Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness

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.

About the Authors

Barbara Ehrenreich is author of the New York Times bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, and, most recently, This Land is Their Land. Deirdre English, the former editor of Mother Jones, is a professor in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

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