Elinor Cleghorn is an “unhealthy woman” herself. She experienced pain and other difficult-to-explain symptoms for years, but doctors sent her home for a long time stating that the symptoms resulted from her emotional state. It was not until eight years later that it was discovered that it was actually an autoimmune disease.
The myth that women’s pain is often unreal, emotional or hormonal became one of the key motives for the writer and researcher to examine the history of how Western medicine viewed and views women.
In his book, he describes historical assumptions about a wandering uterus that can push on the heart; about overexcited ovaries that can harm a woman’s reproductive health; and also about a supposed disease called “hysteria” that affects women’s behavior. At the same time, however, Cleghorn adds: Although similar period beliefs sound absurd today, it is important to realize that their remnants remain even in today’s medicine.
In the interview you will read, among other things:
- Why medicine is not only a scientific but also a social discipline.
- What all, according to the doctors of the time, could the uterus cause.
- Why nineteenth-century doctors thought it was not healthy for women to read novels, play cards, or ride horses.
- For what reason, Western medicine has historically not seen women as a reliable source of information about their own health.
- And what assumptions and myths persist even in today’s medicine.
Your book is called “Unhealthy Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World.” What is your “favorite” myth about women in medical history?
I’m not sure I’d call him a “favorite”. But what inspired me to write the book was this myth: When a woman says she feels pain, the pain is said to be caused by something going on in her head rather than something actually happening in her body.
Which I consider to be a kind of basic myth in this area – and we know it persists in our culture today. It is often the first reaction that a woman who comes to the doctor with symptoms that we cannot immediately attribute to a specific disease, infection or injury. Once there is a certain mystery surrounding the female body, the standard is that
This article is exclusive content for subscribers of Deník N.
Are you a subscriber?Log in
Tags: Wandering uterus overexcited ovaries medicine historically mythologized women myths persist today
