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Reviews tagging 'Sexism'
The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women by Anushay Hossain
11 reviews
tender_onion's review
3.5
This was a bit of a let down for a book that was otherwise intersectional, as it failed to share/reflect on how many of the topics discussed also impact trans people, and not just people who were assigned female at birth (including trans men, trans women, nonbinary folks, two-spirit people, agender people, gender nonconforming folks, and everyone else whose gender resides outside of the gender binary).
Moderate: Classism, Violence, Medical content, Miscarriage, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Grief, Child death, Medical trauma, Rape, Suicide attempt, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Racism, Sexual violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Police brutality, Fatphobia, Gun violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic
dustyyyy's review
3.25
Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Death, and Sexism
jrrrck's review against another edition
2.0
The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women is just okay. As other reviewers have pointed out, the marketing is a bit off. The title and description should have made it more clear that Hossain's dominant focus is sexism and racism within maternity healthcare. Most of the stories, policies, statistics, and suggestions related specifically to maternal health which is just one aspect of women's health and a facet that many women do not experience! She's also notably focused specifically on cisgender women's experience; at no point are there stories or reference points that introduce how anti-trans bias affect women's healthcare (or, on the flip side, care related to pregnancy).
There's also no substantive exploration of how either anti-fat bias affects healthcare access for women or women of color, especially black women. This is a huge point of health inequity and there are resources available to address it; it's a glaring omission and weakens the overall introduction and analysis of the topic. The primary mention of it was towards the end when she quotes Regen Chastain's advice about avoiding anti-fat bias at the doctor's office (which just amounts to ... look up doctor's ahead of time? lmao). For a more helpful resource for this specifically, I really recommend What's Wrong with Fat? by Abigail Saguy.
Finally, there's very little exploration of how financial inequity within healthcare and how that negatively impacts women and women of color. Again, really surprising especially given that she correctly identifies and highlights how much the United States underperform when it comes to maternity health. But believing women and women's pain isn't the only point of inequity within women's healthcare. The prohibitive cost of healthcare in the United States is part of the inequity that is almost completely ignored in The Pain Gap.
If this book were to serve as an introduction to the topic, it would be missing major facets of the issue. I wouldn't recommend it, unfortunately. I had much higher hopes!
Graphic: Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Sexism, Racism, Child death, and Domestic abuse
sisakat's review
2.5
Moderate: Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, Sexism, Sexual assault, Medical trauma, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Sexual violence, Slavery, Racism, Medical content, Abortion, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Rape
The subject matter of the entire book is quite heavy reading. The book mostly doesn't go too graphic description on most of these, but it does cover a lot of stories involving women facing sexism and/or racism in a medical context (especially maternal/child birth situations), and the outcomes related to that. There is significant discussions of hospitals, pain, injuries, illness, and death, with both broad statistics and individuals' personal stories. There's at least a few instances it describes sexual assault, but it's written in a more informational tone, and not extended detail. There's some discussion of historical (long ago to near -present) medical experimentation. It also discusses the events of the pandemic and George Floyd protests in relating them to women's health.tmchopra's review
4.5
Graphic: Medical trauma, Child death, Pregnancy, Murder, Gaslighting, Medical content, Death, Death of parent, Sexism, and Racism
Moderate: Chronic illness, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Terminal illness, and Sexual violence
cheuksin's review
Graphic: Death and Medical trauma
Moderate: Sexism and Racism
bxtskr's review
3.75
Graphic: Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Ableism, Sexual assault, Rape, Fatphobia, Infertility, Sexual violence, Sexism, Medical content, Classism, and Chronic illness
misssleepless's review against another edition
3.0
Moderate: Misogyny, Rape, Blood, Child death, Racism, Gun violence, Medical content, Abortion, Death, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual violence, and Xenophobia
meltingpages's review against another edition
3.5
The writing is also a bit weird, a few times I thought that my audiobook was repeating sentences but the author would just repeat herself pretty frequently. I also couldn't quite grasp who exactly this was for, if it was meant to educate people not familiar with the topic or to give additional information to people who know already about reproductive justice. It also skipped around from the author's personal life, to anecdotes from other women, to quoting legislature that was passed or is being lobbied for.
Overall, it's an extremely important topic and the book is definitely worth it for that alone, but it just wasn't what I was expecting it to be.
Moderate: Pregnancy, Sexism, and Racism
Minor: Medical trauma and Medical content
atramental's review
4.0
Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Sexism
Minor: Abortion