This is hilarious to me, but also far too familiar. It seems all too common that problems with simple solutions are overcomplicated by thsoe trying to solve them... simply because the ones trying to solve the problem ignore the voices of those impacted by it. I wish we would more frequently ask ground-level people in the midst of experiencing a phenomenon to teach us... rather than assuming that our qualifications give us all the understanding we need. I think this is especially common in medical and psychological research.

This part of the podcast was especially mindblowing to me. I knew that in medical research women are often overlooked, but I hadn't really thought through what the consequences of that oversight could be. The fact that I, as a woman, immediately think of the "male" version of a heart attack, and that I wasn't even aware that my symptoms could (or indeed, likely will) be different, is terrifying. And the rationale, that women complicate data due to menstrual cycles etc, reminds me of pre-modern doctors writing women's symptoms off as hysteria. This outright absence of women in medical data is shocking.