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In western culture, a woman is like a man with something else added to it. In the judaeo christian bible, the first woman, eve, was created from the rib of the first man, adam. And nowhere is this idea more obvious than in the history of medicine. Male doctors have treated women as some sort of strange creature driven by emotions and forces beyond male ken. So where did these ideas come from, and how did they persist over the centuries? And who are the folks who ere fighting against them all along the way?

A deeply embedded idea in our culture is the sexist notion that men are the “default” human, and women the unknowable “other". Nowhere is this more visible than in the history of medicine, with disastrous consequences for women’s’ health. On the show this week to discuss her new book is Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World. You can check out her book at factuallypod.com/books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.