A review by se_wigget
Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness by Barbara Ehrenreich

5.0

 

 

Early in the book I felt angry and suspected this would be one of those books where every page infuriates me. But the sheer absurdity of male doctors' bizarre attitudes toward women in the late 19th & early 20th centuries makes me snort. I keep imagining a satire reminiscent of Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. The film Hysteria comes to mind. 

 

Basically, male doctors made up crazy misogynistic shit to keep ladies in their "place" and to get their wealthy husbands to keep the doctors in business. It was a culture of hypochondria. 

 

Simultaneously, working class women were expected to work tirelessly and never be sick... because they didn't have money to pay doctors. 

 

19th century doctors claimed that women's most important organs were their reproductive organs and that using their intellects would harm their uterus and their ability to have babies! I guess being extremely not a breeder is a big "fuck you" to these assholes. 

 

This book is very short and was published in the 1970s. I'm glad it addresses how the medical industry treated/treats women differently depending on race and class, but it has a heteronormative slant. 

 

"... hysterics never had fits when alone, and only when there was something soft to fall on (p. 86)."