Their confinement to the home coupled with unmitigated boredom led to the cult known as “female invalidism” or hypochondria-a condition made even worse by the rest cure. They were prescribed a life of enforced leisure with little to no physical activity. Upper class and middle class women aspiring to the upper class were perceived as weak, sickly, and frail. The authors discuss the impact of race and class on women’s health. These range from the compulsory “rest cure” made famous in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories to the placement of leeches on the cervix to combat amenorrhea. The authors argue it is not biology that oppresses women it is a social system based on sex and class discrimination.įocusing on the late 19th and early 20th century, Ehrenreich and English cite one example after another of the barbaric “cures” women received for the ostensible purpose of healing them. Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, their sequel to Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, documents the role of the medical system in propagating and fueling sexist ideology.
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