The British scholar Elinor Cleghorn makes the insidious impact of gender bias on women’s health starkly and appallingly explicit: 'Medicine has insisted on pathologizing ‘femaleness,’ and by extension womanhood.'.

Feminist historian and academic Cleghorn, herself a victim of medical misdiagnosis, brings first-hand knowledge of the gender bias endemic in the medical profession to this scholarly yet personal, specific yet comprehensive study of dangerously outdated medical practices and attitudes..

... the author’s anger is detectable on almost every page.

A feminist historian and cultural critic explores how age-old myths about gender roles and behaviors have shaped the history of medicine.

Cultural historian Cleghorn’s meticulous and wide-ranging debut examines the links between patriarchy, misogyny, and the mistreatment of women’s health needs.