Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women, reflects on the experiences of medical dismissal that inspired her to look to history for answers. As she combed through textbooks, case studies and clinical writings across centuries of medicine’s history, Elinor discovered countless unwell women whose suffering had been belittled, overlooked, or misdiagnosed – women whose experiences felt hauntingly similar to her own.

Dr Elinor Cleghorn is a feminist cultural historian specialising in histories of women’s lives, bodies, and health. She has written for Vogue online, BBC Science Focus, the Wall Street Journal, the New Scientist, and BBC History magazine, and has discussed her work on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, and numerous podcasts. Unwell Women is Elinor’s first book.

From ‘wandering wombs’ and hysteria, to menstrual madness and menopausal fury, Elinor will reveal some of the most egregious myths about women’s bodies and minds perpetuated by male-dominated medicine from ancient Greece to the present – and show us why, to remake the future of our bodies and health, we must delve into our past.

Elinor will take us on an infuriating and fascinating journey through the thwarted history of women’s relationship with medical thought and practice; and along the way, she will introduce us to some extraordinary women patients, physicians, thinkers and activists who challenged the sexist status quo in medical thought and practice.

45-minute talk, followed by opportunity for audience questions

This event is a donation point for The Homeless Period 

Win a signed first edition copy of Unwell Women in the raffle – proceeds go to START

Free entry – booking essential (if you can no longer attend, please return your tickets so someone else can)