7/5/2023 0 Comments Unwell women elinor![]() ![]() As White women became more socially empowered in the 20th century, medicine became another tool of patriarchy to control them. But the patriarchal establishment used the old argument of hysteria to discredit them and their political activities. ![]() By the mid-1800s, early suffragists like Harriet Taylor Mill, whom doctors diagnosed with "nervous disorders,” began to more openly question the patriarchal status quo. Enslaved women of color fared far worse: At best, they were the objects of cruel experiments because White patriarchy had deemed them unable to feel pain. Hippocratic misogyny became entrenched in later European cultural and medical thinking, as suggested by how more "enlightened" doctors from the 18th century still blamed (White) women's physical and emotional pains on reproductive malfunctions. Following in his footsteps, later Greek physicians blamed female illness on "wandering womb.” The author suggests that Hippocrates’ ideas aligned with the prevailing view that women existed solely for the purposes of childbearing/rearing. Hippocrates believed that the uterus controlled women's health. Throughout this illuminating and disturbing survey, Cleghorn argues convincingly that this is because medicine is a patriarchal science. ![]() Medical science is notorious for misunderstanding the ailments of female bodies. A feminist historian and cultural critic explores how age-old myths about gender roles and behaviors have shaped the history of medicine. ![]()
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