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Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper: Changing the Landscape of Women’s Health

Writer: Emanuelle Wong
Emanuelle Wong
Sep 1
4 min read

Let me introduce you to a horror story – a woman confined to the four walls of her room is driven insane by a repulsive yellow wallpaper. I know what you’re thinking. What’s so frightening about that? But hold on, there’s more.


Written in the late 19th-century, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short story told from the perspective of a mother suffering from post-partum depression. Against her wishes, her husband – a doctor – instructs her to stay in a nursery upstairs to recover from her “slight hysterical tendency.” The plot unravels with the narrator’s thoughts as she descends into lunacy, tearing down the ghastly wallpaper with her. Ultimately, the story reveals a social commentary on the systemic challenges faced by women in both professional and personal lives, and the desire to regain agency and autonomy. It also reveals the inadequacy in care and support for the physical and mental health of women, which sadly still persists to this day.


Does Living Longer = Living Better?


On average, women outlive men by 5 years yet spend 25% more of their lives in poor health. From unsatisfactory treatment to misdiagnoses to plain dismissal and neglect, prejudice and discrimination remain rampant in the medical system. The National Women’s Health Advisory Council conducted the #EndGenderBias survey in 2023, where almost 3000 women, healthcare professionals, and stakeholder groups were asked to share their experiences in the health system. The results? 2 out of 3 women reported health care-related gender bias & discrimination, and 4 out of 5 respondents reported such an experience on behalf of someone else. It’s disappointing but not surprising. How often have we heard instances of women being told to “suck it up”, that they are “drama queens” and “faking it”? Or that chronic pain and fatigue is merely psychological? These biases lead to delayed diagnoses, mistreatment, and lasting consequences for all women. For example, it takes roughly 4 to 12 years for endometriosis to be diagnosed and treated even though the condition is estimated to affect 190 million women worldwide, thus demonstrating large gaps in women-centred health studies.


How Much Do We Know About Women’s Health?


Women have long been underrepresented in medical research due to a variety of factors such as historical bias, financial restraints, and challenges in recruitment and retention in clinical trials. This has resulted in difficulties in understanding healthcare experiences of women – especially women of colour, and limitations in developing good treatment plans for different conditions. Until the 1990s, women were largely excluded from clinical trials, meaning that medications and treatments were primarily formulated according to male biology. And the effects linger on – a study from UC Berkeley suggested that women experience adverse effects from medications nearly twice as often as men. Furthermore, while non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death among women globally, efforts in improving healthcare for women are concentrated around sexual and reproductive health, resulting in a disparity in management and treatment of NCDs. In fact, classic symptoms such as severe chest pain that we see in television and movies all the time are more commonly present in men, while symptoms that women are more likely to experience, such as fatigue or indigestion, are often underrecognised.


Although the discourse around mental health has grown significantly, public funding for research and care falls behind that of physical health, particularly for women. Physicians in Ancient Greece deemed wandering wombs to be the cause of mental distress or “hysteria”, erroneously implying that the physiology of women was at fault – a concept which lingered on for centuries. Then came the accusations of “witchcraft” in the Early Middle Ages, the narrative of “neurotic disorders” in the 19th century, and a higher likelihood of being treated with psychotropic medications compared to male counterparts. As a study aptly puts it, “They are either dismissed, discouraged, or drugged.”


Changing the Landscape


Advocacy for women’s health has hit significant milestones in recent years. Following 14 years of research and 22,000 survey responses, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has officially been renamed as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS). The initiative was led by Professor Helena Teede from Monash University, and marks a breakthrough in understanding the condition to be a complex, endocrine disorder instead of an emphasis on cysts, thus reframing it to be hormonal rather than reproductive. This change is expected to lead to more accurate diagnoses and earlier medical interventions. There are more women pursuing leadership in healthcare and more diversity in clinical trials than ever. Still, we must continue to seek progress and dismantle the stigma surrounding women-centred healthcare, until no one is trapped behind the yellow wallpaper.


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1 Comment

Olivia Tjahjadi
Olivia Tjahjadi
Sep 01

Such a fascinating read on women's health landscape! It's really sad how women's mental and physical health is still not taken as seriously these days :(

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