What Makes Women Sick

"Lesley Doyal has done it again! By making a political, cross-cultural analysis the core of every topic she covers, she makes us change the way we think about and act on critical issues in women's health. Students in public health and in women studies will find this intelligent, accessible book a unique and enlightening resource." --Nancy Worcester, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and National Women's Health Network What makes women sick? To an Ecuadorean woman, it's nervios from constant worry about her children's illnesses. To a woman working in a New Mexico electronics factory, it's the solvents that leave her with a form of dementia. To a Ugandan woman, it's HIV from her husband's sleeping with the widow of an AIDS patient. To a Bangladeshi woman, it's a fatal infection following an IUD insertion. What they all share is a recognition that their sickness is somehow caused by situations they face every day at home and at work. In this clearly written and compelling book, Lesley Doyal investigates the effects of social, economic, and cultural conditions on women's health. The "fault line" of gender that continues to divide all societies has, Doyal demonstrates, profound and pervasive consequences for the health of women throughout the world. Her broad synthesis highlights variations between men and women in patterns of health and illness, and it identifies inequalities in medical care that separate groups of women from each other. Doyal's wide-ranging arguments, her wealth of data, her use of women's voices from many cultures--and her examples of women mobilizing to find their own solutions--make this book required reading for everyone concerned with women's health. Lesley Doyal is Professor of Health and Social Care, School of Policy Studies, at the University of Bristol. She has published widely on health policy and women's studies. Her books include The Political Economy of Health and HIV, and AIDs: Setting a Feminist Agenda.