Sex differences in pain: And now for something completely different

Abstract

The belief that women report more somatic complaints than men is not new. Many centuries b.c., the Egyptians and the Greeks already made an association between female pains and hysteria, which is Greek for “wandering womb.” Despite the commonly held belief that women are more sensitive to pain than men, the issue of sex differences in pain has received little attention from the scientific community in general. It is the merit of berkley to draw our attention to this large gap in our scientific knowledge.