How a Lack of Data and Patriarchal Attitudes Intersect to Undermine Women’s Health Care
What do you think of when you hear the phrase “women’s health”?
For most people, their minds immediately jump to reproductive health. But women are more than just their reproductive organs and deserve medical care that recognizes their entire bodies. Understanding some of the reasons that women receive inferior healthcare can lead us to solutions. We are just beginning, but there is hope on the horizon.
Over the past five years, attention to women’s health outcomes has increased. Several fabulous books like Maya Dusenbery’s Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed and Sick and Elinor Cleghorn’s Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World tell the history of medicine’s attitude toward women and the effect that has on women’s health. But is that attention leading to better care?
As we continue to muddle through the pandemic, we can see that there is a lot of work to be done. From worsening maternal healthcare to years of waiting for a diagnosis, women are tired of waiting.
How did we get here?
Maya Dusenberry posits that there is a history of cultural apathy toward women’s health. Dusenbery’s model explains the…
