Is the “Gender Pain Gap” Made Up?

Nurofen is a brand name of pain-relief medication made by British multinational Reckitt, which kind of sounds like “Wreck It!”, which could almost be the motto of the far left, as they seem to enjoy wrecking everything. Anyway, Nurofen have recently been running this campaign regarding women’s pain: “I do believe that if it was a man going through the same thing, it would be handled differently.” They use words like “believe”, not exactly scientific language. Basically, Nurofen are suggesting that women’s pain is being ignored in society, where men’s pain is not, and apparently, they have evidence! “Nurofen Gender Pain Gap Index Report 2024”, sponsored by, you guessed it, Reckit! The owners of the pain medication company. Does anybody else smell “conflict of interest” here? I certainly do.

According to the report, 1 in 2 women feel they had their pain ignored. It shows a diagram stating, “Over half of Australian women (55%) feel their pain is ignored or dismissed compared to just 48% of men”. 48%! Isn’t 48% essentially half of men. I thought there was going to be like 3% of men or something, but no, it’s almost half of all men (if indeed this credible research is correct). Okay, sure, there’s a few percent difference, but it’s not like it’s massive. And the fact that so many men are also affected by this, shouldn’t the focus be on reducing the pain of all people, not just making this a women’s issue? Is this not a contrived issue? Is it not just made up?

Remember, this is all about feelings, so isn’t it possible some men, stereotypically, are less likely to report this issue due to their masculine image, or whatever. And also, is it not possible, stereotypically, that some women are more emotionally responsive than men, and more likely to report this? Does this Gender Pain Gap honestly exist, remembering a pain-relief medication company sponsored this.

Of course, this made the news: “Gender Pain Gap: women’s pain ignored and dismissed”. Noting that very same research found that almost half of men also had the exact same issue, but that doesn’t seem to have made the headlines.

The woke left government of Victoria have also jumped on the bandwagon with the Allan Government releasing a statement earlier this year: “The Gender Pain Gap Revealed – And Women Aren’t Surprised”. And of course, they’ve found another way to waste your taxpayer money by running a do-nothing Inquiry into Women's Pain. The premier also sent out a number of tweets last month with one saying, “We know women are dismissed, ignored and gaslit in relation to their pain.”

So who are women being dismissed by? According to the Australia Institute of Health and Welfare, in their 2022 Health Workforce report, “In 2020, the female/male ratio of the overall number of health professionals was 2.9, with a total of 476,000 women and 166,000 men registered and employed in Australia’s health workforce.” So there are almost three times as many women working in health as there are men, so if women’s pain is truly being ignored, it’s being ignored by other women. 64% of Australian pharmacists are female. So again, if female pain is truly being ignored by pharmacists, it’s being ignored primarily by other females, noting that Nurofen also found that 48% of men’s pain is also being ignored.

But any lady who’s honestly concerned that her male doctor is dismissing her pain, surely she can seek out a female doctor. They’re everywhere, aren’t they? My doctor is a lady, and I didn’t even try! Actually, two of the three doctors at the local medical centre are ladies! So what are Nurofen banging on about?

Speaking about Nurofen, it didn’t take too much digging to find out they’ve been a little bit misleading over the years. In 2015, the Australian Consumer watchdog, the ACCC, launched proceedings against Reckitt for misleading advertising. The Federal Court found that Reckitt had misled consumers with its “Nurofen Specific pain range”, things such as Nurofen Back Pain, Period Pain, and Migraine Pain, and so on, with the ACCC saying the products were found to be “no more effective at treating the type of pain described on its packaging than any of the other Nurofen specific pain products”, containing the “same active ingredient, 342 milligrams of ibuprofen lysine”, and sold for almost twice the price, with the court ordering that the products be removed from retail sale within three months.

So, do you trust Nurofen’s research funded by its parent company Reckitt? Do you buy into this Gender Pain Gap nonsense? I certainly don’t. This research is a beat up. As you’ve probably already realised, Nurofen aren’t actually trying to reduce the so-called gender pain gap. They’re trying to sell more medicine!

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