. This, medications for these issues are more commonly prescribed to women.
Finally, women are less risk averse, including for their health. This makes women more likely to be on medications and supplements that will improve and extend their lifespan. A lot of women have a deep seeded fear of leaving their family behind, especially if they have children.
Women have doctors. Men don’t.
It’s as simple as that.
I work in a female dominated profession, and People at work laugh at me all the time. They go to the doctors like once a week or once every other week. I told them I haven’t gone since I was like 10.
I think I read somewhere that about 75% of women are relying on some sort of mental health medication around the world. Which means 25% are amongst us going around unmedicated
I have a theory as to why women take birth control and men don’t
I often wonder about this myself. I’ve never been on medication and rarely take anything even for a headache. The women in my life seem to always be worried about their meds or health insurance for meds. I’m not even sure I know a male on anti-anxiety meds.
A woman’s body does everything it can to make them miserable ranging from hormonal swings, random reproductive cramping, dropping uteral gunk out of them monthly, and then getting rid of their bone density for shits and giggles once all of the reproductive nonsense is over. Its rough lot in life. I’m certainly not jealous. I’d probably pop all sorts of pills for that shit.
They’re being waaaaay over-prescribed, especially with depression and other mood disorders.
The first answer does bring up a good point, bone loss, it hits women harder than men due to hormonal issues iirc
I bet it’s related to why women live longer.
Part of the autoimmune bit is because women have to deal with placentas during pregnancy!
“When the placenta grows during pregnancy, the organ sends signals to the mother’s immune system to change its activity so that the mother’s body doesn’t eject the placenta and the fetus. This might even mean turning down the immune system in some ways, or for some periods of time. Turning down the immune system too much, though, risks leaving women sensitive to pathogens, which would also be bad for the fetus. So instead the mother’s immune system ramps up in other ways throughout adulthood, Wilson and her colleagues think, so as to remain vigilant against germs even when some of its parts become dormant during pregnancies.
Things get complicated, however, when those pregnancies don’t actually occur.”
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Well, birth control has to be taken every day. They take it because they don’t want to get pregnant or for issues relating to their period.
It’s not a gender thing, that’s just you’re own experience. Plenty of dudes are on pills too. And you realize that BC is it’s own category, not really a ‘medication’ in the sense that anxiety medication is. This is such a dumb take, as a woman who takes no pills but knows plenty of dudes on antidepressants.
I’m a man in my 50’s, I have more than a dozen prescription pills to take daily. YMMV.
I don’t want to take birthcontrol but i have to because i don’t want a child. If i don’t take painkillers while on my period i wouldn’t be able to function for 4 days.
That women value their bodies and men don’t is a broad pattern with many exceptions but nevertheless explains a lot of differences in behavior between the sexes.
There are endless reasons for this. What I find weirdest is something like 25% of all women are on head meds according to the CDC.
Not to make a stupid pun but that is insane.
One of the parts is women inherently trust “external consensus” more than men do.
I think they’re more proactive at managing health. Gym bros are the only guys I know that will make an effort to look into supplements. I also know majority of men in my life refuse to take medication for a cold or Advil for a headache. They want to tough it out I guess?
I told my dad about how magnesium was great for reducing anxiety and promoting better sleep at night, then he said “you should tell your mom to take it” when he should really be taking it too.
Women are more likely to have anxiety and depression. Women are more likely to have PTSD than men. Women also deal with their cycles and more autoimmune disorders on average than men.
Women have much lower stress tolerance and resilience, so they take the easy way out with medications instead of actually working on their character and becoming a stronger person.
Druggies /s
I went from taking 0 pills/day to 4 pills and the only thing that changed was getting hospitalized and a bunch of other stuff being diagnosed while I was in the ICU.
Women tend to be more proactive about going to the doctor instead of waiting till something is bad enough that it lands them in the ER.
Men are, in general, more resistant to the idea of needing treatment.
No one should be taking Xanax everyday for more than a month. Any doctor predicting that is evil
Birth control is something I’d be taking too, if it was avaliable for men, so that’s propably a bit factor there. There is a promising new product being tested now, so maybe in the near future, we will have it.
I don’t think there is a single answer to this, but maybe women are generally better at taking care of themselves. Men are notorious for ignoring their health issues.
Because we have to deal with men’s shit.
I have to take pills every day otherwise I’ll die of AIDS.
Pretty much every woman I know is on birth control and most take antidepressants, I opted for a coil. Oral contraceptives do seem to cause depression, especially amongst my friends.
Last year there were some scientific studies released about pain thershold differences between men and women. Some of the results suggested that period pain was as painful as having a heart attack. Thats an insane thing to go through every month.
If we men had heart attack every 28 days, I can tell you that not only would we take ibuprofen, we would have national parades in our honour and 5 fully-paid days off work every month.
I only self medicate. K2/D3, zinc, magnesium daily
Men forget to. Lol
But actually they are less likely to see a doctor so they are less likely to get a prescription for pills to take.