Review by Booklist Review
In this medical manifesto, Dusenbery, editorial director of Feministing.com, empowers women, telling them to trust their instincts, get second opinions, and refuse to settle for one-size-fits-all health care. Why should so many studies be conducted just on men? After all, many conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease and chronic fatigue syndrome, disproportionately affect females. In 2014, only 21 percent of full professors and 16 percent of deans at U.S. medical schools were women. Well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning doctors cause harm, bringing their biases to their diagnoses. When one black teenager told her gynecologist she would continue using condoms, he prescribed prenatal vitamins, saying it was obvious she'd be pregnant soon, says Dusenbery. In one survey, nearly half of female patients with autoimmune diseases said they were initially dismissed as chronic complainers. Too often doctors chalk up abdominal pain to menstruation, including cases of one woman with colon cancer and others with endometriosis. Dusenbery urges female patients to be more confident and their doctors to be less dismissive. Believe us when we say we're sick, she writes. Good advice that may be easier said than done.--Springen, Karen Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Dusenbery, editor of the website Feministing, presents a canny and candid analysis of how modern medicine treats women in pain. She skillfully interweaves history, medical studies, current literature, and hard data to produce damning evidence that women wait longer for diagnoses, receive inadequate pain management, and are often told they are imagining symptoms that are taken seriously in men. Dusenbery exposes the biases underlying treatment for established conditions such as heart disease and discusses the "circular logic built into psychogenic theories" that keep conditions exclusively or commonly experienced by women, such as endometriosis and autoimmune diseases labeled as "contested illnesses." Backed by patient stories that range from hopeful to horrifying, Dusenbery illustrates how often modern physicians dismiss women's symptoms as arising from anxiety, depression, and stress. She's fair to doctors, who are "fallible human beings doing a difficult job," and her solution is simple-more funding for research that can find the causes for "medically unexplained" conditions and that can close the knowledge gap about sex and gender differences in disease. But the biggest paradigm shift Dusenbery suggests is to eliminate the trust gap and believe women when they say something's wrong. Dusenbery's excellent book makes the sexism plaguing women's health care hard to ignore. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Dusenbery (editorial director, Feministing.com) uses her diagnosis of -rheumatoid arthritis as entree into a discussion of medicine, research, and womanhood. The densely written three-part text starts with a focused feminist critique of the health-care system, highlighting the systemic dismissal of women's issues and complaints. Part 2 addresses the "Male Model" system, a long-term issue in health care. Researchers leave women out of this model for many reasons (e.g., their hormonal cycles make trials difficult to standardize), and consequently, providers treat and prescribe women based on male models. Throughout Part 2, and into Part 3, Dusenbery includes the medical narratives of women she has met, focusing on both the female absence in the male model and what she calls the "Neglected Diseases" of chronic pain, pelvic and gynecological pain, and contested illnesses. Prior knowledge of feminist theory is not required to enjoy this volume, but readers with that background will have a richer context from which to draw. Dusenbery also provides an in-depth "Notes" section with plenty of options for further reading. VERDICT For readers interested in a feminist critique of health care, especially in the treatment of women.-Rachel M. Minkin, Michigan State Univ. Libs., East Lansing © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A sturdy account of how sexism in medicine is hobbling women's health care.When Feministing.com editorial director and lifelong athlete Dusenbery was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, she began an analysis of medical science's lack of understanding of autoimmune diseases. As she probed further and began hearing stories from women whose health complaints were either dismissed or misdiagnosed, the author developed serious concerns about the lack of attention paid to the potential differences between men and women. She places blame in part on the male-dominated medical industry, which approaches gender gaps and their separate health-related concerns lopsidedly and with a marked lack of knowledge and trust. In her well-informed study, Dusenbery traces the history of women's medicine and health care activism and presents a wide variety of anecdotal material from women who voice their experiences and their exasperation with a system that remains unsupportive, skeptical, and indifferent when confronted with reproductive issues, pain complications, sex-specific drug reactions, and general well-being. The same applies when addressing diagnostic delays, which can render a suffering woman unable to function in society or physically cope. The author notes that in matters of heart disease and women, the symptoms have been undertreated or misdiagnosed entirely under the universal "male model" platform of the condition. Her analysis progresses into greatly misunderstood issues of chronic pain, migraine disorders, endometriosis, and chronic fatigue syndrome, all supported with engaging stories of women who wound up either being considered "hysterical" or had their suffering categorized as psychosomatic. Within an organized, well-balanced combination of scientific and social research and moving personal stories, Dusenbery makes a convincing case for the need for drastic industry reform and clinical refinement. She also addresses larger issues of gender equality and how to confront a culture of sexism and rampant sexual harassment against women. A final clipped section on solutions, unfortunately, feels insufficient and begs for pages of elaboration.An intensive, timely spotlight on the gender disparities within the modern health care system that falls short on solutions. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
