Women wait longer than men for emergency medical care in Scotland despite the fact they are more likely to be admitted to hospital after being seen in A&E. The Ferret analysed data on monthly waiting time rates for women and men in 27 of 30 emergency departments in Scotland, obtained from Public Health Scotland through a freedom of information request. Our research found that women waited twelve minutes longer than men in April 2023, with 60.5 per cent of women seen within four hours, compared to 64 per cent of men. Women's average wait can be up to 44 minutes longer in some emergency departments and lengthier waiting times for emergency care have been linked to worse health outcomes and increased risk of patients dying. Critics said our findings "lifted the lid on medical misogyny" and "couldn't be brushed under the carpet". Women's pain is often not taken as seriously as men's, and we wait longer for pain medication as a result. Catherine Murphy, Engender The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said the figures were "disappointing" and it was "working to increase awareness of this issue". Scottish Government and NHS health boards insist emergency departments prioritise patients by clinical need, not gender, despite the figures. Ninety-five per cent of patients should be seen and treated in A&E within four hours, but NHS health boards have been struggling to maintain this official target in the post-pandemic recovery. Only 55 per cent of 95,000 A&E patients in Scotland were seen on time in December 2022, a record low. The gender gap in A&E waiting times has quadrupled since 2021. Women waited an average 2.5 minutes longer than men before the pandemic - 2013-2019 - and ten minutes longer in the period from January 2021 to April 2023. This is despite women being more likely to be admitted to hospital after receiving urgent care. The ten-year average A&E hospitalisation rate is 33 per cent for women and 30 per cent for men. Women waited up to 44 minutes longer Gender waiting gaps widened in several emergency departments that failed to reach their waiting rate targets. At Borders General Hospital, in Melrose, female patients waited 44 minutes longer to be seen in August 2022. 65 per cent of men and 57 per cent of women were seen and treated within the target four hours. The department attends to 2,500 patients every month. At University Hospital Crosshouse, in Kilmarnock, women were left waiting 31 minutes longer than men in November 2022. Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert and University Hospital Ayr attended to women almost 30 minutes later than men in August 2022, October 2022 and March 2023, respectively. The latest available data, for April 2023, shows that women in one of the biggest A&E departments in Scotland, the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, waited five hours and 30 minutes on average. Men waited twenty minutes less. At Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, men's average four-and-a-half-hour wait was stretched by an extra 27 minutes for women. In some emergency departments, the gender waiting gap is less pronounced. At the largest urgent care centre in Scotland, the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, women waited seven minutes longer than men in April 2023. The gap at the Ninewells Hospital A&E in Dundee was just over two minutes. Average waiting gap, all Scottish emergency departments Average waiting gap, by emergency department NHS crisis exacerbates health inequalities Sarah Graham, freelance health journalist and author of Rebel Bodies, a book on medical misogyny in the UK, said there was a "complex of interlinked issues that puts women at a disadvantage" in the A&E. Cultural beliefs see women as prone to anxiety and more emotional than men, while conditions that affect primarily women - such as ovarian cysts and endometriosis - are understudied. The medical school curriculum often uses limited representations of patients. "For heart attacks, the example in the book is almost exclusively of...