Self-Help

It has long been held that biological differences between males and females directly affect the behavior and roles of men and women. Sexual dimorphism, although slight in humans, has been a subject of study after study. Where in the earlier part of this century medical science fought to preserve men's superiority in the social hierarchy, later studies should theoretically attempt to address differences objectively and without bias.

But as Edward Keogh's experiments on pain tolerance show, the scientific community, still dominated by a biological-male superiority ideology, uses a few unscientific experiments to make significant conclusions about men and women and their ability to cope with pain. More significantly, he conflates sex and gender, and fails to look at the more important social aspects to pain tolerance. The conclusions he makes about these experiments and the subsequent press releases are particularly damning to women based on a constructed fiction of gender disguised as biological fact of sex.

For his experiment, Keogh recruited 62 females and males between 18 and 39 years of age (mean = 22.24 years SD = 4.42).[1] Subjects were screened for current pain, history of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and medication use. Anyone with the following ailments was rejected from the study. The subjects were asked to submerge their hand first in a warm bath (37° C) for 2 minutes. They then were asked to submerge their hand in cold water (1° C) and were instructed to leave it in the bath until the pain was unbearable. They were asked to make note of the moment when they first felt pain. Questionnaires were used to assess their overall pain experience (Keogh, 2004).

The purpose of the experiment, Keogh informed us, was to investigate psychological techniques on the management of pain across gender. One group of men and women was asked to focus on the pain experience using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), while the other group was told to try and control or ignore their pain experience. After the two groups had finished questionnaires, they were asked to switch the coping method used and repeat the pain assessment procedures (Keogh, 2004).

The results showed that there were no significant differences across age, but that there were significant differences across gender. Men had both a slower response time to feeling initial pain and a higher tolerance of pain based on experimental criteria. Women showed a change dependent on the coping method, with ACT improving their tolerance (Keogh, 2004).

Keogh admitted several flaws with his experiment. Previous experiments showed affect of the ACT technique decreased overall pain felt but did not increase tolerance across gender. Other experiments showed the control method to actually be more effective. He dismissed these variations as due to methodology. Keogh found that women surveyed experience more chronic pain throughout their lifetime, but that psychosocial explanations may have some bearing on these effects. He explained the success of ACT by suggesting that the loss of emphasis on emotional factors meant that women could benefit from the approach, suggesting that a woman's emotionality is what affects her ability to cope with pain. The implication was ultimately that there are differences in the way that men and women experience and deal with pain and women are most responsive to suggestions on how to improve their experiences (Keogh, 2004).

There were a number of problems with this experiment and the subsequent conclusions made by the author. The methodology for selecting subjects, the actual experiment, and the means of gauging experimental results all required too many baseless assumptions to conclude anything about the outcome.

The subjects were students from Goldsmith's College, University of London. The students were asked if they were healthy and that information, coupled with their young ages, allowed researchers to make the assumption that none of the subjects had ever experienced chronic pain (Keogh, 2002).

But this assumption disregards the greater likelihood of men to participate in physical jobs as well as contact sports. According to the General Household Survey, men are significantly more likely to participate in sports regularly or competitively (34%) where only one fifth (21%) of women in the UK do so. Even more significantly, 40% of women said they participated in no sports whatsoever. The subjects were not surveyed on their athletic participation or their employment histories, so in the spirit of Keogh we can assume that the men actually did have greater experience with chronic pain through sports and physical labor, than the women did, based on customary gender roles in the modern UK. If this is true, then the men would have been more prepared to tolerate pain in the ice experiment (Sport England, 2002).

Another area that was completely avoided was that of race and class. The subjects were not polled on their background and their races were not recorded. White working class individuals or minorities would also be more likely to have worked physical jobs. Without recording the distribution across genders, there is no way of knowing whether the experiment was skewed by such factors. With such a small sample size, a few individuals affected by these factors could profoundly affect the outcome.

The experiment itself was problematic. Females on average are smaller in mass than males and no consideration was taken to this fact or metabolic differences across the sexes. With the assumption that there was congruence with sex and gender in this experiment, the men and women should have experience cooling affects at different rates from the basic physics principal that larger masses take longer to cool in the same conditions. If pain is directly related to rate of cooling, then women would have actually experienced the pain sooner and more sharply than men based on this fact.

Finally, the method of gauging pain through questionnaires shows that the variations they were testing for were not biological at all. Using questionnaires similar to that of sociologists, the patients were asked to rate their experiences. These questions are entirely subjective to the individual and will be dependent on the socialization of the participant.

The problem then with the conclusion is that it is not a conclusion of biological differences but a conclusion of social differences. That being said, the conclusion shows bias toward men. The research concludes that women have a lower tolerance for pain but that they may be taught to increase that tolerance, but any number of conclusions could have been made from the experiment that might have had a more positive light on women. From the experiment, we could conclude that women are socialized to be in touch with their bodies. We could also conclude that women are socialized to have a stronger sense of survival. Likewise, we could that men are socialized to be macho, that men are more experienced with pain, or that men fail to take themselves out of harms way despite signals instructing them to do so.

