What is critically missing is compassion and curiosity. We must listen to women, validate their experiences and treat health complaints as worthy of investigation, regardless of size, background or taboos. My goal is to create space for frank conversations about menstrual health, menopause, body image and pain. I honour the courage it takes for women to speak up when ultimately the system is stacked against them.
Jana Pittman, now a doctor with six children, with her family in 2022. Credit: Wolter Peeters
If we are to close the gender gap in health, it starts with listening. It continues with real investment and more efforts in funding research, elevating lived experience and dismantling outdated stereotypes wherever they persist.
As a nation, we pride ourselves on “having a fair go”. It’s time that every woman has access to good medical care. Because every woman, no matter her shape, her story or her symptoms, deserves to be heard, respected and treated with the evidence-based care we all expect. The biases in women’s health are not inevitable. They are a choice. And so is ending them.
Dr Jana Pittman is an Olympian, world champion hurdler and registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology. She serves as clinical adviser to Juniper, a digital health platform providing medical care and treatment for women.
