From the hysteria to the fibromyalgia, “women's diseases” that are repugnant to the Law

Abstract

A critical approach, from a medical perspective, to the exclusion of women from disease research is projected onto a masculine human model. This has led to different diagnoses and treatments depending on the patient’s sex. It is more likely that, when faced with the same complaint or symptomatology, psychological attributions are made to women and physical attributions to men. This devaluation of “women’s diseases,” coupled with the stereotype of moral inferiority, sustains the so-called gender pain gap, from hysteria to fibromyalgia, and has also had its harmful effects on women in the legal field. As a paradigmatic example, the now repealed RD 1971/2022 of December 23 is analyzed, through the recent ruling of the TSJ of the Canary Islands of December 19, 2024 (Rec. 1198/2023) and its dissenting opinion, in relation to the invisibility and omission of assessment of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, which are eminently feminine diseases.