It’s true - although women have long been portrayed as weak, feeble, and unable to withstand pain - women do really feel pain differently than do men.

On top of that, women feel *more* pain than do men because they are exposed to it more. Think about it. How many men have painful periods? How many have sore backs from being pregnant? How many have given birth?

If we set aside the female-only issues, many other pain-producing disorders affect more women than men, like migraines and irritable bowel syndrome. Women also live longer than men do, even if diagnosed with fatal diseases, so we get to hang around longer while in more pain.

There is research going on to try to determine why women feel pain differently. In one study, researchers injected the female hormone, estrogen, into male rats and the male hormone, testosterone, into female rats. The pain threshold dropped in the male rats and rose in the female rats.

If you think about it, there must be a role played by estrogen because migraines, for example, can change drastically in quality, intensity, and frequency, every time a woman’s hormonal status changes (puberty, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause).

Other researchers have examined the brain of both men and women who experienced pain. The researchers did find definite differences in the brain reactions between the two.

雖然長久以來我們認為女人虛弱，無力，沒有能力承受痛苦，但是女人對痛苦的反應卻是不同于男人。

首先，女性感應到的痛苦多于男性，因為相比較男性，她們要承受的痛苦范圍廣。我們可以想一想，沒有男人有每個月“痛苦時期”， 他們不用承受懷孕的痛苦，他們不用承受生孩子的痛苦。

如果我們僅僅從女性的角度來看待這個問題，有更多的其他的產生疼痛的混亂影響女性，像偏頭痛，腸易激綜合癥。即使得了致命的疾病，女人的壽命也比男人長，所以他們有更長的時間來面對痛苦。

這有研究試圖發現為什么女人與男人感受的痛苦不同。在這項研究中，研究人員將女性荷爾蒙和雌性激素注入到雄性老鼠身體里，并將男性荷爾蒙睪丸激素注入到磁性老鼠的身體里。結果發現雄性老鼠感受痛苦的能力上升了，而雌性老鼠下降了。

仔細想一下，雌性激素一定在這里發揮某種作用。以偏頭痛為例，偏頭痛能夠影響女性的每一次荷爾蒙變化（青春期，懷孕，分娩和更年期）的質量，強度和頻率。

其他研究者研究了經歷痛苦的男性和女性的大腦的，他們發現男性和女性對痛苦的反應確實不同。