Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World is a 2021 non-fiction book by Elinor Cleghorn. Cleghorn provides a cultural history of the impacts of misogyny on western medicine and western medical practice.[1]
In Unwell Women, British cultural historian Cleghorn provides a history of the ways in which western medicine has abused and dismissed women and women's health issues.[2][3][4] The book's feminist critiques focus largely on medical practice in the United States and United Kingdom.[5] Cleghorn's research covers over 2000 years, beginning with Hippocrates and continuing to 21st-century medicine.[6] The book has eighteen chapters over three parts: Ancient Greece–Nineteenth Century, Late-Nineteenth Century–1940s, and 1945–present.[7]
Cleghorn was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus in 2010, following her second pregnancy, after dealing with symptoms for more than ten years.[8][5][9] This experience led her to research lupus in the 19th-century which gave her insight into the medical treatment and mistreatment of women's pain.[10] Cleghorn's experiences with lupus are chronicled in Unwell Women.[11][12]
^Hoda, Raza S.; Hoda, Syed (10 December 2021). "Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World". American Journal of Clinical Pathology. 157 (5): 799. doi:10.1093/ajcp/aqab152.
^Ellialtı-Köse, Tuğçe (7 December 2021). "Book review: Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-made World by Elinor Clegnor". European Journal of Women's Studies. 29: 195–198. doi:10.1177/13505068211065664. S2CID245110400.