Complaints and Disorders

From prescribing the "rest cure" to diagnosing hysteria, the medical profession has consistently treated women as weak and pathological. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English's concise history of the sexual politics of medical practices shows how this biomedical rationale was used to justify sex discrimination throughout the culture, and how its vestiges are evident in abortion policy and other reproductive rights struggles today.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of many bestselling books, including Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America and Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

Deirdre English, former editor of Mother Jones magazine, is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.