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A review by wordwoonders
Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World by Elinor Cleghorn
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I... have complicated feelings about this book. For being 300 pages, it shouldn't have taken me almost all of July to read and yet here we are.
The beginnings were promising, the book started strong and I was excited to see the connecting thread of medical misogyny through the ages (as someone who is both chronically ill and in the medical field). It was a frustrating read and it fueled my rage, which pushed me to read more. But those feeling quickly waned and faded around 20% into the book. It was both dense and quite surface level. Very long winded and repetitive, in a way where the author repeatedly wrote "man doctor bad" in one form or the other. And I do not disagree with this message. I, in fact, strongly agreed with it, but the reader does not explicitely need to be told that, it is a conclusion that is very easy to draw when you read what they have done and have put women through.
Although I knew a lot of what was written this book taught me a few things and I can appreciate it for what it would do for people who are first delving into the topic. Especially since the author makes a point of talking about the disparity of treatment of well off white women in comparison to poor women, women of color, Black women and women from other marginalized communities. And it does not shy away fron describing the horrors women have been subject to.
The beginnings were promising, the book started strong and I was excited to see the connecting thread of medical misogyny through the ages (as someone who is both chronically ill and in the medical field). It was a frustrating read and it fueled my rage, which pushed me to read more. But those feeling quickly waned and faded around 20% into the book. It was both dense and quite surface level. Very long winded and repetitive, in a way where the author repeatedly wrote "man doctor bad" in one form or the other. And I do not disagree with this message. I, in fact, strongly agreed with it, but the reader does not explicitely need to be told that, it is a conclusion that is very easy to draw when you read what they have done and have put women through.
Although I knew a lot of what was written this book taught me a few things and I can appreciate it for what it would do for people who are first delving into the topic. Especially since the author makes a point of talking about the disparity of treatment of well off white women in comparison to poor women, women of color, Black women and women from other marginalized communities. And it does not shy away fron describing the horrors women have been subject to.