everything below the waist by jennifer block

'Thought-provoking, empowering information that all women should have. Seelye Chair in the History of Medicine Department of History, Purdue University

It should be required reading of anyone interested in the future of women’s health. It’s also a great read I couldn’t put it down. This is a powerful and important book that forces us to face the limitations of medical technology to truly liberate women.

In Everything Below the Waist, Jennifer Block suggests that perhaps the movement was not quite as transformative as we’d like it to have been. Nearly fifty years ago, the women’s health movement transformed the doctor/patient relationship and empowered women to listen to and believe in their bodies. Everything Below the Waist challenges all people to take back control of their bodies. In this urgent book, Block tells the stories of patients, clinicians, and reformers, uncovering history and science that could revolutionize the standard of care, and change the way women think about their health. Block returns to the 1970s women's health movement to understand how in today's supposed age of empowerment, women's bodies are still so vulnerable to medical control-particularly their sex organs, and as result, their sex lives. One third of mothers give birth by major surgery roughly half of women lose their uterus to hysterectomy.įeminism turned the world upside down, yet to a large extent the doctors' office has remained stuck in time. In Everything Below the Waist, Jennifer Block asks: Why is the life expectancy of women today declining relative to women in other high-income countries, and even relative to the generation before them? Block examines several staples of modern women's health care, from fertility technology to contraception to pelvic surgery to miscarriage treatment, and finds that while overdiagnosis and overtreatment persist in medicine writ large, they are particularly acute for women. 'A fascinating examination of the past and present of women's healthcare' -Delfina V Barbiero, USA TODAYĪn eye-opening, investigative account of the dismal state of women's healthcare in the U.S.Īmerican women visit more doctors, have more surgery, and fill more prescriptions than men. 'A jaw-dropping investigation into the women's health industry.' - Shelf-Awareness

Everything below the waist by jennifer block