Traditional folklore suggests women have a higher pain tolerance than men. I have seen a few sites suggesting otherwise. Naturally, plenty of anecdotal accounts of wussy men or women get tossed around whenever the subject is brought up which makes it a little difficult to sift through the crap. Does either sex have a higher pain tolerance than the other?
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3Mythbusters tested this and found it was also correlated to whether women had undergone a pregnancy. – Sklivvz May 06 '11 at 06:02
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@Sklivvz: Yeah, that makes intuitive sense. I would imagine that experiencing a pregnancy would change quite a few things about how you think about pain. – MrHen May 06 '11 at 13:02
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@Sejanus: Why is the sex tag not apt? This is a question about the sexes. – MrHen May 06 '11 at 13:07
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I figured it's best to keep it reserved for questions about, well, sex. As in sexual intercourse. Feel free to make a thread on tagging sexes and sex related questions in Meta if you think otherwise. Or if anybody thinks otherwise, for that matter – May 06 '11 at 16:02
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@Sej: [Meta question asked.](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/651/purpose-of-tagsex) – MrHen May 06 '11 at 16:17
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@MrHen @Sejanus Why not just make a [gender] take and use that? – JD Isaacks May 07 '11 at 12:19
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@ John: please post your opinion @ meta (link above) – May 07 '11 at 13:32
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On an aside, people with red hair have a lower pain tolerance. Anesthesiologists actually prescribe more anesthesia to red heads than non-red heads - http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2923-red-heads-suffer-more-pain.html – Scott Mitchell May 07 '11 at 21:56
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This is purely observational but I have noticed that women and men seem to be more tolerant to different kinds of pain. For example, a man might be able to handle being punched better than a women while a women might be able to handle an ulcer better than a man. **Disclaimer**: This may not be true, I have no scientific data to back these statements, I am merely sharing what I believe to have personally observed. – JD Isaacks May 07 '11 at 12:25
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I don't have any evidence to back it up, but I was taught in high school anatomy class that men tended to have higher tolerance for spike pain, while women had higher tolerance for chronic pain. It'd be interesting to see if there *was* any evidence to back that up. – Ben Barden Jul 07 '17 at 13:48
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I've often wondered about this, myself. During childbirth, women's bodies have the capability to crank out massive amounts of endorphins, allowing them to endure extreme physical duress, but does being naturally saturated with opiates = "pain tolerance?" – PoloHoleSet Jul 07 '17 at 14:20
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According to the test by Psychosomatic Medicine journal (2003), men on average have higher pain tolerance and pain threshold than women.
METHODS: To examine the influence of motivation on perceptual and cardiovascular responses to pain among women and men, different levels of monetary incentive (high vs. low incentive) were provided to a group of 81 healthy young adults undergoing the cold pressor pain procedure. It was anticipated that men would have greater endogenous motivation and would therefore be less affected by the external incentive
RESULTS: Men had higher pain thresholds and tolerances and lower pain ratings than women, but the incentive condition produced no significant effect on pain responses. Resting blood pressure was positively correlated with pain tolerance among the low incentive group, whereas blood pressure reactivity to the cold pressor predicted pain tolerance in the high incentive group.
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1There was also an interesting study about changes in pain tolerance in presence of others. They came to the conclusion that men lower their pain tolerance in presence of women and women have a higher pain tolerance when in presence of men... I'm searching for the study, but can't find it right now... – Falco Feb 12 '15 at 16:41
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User Sklivvz mentionned in a comment that the answer might depend on whether a woman has already been pregnant. If that's true (*I honestly don't know*), then this study which focuses on young adults (presumably, most of them have been pregrant) cannot mesure that effect. – Evargalo Oct 09 '20 at 12:49
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Yes, there is a difference in pain perception. To be precise though, the way someone tolerates pain is up to the individual to decide.
Citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21147542 (Sex, gender, coping, and self-efficacy: Mediation of sex differences in pain perception in children and adolescents.)
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1[Welcome to Skeptics!](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1505/welcome-to-new-users) Please quote some of the cited paper where it supports your claims. I don't see where it says "it is up to the individual to decide". The abstract says the study looks at how gender-role expectations, coping with pain, and pain self-efficacy affect pain ratings and pain tolerance, but highlights the gender differences. – Oddthinking Jul 07 '17 at 14:32
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Sex differences in pain perception have been noted in multiple studies, with women typically displaying lower pain tolerance than men, but it is unknown whether the mechanisms underlying these differences are hormonal, genetic or psychosocial in origin. For example, some researchers have suggested that men are more motivated to express a tolerance for pain because masculine stereotyping encourages it, while feminine stereotyping encourages pain expression and lower pain tolerance.
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1There are plenty of sites where low-grade trolling can evoke emotional reactions. Skeptics Stack Exchange is a moderated site, and such behaviour is not tolerated. Please remember our Be Nice policy. – Oddthinking Jul 07 '17 at 13:00
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5Note: This answer depends on the wrong sort of PR - press release rather than peer review. Finding the original paper, and quoting from its conclusions would be preferable to repeating press releases. – Oddthinking Jul 07 '17 at 13:02