Tackling Gender Bias in the Healthcare System

Jinty Sheerin is a leading advocate for womens health and equality in healthcare. As co-creator and host of the Womenkind Collective: Spill the Tea podcast, an established, independently produced show now in its fifth year, she combines lived experience with evidence-based insight to challenge stigma and drive systemic change in womens health.

Jinty leads the #WheresMyClinic campaign, instrumental in the creation of the NHS Devon Menopause Service, and co-founded Exmouths first Menopause Cafe to foster open, inclusive discussion.

A sought-after speaker and experienced yoga teacher, Jinty brings authenticity, compassion, and clarity to her work-empowering women and inspiring healthcare professionals to deliver equitable, person-centred care.

Lou Hockings-Thompson is a dedicated womens health advocate, public speaker, and co-host of the Womenkind Collective: Spill the Tea podcast and long-time collaborator with Jinty Sheerin. Over the past five years Lou & Jinty have independently researched, written, edited, and produced their award-nominated show into a respected platform for evidence-based conversations around gender bias and womens health. Lou is Jintys key partner in the #WheresMyClinic campaign and co-founder of Exmouths first Menopause Cafe. An engaging speaker who amplifies womens voices and challenge inequalities in healthcare. Drawing on her background as a hairdresser, Lou brings unique insight, warmth, and humour to her advocacy, connecting with womens everyday stories and turning them into powerful calls for change.

Introduction Heart - Your vitals are fine Chronic UTI - Fewer antibiotics than a cat Autism - Boys will be boys, but girls must learn to behave appropriately Ovarian cancer - This hospital contains more of my reproductive system than I do Vulval cancer and Vulval Lichen Sclerosus- If I believed it was herpes, I wouldnt be here now Endometriosis - Youve just got a low pain threshold PMDD - Its all in your head Anorexia - How is she working? She should be dead Birth Trauma - Stop making a fuss, everyone has babies POI - If a species is defined as a creature that can reproduce, what does that make me? Menopause - You cant be in menopause, your boobs are too big Conclusion References Index

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  Cally Beaton, Comedian, Keynote Speaker, and Bestselling Author of Namaste Motherf*ckers

  
  
  

  If youre a woman whos been fobbed off, misdiagnosed, or patronised in the healthcare system - so if youre a woman - then this book is for you. Medical misogyny gets a serious run for its money from Jinty Sheerin and Louise Hockings-Thompson, on their quest to expose the gender health gap and make sure the next generation has it better.

  
  


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  Jennifer Cox, Psychotherapist, Broadcaster, and co-host of podcast Women are Mad

  
  
  

  Staggeringly comprehensive and compassionate. A vital, urgent resource for every home. And for every clinician.

  
  


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  Nicky Denson-Elliott, Founder of The Wilder Collective and Award-Winning Host of Womens Business podcast

  
  
  

  For too long women have been told that their pain is imagined or exaggerated. This book names that for exactly what it is - systemic bias with real, sometimes devastating consequences. It manages to hold the personal and the political in the same hand. The patient stories are unflinching, and the research is meticulous, but what stays with you is the quiet, galvanising rage. This is essential reading for every woman who has ever left a doctors appointment feeling like she was the problem.

  
  


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  Fiona Clark, Journalist, Author of MenoWars and Womens Health Advocate.

  
  
  

  Louise Hockings Thompson and Jinty Sheerin have outdone themselves. An exceptional and accessible work on exactly the why gender matters in health. If you liked Invisibe Women and Do No Harm, youll love this. Its the human side and it brings home why gender matters in womens health. I couldnt not be prouder of Lou and Jinty. Theyve nailed this, showing the misogyny, the misery and discrimination that women endure at the hands of the health system, but with a blueprint to make it better. This may be a hard read for some healthcare professionals but its a must read - and a must read for all. It brings home exactly how women are currently treated and what needs to change. This book matters. Read it if you care about women and womens health.

  
  


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  Professor Julie Cornish, Consultant Colorectal Surgeon and Professor of Surgery

  
  
  

  As a doctor we are trusted to hear patients concerns in order to treat their symptoms. This book highlights the need for us to not just hear but really listen to those stories, in order for us to really make a difference. I am a big fan of Jinty and Lous podcast and the book encapsulates their fierce campaign to improve the healthcare system for women.

  
  


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  Dr Siobhan Sullivan, author of My Life on Pause, and POI and Premature Menopause Advocate

  
  
  

  Tackling Gender Bias in the Healthcare System is the book I wish every woman had on her shelf before she ever needed it. Chapter after chapter - heart disease, endometriosis, PMDD, anorexia, birth trauma, ovarian and vulval cancers, menopause - lays bare the same pattern: pain dismissed, symptoms delayed, instincts disbelieved, by the very system meant to care for us. Each condition is different, but the thread running through all of them is painfully familiar. The chapter on POI is the one I know from the inside. It doesnt just explain the condition - it tells the truth about what it costs to be diagnosed with something so poorly understood and so quietly carried. It captures the specific, disorientating grief of a diagnosis that arrives without a roadmap, and it does so with a precision that only comes from genuinely listening to the women whove lived it. What strikes me most is that this book doesnt stop at telling our stories - it hands clinicians the tools to do better: the reflective questions, the practical steps, the honest reckoning with where care has failed. That combination is rare, and its why this book matters beyond the page. Books like this change what the next woman in that consultation room is told, and what she isnt left to discover alone.