Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine And Myth in a Man-Made World | 
#12Booksof2024 August
This book made me so mad while I read it, and now just thinking about, I get mad all over again about all the injustices and maltreatment of women
pickThis was a tough read, especially now, but I wasn‘t going to extend my hold after waiting for it since July. The whole book was interesting, but I preferred the parts that pertained to more modern medicine. I wish there was something about how to advocate for myself, my daughter, and my mother. #SheRead @Riveted_Reader_Melissa #36by36 @MatchlessMarie #NFN
#TodayILearned #NFN
Initially doctors thought only men could have MS even though now we know women get it at much higher rates than men. In women it was just diagnosed as hysteria.
I made it out for two walks today and with this rage inducing listen I made really good time. Grrrr.
The last two days I listened to the Cybersecurity Daily podcast. There was some interesting stuff about cybersecurity and the election.
Today I started the tagged book which is full of valuable but infuriating information. Today‘s learning/deep thought was about the Covid-19 pandemic and the response which essentially decided who deserves health.
#TodayILearned #NFN
pickThis one has taken me a while to get through, as I knew it would when I picked it up for the August #SheSaid selection. It's been infuriating to read about the historical lack of understanding, the dismissal, and the downright indifference of the medical community when it comes to women's health when I am so fresh off living the reality. Almost exactly one year ago, a 13 cm tumor was found on my right ovary. I have spent this past year working ⬇️
pickAs a woman working in healthcare this hit hard. Not usually a reader of non-fiction but this is so well researched and written. I couldn‘t put it down. #pick #unwellwomen #healthcare
pickThis is such a thorough, complex history of women, health and medicine. There is nothing new but this remains an important discussion of how men and medicine has treated women over centuries. Warning - it is enraging and at times distressing.
Read with #SheSaid @Riveted_Reader_Melissa
pick#ReadAway2024 #ForTheLoveOfBooks
Finished today for #SheSaid this is an interesting & infuriating book that caused me to “rage read” & need to put it down a lot so I didn‘t throw my library print copy. My library audiobook came in this week so I finished it up yesterday & today, “rage listening.” 🤯😤🤬 About women‘s experiences with the medical establishment throughout history, it‘s not that I didn‘t know a lot of it but having it laid out ⬇️
pickI've been reading the tagged for #SheSaid August #buddyread I have to take it slowly as the content is enraging. Cleghorn writes about the treatment of women by medical men over the centuries, from wandering wombs to hysteria and everything in between.
Highly recommended.
pickIt‘s been awhile since I was this angry while reading a book, and the last time was when I read Invisible Women. Angry because this really highlights all the wrongs women have gone through all the way back to the Greeks. Women has only been seen as carriers of babies and mothers, and anyone else are seen as threats. Even if things are far from perfect in 2024, I‘m still happy that I‘m living now.
And the suffragettes, I knew they were fighting
Hello #SheSaid! I‘m still far behind on this one, and I know a few others of you got late starts as well.
How is it going? Getting there slowly, but surely?
pickThis is basically a history of women's health as it was shaped by male doctors and other mostly male influences. Super interesting.
#SheSaid @Riveted_Reader_Melissa
#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks
Cleghorn has turned her attention to diethylstilboestrol (DES), a synthetic oestrogen.
Who could ever thought that this was possible? I‘m speechless
pickAs a woman diagnosed with hEDS in the last 1.5 years, this book is so validating. It also explains so much of my own experiences with medical professionals. The EDS explains so much of my life history. This book is such an important starting point, this should be required reading for any medical professional to be licensed in the 2020s.
👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
pickWhile I liked this book for the most part, covering the history of women and medicine from ancient times to the present is a bit much to take on, leading to some topics being treated sparely. Because Cleghorn focuses on mostly Western Europe and the USA, she was able to narrow her focus somewhat. I liked that the experiences of marginalized people weren‘t completely ignored. When I finished this, I started The Women as my new #audiowalk book.
Hello #SheSaid!
bailed#SheSaid I HAD to stop reading this book. The history of the millennias of women‘s lack of rights, especially when it comes to her body and health is extremely important. It‘s also extremely depressing and anxiety provoking. I was willing to read the entire book IF, at the end, actionable changes were proposed. So I skipped to the end to see if there were any such proposals made, and there weren‘t. Of course, we have to take charge of (cont) ⬇️
Statistics from the 1910 US census
I listened to more of this on my walk at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, and my daughter and I listened to it on our trip back home. She was even more outraged than I am! That Vulcan statue is my favorite in Birmingham because of the flowers on him. #audiowalk
I really wanted to read this month‘s #shesaid selection via audiobook, but I cannot. The narrator is the same woman who narrated Butter and I‘d rather shove ice picks in my ears than listen to her. 😭😭 #camplitsy24 has traumatized me 🤣🤣
Before I left with my daughter on a quick trip to Birmingham, I did a short #audiowalk (with a stationary bike warm up and cool down) at the rec center. Unwell Women is really interesting.
