Pain Tolerance between Genders

Pain tolerance between genders is a topic that researchers have been looking more into in the past recent years as well as the publications that regard sex, gender, and pain have increased at a greater rate over the past 25 to 30 years, so it was about time to revisit this literature. The abundance of evidence from recent epidemiologic studies demonstrates that women may have a higher risk for clinical pain conditions, though there is the suggestion that postoperative and procedural pain is more severe to women more than men.

In the mid-1990s, several influential review articles along with other events, that drew considerable attention to the topic. And in 1992, someone named Karen Berkley had published something important, they highlighted the importance of sex-related issues in neuroscience research. The brief paper had included 100 surveys from reputable neuroscience journals, and which, 45% of the journals had failed to present the sex of their test subjects. The author stated, “… the differences between females and males, which we all know to be important, can and should be exploited in scientific research.”

And shortly after, an editorial appeared in The Journal of Pain, it had encouraged the studying of differences between men and women, the topic which had been out of favor for a while until the 1980s and the emphasis on gender equality. The two publications had reflected and created increased interest in studying the differences between the sexes and pain, but that also led to the question whether there is consistent support for the differences in the prevalence of pain, or possibly whether or not sex differences exist only for selected pain conditions. The reviews of the Now onto the more painful and exciting part of this research.

It is believed that the Egyptians may have been the forerunners of many beauty rituals, they invested the most time into hair removal. The women of ancient Egypt removed all of their body hair, including the hair on their heads, with tweezers that were made from seashells, pumice stones, beeswax, and sugar-based waxes. During the Roman Empire having no hair was considered to be a sign of classes. Wealthy men and women would remove their access hair using flint, tweezers, creams, and stone. Even pubic hair was considered to be uncivilized, which is why many famous statues of Grecian woman are often hairless.

For example, Cleopatra, she was a trendsetter during her time, and so was Queen Elizabeth I as well, during the middle ages. She set the ideal for hair removal among women, who followed her by removing the hair from their face and not their bodies. The trend during her reign was removing eyebrows and hair from their foreheads which they often did this to make it seem larger, this was done by using walnut oil or bandages soaked in ammonia where they would get from their pet cats, and vinegar. During the18th century, presented a much more civilized approach to hair removal. Although European and American women didn’t think too much about it at the time, Jacques Perret, a French barber, had made the first razor for men in 1760, which had been used by some women.

By the time it was 1844, someone had made the first depilatory creams that were called Poudre Subtile, the person who made this cream went by Dr. Gouraud. In 1880 King Camp Gillette had created the first modern day razor for men and thus so a revolution was born. Although, sadly it would be another three decades before the modern day razor for women would appear. During the early 1900’s Gillette had created the first razor that was specifically meant for women, which was called the Milady Decolletée.

Also during this time, depilatory cream hit the shelves. In 1907 is when an ad for X-Blazin Depilatory Powder came around and started promising “‘humiliating growth of hair on the face, neck, and arms.’”(Slide 6 of 11, History of Hair Removal) Soon after an ad from a leading women’s fashion magazine, featured a women with her arms up and her armpits bare, supposedly the first of it’s kind.

In 1940 Remington released its first electric razor for women, after it’s successor the male version. This was due to the wartime shortage of nylon so hair removal products had hit the shelves, so women were forced to go out bare legged. In the 1950s hair removal had become more socially acceptable, seeing how creams were still irritating to the skin, so women began to rely on razors in order to shave their underarms and legs, as well as tweezers to shape and groom their eyebrows. A decade later waxing strips began to make their debut and was the new way to remove unwanted hair. In the midsixties, laser hair removal also hit the market but was drawn back due to the skin-damaging tendencies.

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