Unwell Women - with author Dr. Elinor Cleghorn
Breaking Down Patriarchy
Amy McPhie Allebest
4.9 • 654 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2025
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy returns to a book from Season One - Unwell Women - now joined by the author Dr. Elinor Cleghorn! This conversation unpacks the history of women's healthcare, looks at medical myths and women's pain, and explores the patriarchal shadow which still looms over our health outcomes.
Listen to the original episode about Unwell Women here.
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Dr Elinor Cleghorn has a background in feminist visual culture and history, and her critical writing has been published in several academic journals including Screen. After receiving her PhD in in 2012, Elinor spent three years as a post-doctoral researcher at the Ruskin School, University of Oxford, working on an interdisciplinary medical humanities project. She has given talks and lectures at the British Film Institute, where she has been a regular contributor to their education programme, Tate Modern, and ICA London, and she has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 discussion show The Forum. In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions essay prize. She now works as a freelance writer and researcher. Her non-fiction debut, Unwell Women, was published in June 2021. She is currently working on her next book on intersectional feminist history of women and mother-led knowledge around reproduction, pregnancy, birth and mothering.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee, all the best. Every year on my birthday, since |
| 0:07.8 | about fourth grade, when my birthday cake is brought out and I blow out my candles, I have thought |
| 0:13.6 | I wish for my mom to get better. And all of these years later, that is still what I wish for every |
| 0:19.3 | single year. My mom has dealt with chronic pain for her entire life. |
| 0:24.3 | And there were some years as I was growing up that she would be in bed with the lights out, |
| 0:28.8 | with a violent migraine for half the week, pretty much every week. |
| 0:33.7 | According to the World Health Organization, migraines affect 20% of the world's women and 8% of men. |
| 0:42.0 | Sometimes my mom's doctors have been compassionate but uninformed about her condition, and sometimes they've been arrogant and dismissive. |
| 0:50.9 | Multiple times she's been misdiagnosed for her pain. |
| 0:57.9 | And after a fall in 2001, she received a misdiagnosed for her pain. And after a fall in 2001, she received a misdiagnosis that led to permanent nerve damage in her back that has caused excruciating pain |
| 1:04.2 | on top of her migraines. So in 2021, when I heard about a book called Unwell Women, Miss Diagnosis and Myth in a Manmade World, |
| 1:14.7 | I knew I had to read it. I did read it and I discussed it with a friend of mine on season |
| 1:21.0 | one of the podcast. And it has turned out to be one of my very favorite and most highly |
| 1:25.9 | recommended books of all the books that I've read |
| 1:28.6 | for Breaking Down Patriarchy. So today I am so honored to welcome to the podcast, Dr. Eleanor Kleghorn, |
| 1:35.2 | the author of Unwell Women. Welcome, Eleanor. Thank you so much for having me, Amy. It's such a |
| 1:40.6 | pleasure to be here. It is such a pleasure to have you. And I was just saying to |
| 1:45.1 | Eleanor, and I'll repeat it here, I read a lot, a lot, lot, lot of books, especially in women's |
| 1:51.7 | studies. And some of the books I read are very dense and academic. And I've learned a ton from them. |
| 1:56.8 | And they're very, very useful. But I can't really easily recommend them to people because they're |
| 2:02.2 | hard to get through. It's difficult language and jargony sometimes or they require some kind of |
| 2:08.1 | niche amount of knowledge in a particular field. And I so appreciate when I get a book that is |
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