Hello #SheSaid!
I‘m still behind, but starting to make some progress. Sorry, some unwell women in my household at the moment too…my mom had back surgery last Friday…. But I‘ll get caught up eventually. I hope everyone is learning lots and if not enjoying the topic, enjoying knowing you are not alone or imagining some of this stuff.
The Victorian men really didn‘t want women to read now, did they?
#SheSaid
Makes you wonder what kind of births he has been present to
#SheSaid
Little George is watching the Olympics, and Wash is helping me do nighttime yoga. I‘m just appalled listening to this book because it‘s making me think about what must be the astronomical number of women who suffered and died because of ridiculous notions of modesty and propriety. #audiowalk
Sir, it‘s called smut. If you were the least bit engaging in any way that was not condescending af, we wouldn‘t need it (probably). Also, since your lot have cut off women from literature for ages now, I think it appropriate to ask who exactly was reading that smut before putting this on record? (*whispers* we all know it was you bro)
I‘m sorry, what? NONE of this makes sense, but men can “seek gratification” (we all know what that means), but women are going to bed early with a short candle after spending hours doing hard labour for zero reason? Or is the short candle a suggestion of alternative treatments only women would know about? Why does this feel like something the Republican Party could spout in a debate any moment now?
Bro has seriously NEVER been “speculumised,” clearly. There is nothing exciting or “erotic” about it. I‘d say let‘s soeculumise these morons and see how the feel, but I have a nagging little feeling they might enjoy it after all. 😏😉 I‘m beginning to think “Unwell Men” might be a great alternate name for this book. They are the weirdos in this tale.
#ElinorCleghorn #UnwellWoman #forrealdude #forrealbro #clearlyclueless #clueless #disturbedmen
I found my way to this book via a post by the #shesaid group. I have to say, what a wonderful choice! I am so in love with this book already, and it is exactly what I needed right now. It even ties into How to Think Like a Woman with a wonderful discussion of Mary Wollstonecraft‘s horrific death.
#ElinorCleghorn #UnwellWomen #audiobook #MaryWollstonecraft
Listening to Unwell Women for #SheSaid and #audiowalk. I also listened to it while riding the stationary bike, but not while doing yoga. It‘s interesting and infuriating.
Hello #SheSaid!
I‘m a bit behind this week, but I hope the rest of you are enjoying our new selection. I‘ll catch up soon and meet you in the comments.
Up next for #SheSaid!
Put in your library holds & interlibrary loans!
pickThis the book that every women should read! Sometimes it was hard to read because it was devasteting what psychians did with women throught history.
pick“…it is impossible to separate the issue of my gender from the sense that my disease is not perceived as legitimate.”
After years of suffering and not being taken seriously, Cleghorn was finally diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Here, she explores the history of discrimination against women by the medical field and the pervasive idea that our pain is emotional rather than physical.
While still a problem, Cleghorn ends on a hopeful note.
pickAbout how medicine considered (and sometimes still considers) women as the “other”.
One of those books that will make you angry. And grateful you‘re not living two hundred years ago.
Or twenty...
It would‘ve been more interesting if I hadn‘t known most of this information already. Which, in hindsight, is a good thing—means we‘re finally getting somewhere.
3.5/5
Currently reading this book and it‘s very hard not to get angry, be horrified or disgusted by the treatment of women throughout the history of medicine. It is such a compelling book and so engaging.
pickpickCleghorn writes about the history of medicine and its treatment of women‘s health issues from BC times to the present. A lot of focus on early gynecology since women were seen as walking incubators and nothing more for most of humanity‘s existence. Later chapters focus on endocrinology, hormonal birth control, and autoimmune disorders. Cleghorn writes about her own experiences with her lupus diagnosis.
pickThis is a history of healthcare and misogyny from BCE to now in 350 pgs. Since women were seen as walking wombs for a few thousand years 🙄, there‘s a lot of gynecology from the ancient “wandering womb” theory to modern endocrinology. In the most recent chapters, there‘s the developing study of autoimmune disorders and their effect on women. The author has SLE and writes about how her journey informed this book in the final chapter. Fascinating!!
pick4/5
This books 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.
