Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine And Myth in a Man-Made World

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Recovery was slow and thankfully, flare ups were rare and uncommon. however, as time goes on and the body changes, my flare ups have become more frequent and the pain has only become more crippling and debilitating. oftentimes, you can find me in bed looking more like the second picture than the first. it took me almost half a decade after my injury to receive a diagnosis. I wasn’t listened to on account of my age, not only by medical professionals but by some closest to me and was passed from specialist to specialist to be simply told there isn’t much to be done. in severe cases, degeneration can reach the point where wheelchair use is necessary and surgery is complicated. thankfully, I’ve managed to come to terms with my illness and manage my own needs and symptoms accordingly. I have a wonderful group of friends, family and work colleagues who listen to my needs and go above and beyond to meet and surpass them. UNWELL WOMEN is a powerful and fascinating book t hat takes an unsparing look at how women’s bodies have been misunderstood and misdiagnosed for centuries. ‘ Lindsey Fitzharris Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World is a 2021 non-fiction book by Elinor Cleghorn. Cleghorn provides a cultural history of the impacts of misogyny on western medicine and western medical practice. [1] Summary [ edit ] I expected to give this book a 5-star read. This is an issue very near and dear to my heart, and I have written about some of my own painful experiences of sexism and objectification in the medical system. The topic is crucial and timely.

The overall purpose of this book can be summarised by the title of the final chapter conclusion, which is: Believe Us. If you have a chronic illness, know someone with a chronic illness or you are a woman who has ever had to deal with a medical professional's disinterest then this book is for you. It took my mum over 7 years to be diagnosed correctly and even now she continues to face doubt and flippancy when seeking medical treatment. It didn't take me quite as long to get diagnosed with chronic pain but I have definitely bought into the culture of minimising the pain and even sometimes being embarrassed about seeking treatment through fear of not being believed. About half of the women I know have similar experiences and those are just the ones I've spoken to about it. I'm almost tempted to buy bulk copies of this book and drop them in my doctor's waiting room like a nerdy vigilante. Im zweiten Kapitel „Ende des 19. Jhdt. bis in die 1940-er Jahre“ zeigt Cleghorn, wie die Frauenbewegung „nicht nur für Wahlrecht und politische Beteiligung“ kämpfte, „sondern auch gegen die Bedingungen und Umstände, unter denen Leben und Freiheit von Frauen beschnitten worden.“ Zu dieser Zeit war die Medizin aus der Sicht der cis Männern viel weiter, aber für Frauen hieß es noch unter Schmerzen zu leiden. „Selbst wenn sich eine Frau die Betreuung durch ihren Hausarzt oder einen Geburtshilfearzt leisten konnte, erhält sie eine Anästhesie nur, wenn er fähig und bereit war, sie einzusetzen.“ Auch hier glaubten viele Ärzte, dass die Anästhesie gefährlich für die Frau ist, weil „die meisten Mediziner vertraten zu dem die Ansicht, sie selbst könnten die Schmerzen der Geburt am besten beurteilen.“ We are taught that medicine is the art of solving our body's mysteries. And as a science, we expect medicine to uphold the principles of evidence and impartiality. We want our doctors to listen to us and care for us as people, but we also need their assessments of our pain and fevers, aches and exhaustion to be free of any prejudice about who we are, our gender, or the colour of our skin. But medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. The history of medicine, of illness, is a history of people, of their bodies and their lives, not just physicians, surgeons, clinicians and researchers. And medical progress has always reflected the realities of a changing world, and the meanings of being human.'Her conclusion is a passionate call to arms: by speaking out and sharing our stories, women can empower one another to challenge the stigma that has historically attached to female experience. “To be an unwell woman today is to fight against ingrained injustices against women’s bodies, minds and lives; but we no longer have to live in silence and shame,” she writes. Unwell Women is not just a compelling investigation, but an essential one. The content also helped me better understand my grandmother and mother as women, given the way society and the medical world treated them, and given what they’d grown up believing about themselves. Common debilitating women's illnesses such as endometriosis takes several years to diagnose, even though one in ten women suffer and are incapacitated for a couple of days a month. I am one of them. I am still undiagnosed because the gynecologist thinks the bumps he feels on my uterus are scar tissue. I have scar tissue, but it's not actually on the outside of my uterus since that was never cut. Two days a month, for decades, I take several grams of common pain medication to be able to function. I thought this was normal, because no one tells you that periods aren't actually supposed to be that painful. Women's pain though, according to the medical profession, is something to grin and bear. There are much worse examples, with worse consequences. There's some time given to Fibro and ME/CFS, but aside from that the only autoimmune condition that gets any real spotlight is lupus, which the author has. The chapter titled "Autoimmune" is the story of her own diagnosis, which was compelling and painful. At one point she claims that lupus is the most common autoimmune disease, and I'm fairly certain that's not accurate. Type 1 diabetes is more common, and so is rheumatoid arthritis and various thyroid conditions.