While it may seem trivial that a researcher from the University of Bath conducted a few experiments on pain and gender, the results of the experiment went beyond the paper published in the European Pain Journal. In response to the results from this experiment as well as several others, the University wrote a press release about the research. The title "Women feel pain more than men, research shows," was phrased in such a way to reinforce the weakness of women. Like Keogh's conclusion, it lacked a foundation to stand on, but continued on for four pages with a discussion of Keogh's research in laymen's terms. The press release focused on differences in pain experience across gender but repeatedly mentioned women's emotionality and lower pain threshold (U of Bath, 2005).

The release was not without consequences. A slew of newspapers published responses to the press release. Articles began appearing in newspapers around the world with titles like "Women Have Lower Pain Barrier" (UK Times, 2005), "Women Less Tolerance of Physical Pain: Study" (Earthtimes, 2005), and "Truth Hurts: Women Feel Pain More than Men." (The Scotsman, 2005). The original journal article, published in a small European journal, made little impact on gender roles, but the press releases helped reinforce the ideology of a biological basis for women being in a place of subordination.

While many women take for granted that we live in an age of equality and opportunity, Keogh's research illustrates a very real threat for women. In the age of technology and information, research, loosely grounded in reality, has the potential to hit popular culture by storm through ill-researched media responses.

The newspaper articles that responded to the research focused on there being a biological basis for pain. In The Scotsman, a prominent woman marathon runner, was shown crippled by pain in Athens. The newspaper contained the quote "Paula Radcliffe was forced to quit the marathon in Athens with just a few miles to go." The paper didn't focus on Radcliffe's achievements at other athletic events, but rather a prominent failure.

The UK Times opening line was "A woman’s ability to get in touch with her emotions is a severe handicap when it comes to dealing with pain." Again the focus was on pain experience as a negative feature of women. The responses of the other newspapers were similar. Few dissenting voices were published, and the majority of the articles failed to question the validity of research, or more importantly, the logic behind the conclusion.

As we well know by now, the news media seldom question the factuality of scientists' data, or the motive behind their research. When it comes to writing headlines, newspapers frequently go for the most outrageous or angering lines that they can imagine. The goal is not to report about research, but rather maintain the status quo in order to sell their stories. Knowing that the news media is primarily motivated by money, rather than a desire to deliver the truth, the burden is on the scientific community.

Scientists are supposed to be rational, unbiased, and governed by the desire to find the truth. It is essential to question the premise behind an experiment and what underlying ideologies might be influencing the structure of research. Keogh claims to be searching for ways to better manage pain, but his careless approach has helped contribute to the patriarchal structure that limits women's visibility within the medical community in the first place. His research, a small experiment on 62 individuals, is serving as another biological basis for the oppression of women.

Sociologists and the women's movement have strived to break away from the biological system for explaining gender differences. The Social Construction Theory helps to explain how the intersection of political, economic and social forces helps to construct gender. Men and women are the main categories of gender in Western society, but the gender roles associated with these gender vary across time and cultures, showing that there is little biological basis for attributes of men and women. The biological diversity of both genetics and physical structures among humans further confounds the notion that the differences between men and women can be attributed to differences between males and females.

Keogh makes an attempt to attribute variations in gender to socialization. His psycho-analytical approach to pain coping mechanisms shows that he is not entirely blind to the social elements of gender. However, there is still much work to be done by researchers such as Keogh. The scientific community has the power and resources to make a profound impact on women within society. Politicians and media regularly consult scientists before forming their own opinions. Knowing this, researchers like Keogh, should select their language carefully. Language that marginalizes women should be avoided at all costs.

We also have a responsibility to question the validity of such experiments and recognize the forces of patriarchy and language at work. We should question news reports and look for the scientific sources. Through careful and decisive action, we can force the scientific community to hold themselves accountable when their experiments are detrimental to the equality for which women so desperately strive.

Brown, Craig "Truth hurts: women feel more pain than men." The Scotsman July 2005. Scotsman online, August 4, 2005. <http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=738372005>

Keogh, Edmund, et el. "Comparing acceptance – and control-based coping instructions on the cold-pressor pain experiences of healthy men and women." European Journal of Pain. December 2004 (1-8)

Koganowich, Zipporah. "Women less tolerant of physical pain: study." Earthtimes. July 2005. August 4, 2005 <http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/3427.html>

Smith, Lewis "Women have lower pain barrier." UK Times. July 2005. Times Online. August 4, 2005 <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1680660,00.html>

Sport England "Women's participation in sport: Fact sheet." 2002. Sports England. August 4, 2005 <http://www.sportengland.org/womens_participation_factsheet.pdf>

"Women Feel More Pain than Men, Research Shows" Press Release July 2005. University of Bath. August 4, 2005 <http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/paingender040705.html>

[1] At this point I am going to make an assumption for the author of the study that all the biological females were social women, and the males were men, since he uses the term interchangeably. For the remainder of my paper the terms men and women will be used, as this was the true basis for pain differences in the experiment. Also, the term gender will be used to refer to the differences between the two groups.