Pain and prejudice How the medical system ignores women--and what we can do about it

Journalist Jackson debuts with a powerful account of the sexism cooked into medical care. Her own experience with endometriosis, "a chronic inflammatory disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus... grows in other parts of the body," is central, and she reports that it and other diseases that affect mainly women are understudied and often go undiagnosed. Because of this, she reports, women's pain is more likely to be ignored by the medical system than men's. Further, she writes that despite the good intentions of many doctors, sexism exists in medicine because health care plays a role in policing women (health care as an institution ensures doctors maintain control over women's reproductive systems, for example, via such means as birth control). To bolster her case, Jackson gives a historical overview of how ailing women came to be viewed as "hysterical" in ancient Greece, and brings things up to the present with the observation that, when pain is ignored, "and when we get angry about it, we're diagnosed with mental illnesses." This is less a step-by-step guide to fixing the problem than a passionate survey that will motivate readers to advocate for themselves. With its wealth of information, this hits the mark. (Mar.)

An exploration of how "women's pain is all too often dismissed, their illnesses misdiagnosed or ignored." Jackson, an associate news editor at the Guardian, breezily translates decades of medical research, interviews, and statistics into a book that challenges what we think we know about women's health and pain. The author, who suffers from endometriosis, expands on her earlier journalism on the condition, writing of the startling misconceptions surrounding cisgender women's treatment in the medical system. Jackson locates the foundation of modern medicine's dismissal and misdiagnoses of countless women by detailing the history of hysteria and its insidious consequences for women. For example, she highlights how most people would be surprised to learn that "in 2004, 7.4 million women over 60 years of age died of cardiovascular disease compared with 6.3 million men." This misconception--that heart disease afflicts the male population more than the female population--is one of many Jackson corrects throughout the book. She adroitly synthesizes complex medical studies and interviews with medical professionals, patients, and researchers. One conclusion is that medical professionals' current lack of consensus on the best treatments for women with chronic diseases is due to the paucity of clinical trials and dedicated funding for research into how these diseases specifically affect cisgender female patients--or female rodents in trials. Jackson is most effective when she brings together disparate sources and findings to reach digestible conclusions. The author's personal tale of her struggle with endometriosis creates an engaging familiarity with readers, but her occasionally derisive tone toward men, lumped together as an undifferentiated group, could alienate an otherwise receptive audience. Nonetheless, Jackson is effective in her presentation of pertinent, often surprising information that could help many women stay healthy and find quality, personalized health care. An informative study of cisgender female care in medicine, from hysteria to Covid-19, with a focus on chronic pain. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.