The health of female-bodied people has long been a thorny problem. Those in charge of medicine and health have so often been men, and the “default” or “correct” body has been thought to be male. I’m not just talking about in Victorian times or something — in modern times, medication has often only been tested on men, because women are inherently too variable and would throw off the results. (This makes a certain sense when you think about good experimental design, until you remember that the medication is supposed to work for women too, and will be given to them without further testing, so we really should actually know about the effects of the hormone cycle on it.)

Elinor Cleghorn’s book aims to discuss that history, to discuss the whys and wherefores and the impacts on women, not just now, but in the past, and not as something that’s necessarily getting better, but as something which still affects women now — including herself. It’s not just that women’s bodies are considered strange and different, but the experiences of female-bodied people about their own bodies haven’t been believed, and they haven’t been trusted to have any insight or understanding.

Obviously this book is a hard read in that way, chronicling a lot of mishaps and a lot of misogyny, some of it completely institutionalised. But it’s a useful one, if you want to take a good hard stare at it. None of it was too surprising for me, but that’s because I’ve gone out of my way to know this kind of thing; I know some folks for whom it would be revelatory. It’s certainly one place to start in understanding why the health of female-bodied people hasn’t been prioritised, and why that still affects people living now.

One of the best non fiction books I have read - very well researhed, engrossing and well written, covers a staggering amount of information, written in a very inclusive way... I could go forever. I have learnt a lot but the way the information is presented is very engaging, so I did not feel bored or overwhelmed. A must read.

I found this to be a well researched and insightful read into the subject of women and medicine. The gaslighting, the constant ignoring of symptoms or misdisgnosis - I think most women have experienced this at some point in their life, and this book did a really good job at highlighting why this still happens, as well as where it started. If anything, I would have liked more of the current situation in medicine and what can be done to change the misogynistic attitude that still prevails, however this was still an illuminating read.

This is an incredibly powerful non-fiction book looking at the history of how women have been treated in western medicine over the centuries – it covers ancient Greece and medieval times right up to the present day. It’s such a fascinating book but also anger-inducing at the way women have suffered – and still suffer – due to the lack of research and understanding into female diseases and illnesses. I’m someone who has dealt with more than my fair share of doctors who have been very dismissive of me only for it to later turn out that they made a huge mistake that has cost me dearly in terms of health. This book really highlights how entrenched medicine has always been in maintaining something of a status quo but it also gives hope seeing the rise of female doctors, and male doctors who want to understand and further others’ understanding of female diseases. It’s a shocking read and one that will make you angry but it’s very comprehensive and well written and I definitely recommend it.

Unwell Women is an impressive piece of work which, in the style of Women in Power by Mary Beard, takes us on a feminist journey through the history of Medicine, with a focus on the medical field perception and treatment of women’s bodies illnesses, from Ancient Greece to this day. And the long battle women fought to be given a proper seat at the table of the medical community.
An important conversation starter, this book is meticulously researched, packed with historical facts and reading it should not be rushed.

Here, Elinor Cleghorn shines a light on the androcentric nature of the medical community, and how it has been misunderstanding, mystifying and misdiagnosing women's bodies for centuries.
We watch organised religions and the ruling class use medicine to control women's bodies and lives with bewildering diseases and notions, such as Hippocrate's “wandering womb” and poisonous vapors, medieval witch hunts, or the infamous Hysteria. Puzzled by women's anatomy, all illnesses are conveniently traced back to our capricious uteri.
Unmarried, childless or strong minded, intellectual women posed a threat, and these characteristics were most often at the root of illnesses, or the mark of the Devil.

For centuries, women's voices have been silenced, discredited and undervalued. Emotional and with a weaker constitution, the root of women's pain was often brought down to emotional distress and mental illness, rather than being seen as the consequences of it, even with physical evidence to the contrary.
Also touching on class and racial bias, Cleghorn shows how diagnosis and treatments were based on the upper class lifestyles and needs, and how slaves were used as guinea pigs for the advancement of gynecology, as “they didn’t feel pain”.
She draws parallel with experiences of women today, and her own experience with a long battle to be diagnosed with Lupus, to show how these centuries-old misconceptions are still affecting our diagnoses.

While this book will resonate with anyone who has had their pain dismissed or misdiagnosed, I think everyone would benefit from reading it, to get a better understanding of why medicine is still plagued by gender and racial bias.

Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn is a thoroughly researched and detailed journey through medicine from its very roots in Ancient Greece right through to modern day. This book, however, focuses on breaking down the stereotypes and myths of health and illness in women, it is packed with case studies throughout the ages where women have suffered, been misdiagnosed, ignored, experimented on and ultimately failed repeatedly for centuries. Elinor Cleghorn has also investigated the women who have steadily brought about positive change and stuck their heads above the parapet for women’s health rights and it is clear how this momentum has gained over the last couple of centuries alone. Despite the leaps and bounds made in more recent times, there is still a long way to go and I was shocked by some of the information uncovered in this book, in how recently some significant changes in laws and medical opinion has been altered.

