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.

虽然长久以来我们认为女人虚弱，无力，没有能力承受痛苦，但是女人对痛苦的反应却是不同于男人。

首先，女性感应到的痛苦多于男性，因为相比较男性，她们要承受的痛苦范围广。我们可以想一想，没有男人有每个月“痛苦时期”， 他们不用承受怀孕的痛苦，他们不用承受生孩子的痛苦。

如果我们仅仅从女性的角度来看待这个问题，有更多的其他的产生疼痛的混乱影响女性，像偏头痛，肠易激综合症。即使得了致命的疾病，女人的寿命也比男人长，所以他们有更长的时间来面对痛苦。

这有研究试图发现为什么女人与男人感受的痛苦不同。在这项研究中，研究人员将女性荷尔蒙和雌性激素注入到雄性老鼠身体里，并将男性荷尔蒙睾丸激素注入到磁性老鼠的身体里。结果发现雄性老鼠感受痛苦的能力上升了，而雌性老鼠下降了。

仔细想一下，雌性激素一定在这里发挥某种作用。以偏头痛为例，偏头痛能够影响女性的每一次荷尔蒙变化（青春期，怀孕，分娩和更年期）的质量，强度和频率。

其他研究者研究了经历痛苦的男性和女性的大脑的，他们发现男性和女性对痛苦的反应确实不同。