Book Recs for Crampers
Hey Happy Crampers (this is what I meant to call anyone following CRAMPED, and I forgot to use it until now)
In my research for CRAMPED, I’ve read SO. MANY. BOOKS. I’ve mentioned them here and there in my posts, but I want to give you a list of my faves. Maybe you’re looking for something to read instead of going on social media for a while. Maybe you’ll have some downtime over Thanksgiving week and you’d rather learn something about bodily processes than hear about your uncle’s boat that he’s restoring that he will absolutely never actually put in the water. Maybe you’re looking for gifts for some readers you know.
So here’s some of the books I’ve read for CRAMPED research, and a bit about each one.
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women
Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English
This is the OG feminist women’s health history, originally published in 1978, and updated in 2005. Barbara Ehrenreich also wrote Nickle & Dimed, and Bright-Sided, among many, many others. Her books usually take a big idea (like the middle class) and take you through how it started, how it was good, and how it went wrong, with specificity, clarity, and many mind-blowing big-picture moments. This book does the same, with the major difference being that at no point after the “professionalization” of health care were women given good information or advice.
I read this early in my research, and I’m glad I did - it gave me a much better understanding of the whole of the history of women’s health care, inflection points where it COULD have gotten better, but instead got worse, and specific people that I could get really mad at about it (even if they’re dead now). After reading this, I felt MUCH more oriented and had lots of ideas of where to focus my research on next.
Something I highlighted in this book:
“From swapping medical horror stories, women’s circles moved on to swapping their own home remedies, and from there to seeking more systematic ways to build their knowledge and skills. There were ‘Ladies’ Physiological Societies,’ where women gathered in privacy to learn about female anatomy and functioning - something like the ‘know-your-body’ courses offered by the the women’s movement in the ninteen-seventies.”
Invisible Women: Data Bias In a World Designed for Men
Caroline Criado Perez
If For Her Own Good is the big-picture orientation for the history of women’s health, Invisible Women will rewire your understanding of data and information. If there is any part of you that still believes that science and technology are unbiased and equalizing and meritocratic, this book will swiftly relieve you of those incorrect beliefs. This book is not specifically about women’s health, or periods, or cramps - in fact, there’s only two chapters that address healthcare. But I’m glad I read the whole thing, as I now know that women are 17% more likely to die in a care accident then are men, because safety features are designed using crash test dummies that are designed based on the “average” male! This book’ll make you REAL MAD - I had to take 1-2 rage breaks per chapter. But if I’m gonna be fucked, I’d rather know WHY I’m fucked, how I got into the situation to be fucked, and what would have to change for me to be un-fucked.
Something I highlighted in this book:
“Some antidepressants have been found to affect women differently at different times of their cycle, meaning that dosage may be too high at some points and too low at others.”
Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
Maya Dusenbery
This is one of those books you start reading for research, and realize a few chapters in that you’re just highlighting half of every page, and you have to stop and figure out a new system. I learned that 75% of people experiencing autoimmune disorders are female, and part of the reason it took so long for medicine to begin seriously studying these incredibly common illnesses is that autoimmune diseases were often misdiagnosed as “hysteria”, simply because it was a woman experiencing the symptoms. I learned about a 1970s article that actually concluded that women who experienced vulvodynia stemmed from “the wish to capture or break off the penis.” Chef’s kiss.
Something I highlighted in this book:
“For hundreds of years, pain in menstruating women has not qualified as a medical mystery worthy of actually solving.” :(
It’s Not Hysteria: Everything You Need To Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)
Karen Tang, MD, MPH
Dr. Karen Tang is the first guest you’ll hear in episode 1 of the CRAMPED podcast! This book isn’t one you read through front to back, it’s more of a reference manual for your own body. It has chapters on major reproductive system disorders like PCOS and endometriosis, and sections about cancers, fertility, and urinary issues, among many, many others. This is a book you reference BEFORE you go to the doctor, so you have a basic understanding of what might be going on and what tests you should probably have done, so once you’re in the doctor’s office, you can advocate for yourself and know if you’re not getting the care you need.
Something I highlighted in this book:
“Eighty percent of Black women will develop fibroids in their lifetime, yet no one knows why they occur, so there is no way to treat the root cause or prevent them from returning. Imagine if there was a condition that affected 80 percent of white men and caused hemorrhaging, debilitating pain, severe bloating, constipation, frequent urination, and infertility. I’d wager that scientists would have long ago discovered the exact biological cause, and there would be a range of effective treatment options available and covered by insurance.”
PERIOD: The Real Story of Menstruation
Kate Clancy
Full disclosure, I’m still reading this one. But I LOVE it. Kate Clancy is an anthropologist, and she’s interested in questions like “what’s the biological purpose of menstruation?” and “What’s the future of menstruation?" So far I’ve learned that though medicine tends to to consider the average value of a health measure the “healthy” value, there’s no indication that the “average” cycle length, for example, is any healthier than an outlier.
Something I highlighted in this book:
“Menstruation is a wild process that should captivate and delight. it offers up so many lessons in terms of how we understand bodily autonomy, sexual selection, even tissue engineering. It is strange then, that instead of being something so fundamental to science education as Mendel’s peas or dinosaur bones or the planets of the solar system, it gets at best a brief mention in health class.”
Happy reading, Crampers!