We still have some work left to do to fix medicine and I hope we can do it where its fair to everyone and no one is discouraged/dismissed. An] eye-opening new book. . . . Cleghorn meticulously constructs an often enraging framework to evince how and why the patriarchal medical world has been so detrimental to women, especially underserved women and women of color.” She consistently uses the term "ovariotomy" to refer to oophorectomy. Ovariotomy literally means an incision into the ovary, such as in ovarian cystectomies; it does NOT, in current and common medical usage, refer to REMOVAL of the ovary. British readers, help me here: is this term commonly used in UK to refer to oophorectomy?Elinor Cleghorn: ‘There is a sustained note of anger running through the book.’ Photograph: Lara Downie

A searing, brilliant investigation, an intricate and urgent book on how women’s health has constantly been misunderstood and miscast throughout history, how men invented theories that plunged women into misery, pain and even death – from Anne Greene hanged for a miscarriage to the 1940s housewives lobotomised or subject to other operations to treat their depression, from drugs intended to ‘control’ women’s health that were rushed to market to women experimented upon in the name of science, the cruel differential treatment of women of colour. Cleghorn unmasks with devastating clarity how so much of ‘women’s health’ has been tied into efforts to control women, inculcate what was proper feminine behaviour and slot them into patriarchal culture as happy reproductive units.”Anne Green joined a grand house in an Oxfordshire village as a scullery maid during the 1640s. She was raped by the owner’s nephew in 1650 and became pregnant. Four months later, Anne went into labour. Her son was stillborn and she buried his body near a cesspit. Soon, he was discovered. Anne was put on trial for attempting to conceal the death of an illegitimate infant, which she was found guilty of, and was sentenced to hang. After Anne was pronounced dead she was taken to the anatomists who had been permitted to dissect her body. When her coffin was opened, Anne appeared to be breathing. To put her out of her misery, a male servant stamped on her. The next morning, the anatomists heard a whisper from Anne’s throat. ‘She had been hanged, stamped on, and lay in the cold for hours. But she wasn’t dead’ (70). Ann was revived by the anatomists and later retrialled. Ultimately, Anne was pardoned. It is likely she wouldn’t have been without the testimonies provided by the male anatomists who concurred with the local midwife and fellow servants that Anne’s pregnancy was in its early stages; that the baby would have not been able to survive under any circumstances. however, I know my fortune is an exception and it does not cancel out how I and countless other women have been treated at the hands of medical professionals for centuries. in this brilliantly detailed account of medical history, cleghorn diligently documents the evolution of medical science from the ancient Greeks to today, with a personal recantation of her own experience with lupus. it should come as no surprise to any of us that medicine still has many significant strides to make to ensure that it’s an inclusive space not only for white women, but women of colour, trans women and disabled women, many of whom have faced the most gruelling hardships and cruelties in the name of medical science. Elinor Cleghorn has written a sprawling history about women’s health and the various ways it was misunderstood and sidelined within medicine, and the lingering impact of decisions made centuries ago. Treat Unwell Women as if it’s a textbook. You’ll be armed with the necessary information to advocate for yourself with all of the medical practitioners tasked with treating you.” In Unwell Women, Cleghorn provides an extensive history of how feminine anatomy, physiology, and psychology have been studied and manipulated—mainly by men—and how they have often been used to oppress the female sex. . . . Meticulously researched. . . . Cleghorn’s final message should be heard loud and clear: Believe women.” The part of this book that disturbs me is the complete absence of attention to fatophobia in treating women. In her introduction, for example, she details many intersections of oppression that women face, focusing on racial issues, which are certainly crucial. However, she neglects to even mention in a passing comment that women's body size is arguably the number one issue that keeps women today from getting the help that they need from the medical system. And this oversight continues through the entire book.

in a book condemning men for not caring about women in medicine, this author has the gall to describe the excitement of male doctors when they finally have a female cadaver to study - an example demonstrating both the clear desire to study female anatomy to better understand us *and* the actual sexism against men who were clearly disproportionally affected by law. But we still make it about "men bad, women good".

A] fascinating new book. . . . At once an enraging, meticulous history and an intimate personal story, Unwell Women is an exploration of women’s unique and (often fatally) misunderstood treatment in medicine, and a call to change our deeply engrained assumptions about healthcare.” BUT: if you, like me, practiced ObGyn for many years, you may cringe at some of the inaccuracies and odd terminology the author uses. The rest of this review may be too technical to be of use to non-medical readers.