For anyone like me, who enjoys a brilliant medical non-fiction book, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Elinor Cleghorn has made the vast amount of research accessible and turned what could be a dry subject into a piece of work which is enjoyable to read, she has left no stone unturned in this book. Elinor Cleghorn draws on her own experiences of being diagnosed and living with a chronic condition, and I could feel her exasperation with the enduring misunderstanding of medicine and the need for her to write this book. It has taken me longer than expected to read in its entirety, but that is purely because I wanted to appreciate each section and didn’t feel this book deserved to be rushed. I will absolutely be buying myself a physical copy to refer back to frequently.

I thought this book would be more memoir, but it was pretty much entirely a history. This is not a problem with the book itself but perhaps a problem with the marketing, as I was looking forward to personal experience interweaved but this book is strictly chronological. It's also strictly Western which I think should be included in the copy. The other nitpicky thing I would say is that the early history in Greece, Rome and the medieval period is really rushed through compared to the later history. I understand this is a problem of sourcing and a lack of case studies which were included later but it made the first part feel weak and potentially even unnecessary. I also felt the inclusion of force feeding of suffragettes undermined the point of the book somewhat. Perhaps talking about accusations of hysteria made sense, but Suffragettes were not unwell women and the force-feeding they endured was also forced on male conscientious objectors to ww1 in the same decade so it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. It could also maybe have been more trans inclusive.

All of those issues are quite small however, because I did really enjoy this book once it got to around 1750. The use of case studies to humanise statistics I thought was done really well, the case was built very carefully and to me felt very well done. I could see shades of the treatment of women in the past today, and in each section could see how the history was built upon. The writing was compelling and after the first two sections I whizzed through the book with a little angry burn in my chest and the horrific treatment, while often hard to read was well pitched. I'm glad it included aspects of medical colonialism. I would have loved more of the personal aspect to the book, but I do think the case stories of other women worked in this respect.

Absolutely fascinating and thought-provoking. Told in a personal and compelling way. Made me reassess and understand my own experiences. Highly recommended.

UNWELL WOMEN is a powerful and fascinating book, as a woman with autoimmune conditions it is so frustrating being dismissed or being told it’s all in your head! This was a brilliant read and heartbreaking too!

'We are taught that medicine is the art of solving our body's mysteries. And as a science, we expect medicine to uphold the principles of evidence and impartiality. We want our doctors to listen to us and care for us as people, but we also need their assessments of our pain and fevers, aches and exhaustion to be free of any prejudice about who we are, our gender, or the colour of our skin. But medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. The history of medicine, of illness, is a history of people, of their bodies and their lives, not just physicians, surgeons, clinicians and researchers. And medical progress has always reflected the realities of a changing world, and the meanings of being human.'

In Unwell Women Elinor Cleghorn unpacks the roots of the perpetual misunderstanding, mystification and misdiagnosis of women's bodies, and traces the journey from the 'wandering womb' of ancient Greece, the rise of witch trials in Medieval Europe, through the dawn of Hysteria, to modern day understandings of autoimmune diseases, the menopause and conditions like endometriosis. Packed with character studies of women who have suffered, challenged and rewritten medical orthodoxy - and drawing on her own experience of un-diagnosed Lupus disease - this is a ground-breaking and timely exposé of the medical world and woman's place within it.

Unwell Women is a detailed review of medicine through Western history, and the dismissal and misdiagnosis of women's illnesses.

Starting in the ancient Greek times where any ailments women suffered were blamed on her "wandering uterus", to all women's ailments being blamed on hysteria and the weak female mind, forced hysterectomies and unneeded lobotomy, this book is certainly comprehensive.

I can't lie I couldn't help but stifle some giggles during the Ancient Greek parts at the image of a wandering, mischievous uterus roaming around causing havoc!

The treatment of women's medical issues, even to present day, hasn't exactly been smooth sailing.

I really enjoyed learning from this book, it was certainly accessible even to a history novice like me!

I liked that Dr Cleghorn presented the work and opinions of doctors and activists, detailing the changes they made but also acknowledging their faults and their problematic views.

Unwell Women also examines the treatment of women to the modern day, with particular emphasis on chronic illness and how difficult it is for women to be believed and receive a diagnosis- their pain and symptoms being dismissed constantly and Dr Cleghorn pulls on her own experience of having Lupus.

I found the small section regarding Myxedema (advanced hypothyroidism) particularly interesting - a small view of what life was like before the invention of thyroxine. I've had hypothyroidism since birth, and even 26 years ago Dr's asserted that I "wouldn't come to much". I've been taking levothryoxine my whole life, and have sort of taken that for granted - only looking into the condition more into my late 20s to fully understand it and the effects of it. My life would certainly have been much different had I been born 50-100 years earlier!

I really recommend this book- I took my time with it to fully take in what I was reading, but it is a brilliant non fiction work that I is worth pursuing!

Unwell Women is a comprehensive and clearly communicated history of the way medicine and doctors have treated women throughout history. The tale is a constant stream of disbelieving women’s pain, assigning all ailments to women’s “misuse” of their reproductive organs, general sexism, eugenics and racism, punishing women for their illnesses and causing tremendous harm for not-very-good reasons.

