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A review by sebrittainclark
Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World by Elinor Cleghorn
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
This books starts with Hippocrates and the ancient Greeks and works its way through history to lay out the misinformation and bias against women in Western medicine has and continues to affect the way women are treated and diagnosed with disease. At lot of this history is brutal. Terrible things have been done particularly to BIPOC, disabled, and poor women throughout history, and this book does not shy away from that truth.
This book isn't an easy read, but it's an important one to understand the biases that exist in medicine today, like how many women don't know the signs of a heart attack because popular media focuses on the signs that appear in men. Or the multi-year process it takes to get a diagnosis of a chronic, or autoimmune disease, both of which disproportionately affect women.
This book isn't an easy read, but it's an important one to understand the biases that exist in medicine today, like how many women don't know the signs of a heart attack because popular media focuses on the signs that appear in men. Or the multi-year process it takes to get a diagnosis of a chronic, or autoimmune disease, both of which disproportionately affect women.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Ableism, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Misogyny
Moderate: Sexual assault, Rape, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Miscarriage, Abortion, Infertility, Blood, Cancer, and Death
Minor: Eating disorder