Elinor Cleghorn

Historioitsija Elinor Cleghorn kertoo Naisen työssä äitiyden historian naisten näkökulmasta. Miesten hallitsemassa maailmassa on perinteisesti pidetty lasten synnyttämistä, kasvattamista, hoitamista ja rakastamista merkityksettömänä naisten työnä. Tässä teoksessa historioitsija Elinor Cleghorn kertoo uudelleen äitiyden historian naisten omalla äänellä. Hän esittelee äitejä, kätilöitä, aktivisteja, yhteisöjen johtajia ja muita, jotka ovat muokanneet historian kulkua. Cleghorn kuvaa naisten asemaa yhteiskunnassa aina antiikista tähän päivään ja valottaa eri aikakausien äitien olosuhteita esimerkkitapauksilla. Hän osoittaa, kuinka kautta aikain miehet ovat pyrkineet hallitsemaan äitien kehoja, elämää ja oikeuksia. Tästä huolimatta äidit ovat paitsi hoitaneet äitiyden tehtäviä myös onnistuneet vaikuttamaan yhteiskunnassa.

Mothers make history. But what it has meant for mothers to do the physical and emotional work of mothering has, for centuries, been neglected in the stories of the past. Patriarchal control of motherhood has relegated the acts of growing, birthing, nurturing and loving to the sidelines, and deemed it unimportant, women's work. Now, through the voices of the women themselves, Elinor Cleghorn reclaims and retells the history of motherhood, showcasing the mothers, othermothers, midwives, activists, community leaders and more who have shaped the course of history. Beginning in the ancient world, we encounter a figurine made for a childbirth ritual over three-thousand years ago. We meet extraordinary writers and poets, like Anne Bradstreet and Elizabeth Jocelin, who were expressing their innermost feelings about motherhood. During the seventeenth century, in the streets of London we encounter unmarried mothers struggling against stigma and shame, and the women who strove to help them. Later, pioneers like Mary Wollstonecraft laid the intellectual foundations for the liberation of motherhood from male control, and the abhorrent treatment of enslaved mothers was brought to public attention by courageous activists like Sojourner Truth. These and many other brave characters lobbied for mothers of all classes and circumstances to be valued, respected, and supported - not as reproductive vessels, but as people. A Woman's Work is a powerful, inspiring and ground-breaking new history for anyone who has ever mothered.

Läkarvetenskapen har en bekymmersam historia. I århundraden har den kvinnliga kroppen blivit demoniserad och nedvärderad. Vi har fruktat den eller skämts över den. Men kvinnor har också utmanat den vedertagna läkekonsten – som läkare, forskare och aktivister. Och framförallt som patienter. Nu skrivs historien om, tack vare kvinnors motstånd, styrka och mod. I Sjuka kvinnor analyserar Elinor Cleghorn vad som är roten till de eviga missförstånd, mystifieringar och feldiagnosticeringar som tycks följa kvinnors sjukdomar och smärta. Från ”den vandrande livmodern” i det antika Grekland till dagens varierande förståelse av hormoner, menstruation och klimakteriet, är Sjuka kvinnor en revolutionär berättelse om de kvinnor som har utmanat medicinen.

Medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. Over centuries, women's bodies have been demonised and demeaned until we feared them, felt ashamed of them, were humiliated by them. But as doctors, researchers, campaigners and most of all as patients, women have continuously challenged medical orthodoxy. Medicine's history has always been, and is still being, rewritten by women's resistance, strength and incredible courage. In this ground-breaking history Elinor Cleghorn unpacks the roots of the perpetual misunderstanding, mystification and misdiagnosis of women's bodies, illness and pain. From the 'wandering womb' of ancient Greece to today's shifting understanding of hormones, menstruation and menopause, Unwell Women is the revolutionary story of women who have suffered, challenged and rewritten medical misogyny. Drawing on Elinor's own experience as an unwell woman, this is a powerful and timely expose of the medical world and woman's place within it.

A trailblazing, conversation-starting history of women's health--from the earliest medical ideas about women's illnesses to hormones and autoimmune diseases--brought together in a fascinating sweeping narrative. Elinor Cleghorn became an unwell woman ten years ago. She was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. As Elinor learned to live with her unpredictable disease she turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis. In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect. The result is an authoritative and groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between women and medical practice, from the "wandering womb" of Ancient Greece to the rise of witch trials across Europe, and from the dawn of hysteria as a catchall for difficult-to-diagnose disorders to the first forays into autoimmunity and the shifting understanding of hormones, menstruation, menopause, and conditions like endometriosis. Packed with character studies and case histories of women who have suffered, challenged, and rewritten medical orthodoxy--and the men who controlled their fate--this is a revolutionary examination of the relationship between women, illness, and medicine. With these case histories, Elinor pays homage to the women who suffered so strides could be made, and shows how being unwell has become normalized in society and culture, where women have long been distrusted as reliable narrators of their own bodies and pain. But the time for real change is long overdue: answers reside in the body, in the testimonies of unwell women--and their lives depend on medicine learning to listen.