We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go. It’s clear that education, research and believing patients’ own experiences of their illness are key to compassionate and effective care,

This book made me angry and desperately sad for all the people in history who’ve experienced unnecessary pain and maltreatment, but also hopeful for a future where that doesn’t happen any more. We know where we went wrong, now we need to do better,

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Unwell Women: A Journey through Medicine and Myth in a Man Made World by Elinor Cleghorn is a concise account of how myth, misinformation and misdiagnosis of women's health issues has persisted to the current day where the understanding and treatment of unwell women still leaves much to be desired in far too many instances.
Moving from ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages, the Victorian Era and right up to the current day the author examines how the same ideas , often without any scientific basis, held sway for centuries until they could finally be proven to be wrong. The author does an exceptional job of clearly explaining the history and the science so that the book flows well and the reader never feels bogged down in dates or details. The case studies she utilises are sometimes heart breaking, and often frustrating as we see women being mistreated, used as human guinea pigs for surgical experimentation , or dismissed and discredited when they are struggling with complex auto immune conditions. As someone who works in healthcare, I cannot say that I was shocked by what I read , but I am hopeful that things are changing, albeit slowly.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the Publisher, all opinions are my own.

This book will resonate with any woman who has gone to the doctor with a medical complaint only to be sent away with a course of antidepressants because what they are experiencing is likely all in their head, Bias within medicine might not be as bad as it was, but it is still a long way from being eradicated. It is only more recently that it has been acknowledged that some medical conditions manifest differently in males and females, and that underlying biology is somehow the cause.

This book is an absolutely fascinating but also deeply angering journey through medical history, focusing on the experience of women (mostly in the UK and North America), so often brushed aside as hysterics, and how treatment of female conditions progressed, but also highlighting the cost of these progressions - particularly with medical trials on unsuspecting black, poor or Puerto Rican women. It's informative but very readable and I would recommend it to anyone - particularly those who think sexual discrimination is a thing only of the past.

This big (in every sense) and vital book shines a light on what surely every woman who's ever sought medical help knows without, perhaps, fully understanding - that our bodies and medical histories are not seen through the same lens as that of our male counterparts. Cleghorn's deep dive into the history and whys of that is as enlightening as it is enraging, written with clear-eyed prose that refuses to shy away from the righteous fury its subject deserves. Timely and powerful.

As a History graduate and someone who suffers with chronic pain it felt like this book was written for me ! It's an essential and long overdue look at the gendered nature of the medical profession from Ancient Greece to modern day. The author describes her own diagnosis of lupus and how it took 7 years of pain and other symptoms for her to finally be diagnosed. She looks at how in the nineteenth century women were seen as having biological characteristics such as sympathy or delicacy which could incite illnesses such as breast cancer. She describes the force feeding of the suffragettes and how women campaigning for the vote were labelled as hysterics. Of great interest to me was the section on fibromyalgia and CFS/ME. How the diagnosis of Epstein Barr virus was doubted by many medical professionals in 1987 (it was labelled a 'yuppie plague' by the media) and instead women experiencing aching muscles, sore throats and fatigue were labelled as bored and wealthy. From 1987 many in the medical professions did not accept that fibromyalgia was real and women were frequently labelled as emotional. From my own experience I know that little has changed in the way many medical doctors view these very real illnesses. Cleghorn also looks at how Black women are treated by the medical profession and how they encounter more ignorance, mistreatment and invisibility than white women. I found this to be an enlightening read which supports what we already know- that there is a gender bias in the medical profession, women are disbelieved and invalidated and that there have been centuries of distrust of women's own accounts of their pain. As the author says to be a woman today is to fight against 'ingrained injustices' but there is hope and steps forward are being made. We need to live in a world where women are believed.
Highly recommended read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC.

'Unwell Women' is nothing if not thorough. The amount of research Cleghorn must have done for it is surely immense, and I'm in awe.

We begin as far back as Ancient Greece, and linger in the Medieval era as we encounter a procession of twisted religious views on women's bodies and minds and how these fuelled witch hunts. Moving forwards into the 1800s/early 1900s, much of the story shifts to the U.S. and medical "progress" which often came at the cost of causing terrible harm to women's bodies, in particular those of Black women.

I actually wasn't able to read all of the book - I found the sheer quantity and weight of hatred against women in these pages overwhelming, and I do wonder if some sections could have been contracted without losing any of the message (the book is nearly 500 pages long). I was also disappointed that so little time was spent in the present day; Cleghorn recounts her awful and not uncommon experience of suffering from Lupus and finally getting a diagnosis, but in total, the "modern day" elements make up about 5% or so of the book. I am a sufferer of axial spondyloarthritis, a type of rheumatoid arthritis, and having waited longer for a diagnosis than I should have, I wanted to read more about what is happening in medicine right now (in the vein of 'Invisible Women').

Still, I can only commend Cleghorn for the detail of the book and her academic rigour. This is an epic of vital history.

(With thanks to Orion and NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review)