The editorial director of Feministing.com offers a widely researched account of bias in the medical world against women, who are often given inadequate, inappropriate, and even dangerous treatment.
Author Maya Dusenbery, executive editor of Feministing, brings forth a slew of modern-day proof that suspicion of women by scientists and medical practitioners is still alive. And though today’s sexist diagnoses may not be as outright as the concept of hysteria, misdiagnoses are prominent as ever, diluting the life-ruining effects of chronic pain and fatigue, autoimmune disorders, fibromyalgia, and endometriosis, just to name a few. Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick is a fearless account of the incompetence of our culture when it comes to treating women properly. Dusenbery writes about the institutional systems that are against women—from philosophy to pharmacy to popular culture—in an accessible, engaging, and organized narrative.
These aren’t tales from the dark ages of medicine. They are ordinary modern realities documented in Maya Dusenbery’s well researched, wonderfully truculent new book, Doing Harm, one of a cluster of new investigations into gender bias in medical treatment that also includes Ask Me About My Uterus, by Abby Norman, and 'Invisible,' by Michele Lent Hirsch. To put it kindly: These books are a mixed bag. Dusenbery, the editor of the website Feministing, is the most capable writer of the bunch, and Doing Harm is an orderly blizzard of studies and statistics examining sexism at every level in medicine, from medical school admissions on up.
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 ... Good advice that may be easier said than done.
