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Narrated by Abby Norman
Abby NormanUnabridged — 10 hours, 19 minutes
Narrated by Abby Norman
Abby NormanUnabridged — 10 hours, 19 minutes
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…Abby Norman's vivid memoir…builds a convincing case that women describing discomfort are more likely than men to be dismissed by physicians, but along the way tells a story that will resonate with anyone (man or woman) who has ever experienced pain…Norman is a terrific storyteller with a gift for weaving memorable anecdotes…Ask Me About My Uterus is an important addition to a long tradition of pain memoirs.
01/15/2018
In this disjointed memoir, science writer Norman intertwines her own experiences with endometriosis, a painful immune-system disease occurring primarily in women, with a larger history of the systematic underprivileging of women’s health in Western medicine. The book details Norman’s numerous failed attempts to receive adequate treatment for her condition. Despite her clear symptoms and repeated hospitalizations, doctors continuously overlooked or dismissed her disease and reports of pain over the years. In one jaw-dropping example, a doctor proposed that her symptoms were most likely connected to her troubled childhood. Meanwhile, Norman also examines “the discourse of the ills of women,” pointing to diagnoses of hysteria in women and the unethical practices of male physicians who sexually exploited women in the 19th century. While the connection between her own story and the larger history is clear, Norman’s personal experiences are too often positioned as an afterthought, jammed into the sociological and historical narrative. She breathlessly shifts from discussing eight known cases of endometriosis in men to the story of her first period to a history of women dying during childbirth. Readers looking for a more personal and relatable account (as the title suggests) will be disappointed. (Mar.)
Selected as one of the top ten titles in Lifestyle for Spring 2018.—Publishers Weekly
"Required reading for anyone who is a woman, or has ever met a woman. This means you."—Jenny Lawson, authorof Let's Pretend This Never Happened and FuriouslyHappy
"This book deals with such an important subject. Abby Norman's odyssey with her own health is sadly an all too common story to those of us who suffered in silence for so long. My hope is that anyone involved in women's health will read her story and revisit the way we treat women and their health concerns in our culture."—Padma Lakshmi, NewYork Times best-selling author and co-founder of the EndometriosisFoundation of America
"A fresh, honest, and startling look at what it means to exist in a woman's body, in all of its beauty and pain. Abby's voice is inviting, unifying, and remarkably brave."
—Gillian Anderson, Actress, activist and co-author of We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere
"[Norman] builds a convincing case that women describing discomfort are more likely than men to be dismissed by physicians, but along the way tells a story that will resonate with anyone (man or woman) who has ever experienced pain.... [She] is a terrific storyteller with a gift for weaving memorable anecdotes, some drawn from medical history, others from recent scientific debates and most plucked from her own travails... Norman's life is much more than a disease.... [An] important addition to a long tradition of pain memoirs. Norman shares a particular tale of suffering but expresses a common frustration about the dearth of words to convey pain. Any schoolgirl can talk about love, Virginia Woolf famously said, but 'let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.'"—New York Times Book Review
"Compelling and impressively, Norman's narrative not only offers an unsparing look at the historically and culturally fraught relationship between women and their doctors, it also reveals how, in the quest for answers and good health, women must still fight a patriarchal medical establishment to be heard. Disturbing but important reading."—Kirkus Reviews
"From wandering wombs to ovary compressors, Abby Norman's book is packed with fascinating historical detail about how women's bodies have been misunderstood and mistreated by male doctors for centuries. It is also an important reminder that there is still a culture of silence surrounding women's gynecological health in the twenty-first century, and that there is work yet to be done when it comes to advocating for women's healthcare."—LindseyFitzharris, author of The Butchering Art
"With searing prose, science writer and editor Norman pens a heartfelt medical history and memoir of coming to terms with the limitations of one's physical body....A thoughtful read."—Library Journal
"Abby Norman writes powerfully about her experience living with endometriosis and presents research on the disease and the history of women who were brushed off by medical professionals. You know, like how hysteria is anything that ails a woman, but the same symptoms do not equate hysteria in a man. It's hitting all my feminist and history and medicine buttons."—Book Riot
"Author and activist Abby Norman, has put decades of labor-including careful, independent medical study-into studying this phenomenon, as she describes in her book Ask Me About My Uterus, both a memoir and a trenchant manifesto."—The New Republic
"Read this book, share this book with a man in your life and consider this our full permission to storm off dramatically if someone suggests you 'just take a couple Advil and quit complaining'."—Purewow
"Norman doesn't sugarcoat just how difficult it can be to convince doctors that pain is legitimate. Instead, she offers searing commentary on how women have been conditioned to avoid seeking treatment or admitting that we feel bad in the first place."—The Cut
"Norman, now a science writer, articulates her own struggles with clarity and calmness."—Washington Post
"Tell[s] an alarming story about how difficult it is for women to access quality care; particularly those women suffering from poorly understood autoimmune disorders.... Leave[s] the reader galvanized, not despairing."—The New York Times
"Eye-opening."—Bustle
"Journalist and advocate Abby Norman uproots the paradigm that women must suffer their pain alone and in silence....a respectable entry into this genre of women's pain....As Norman puts it, the patriarchy of pain doesn't have to be the norm."—Pacific Standard
"Compelling....showing the toll poorly treated illness takes on a woman's life and the heroic effort required to contribute to the world regardless."—Ms. Magazine
"Ask Me About My Uterus educates from the perspective of the ill-a side rarely seen as in depth as it is in this incredible read."—BUST
2017-12-05
A science writer's account of her frustrating experiences with the medical establishment as she tried to understand an illness that defied easy explanation and diagnosis.Futurism associate science editor Norman is nothing if not a survivor. She overcame dysfunctional family circumstances to become an emancipated minor at age 16 and attend Sarah Lawrence College on a prestigious scholarship two years later. However, one day during her freshman year, she was hit with pain so debilitating that she was forced to leave school permanently. The first (male) doctor she saw assumed she was just another "bright and wound tight" college girl whose problem "was of a sexual nature." He dismissed her with prescriptions for antibiotics and advice to drink lots of cranberry juice. Soon after, Norman began in-depth research—which she presents throughout the book—on female health issues. She discovered that her struggles to be taken seriously for extreme pain were actually a legacy of "the medicalization of female internal sensations, which began as early as the 1800s." Feeling powerless to question the all-male medical establishment, women "[began] to question their reality," much as the author started to do in the face of doctors that implied her problems, which included heavy, fatiguing menstrual cycles and, later, painful sex, were imagined. Eventually—and thanks to Norman's tireless self-advocacy—doctors correctly diagnosed her with endometriosis, a condition in which "displaced uterine tissue" caused painful lesions on other internal organs. Interviews with experts and continued self-education on the topic showed Norman that, contrary to popular conception, endometriosis was not just a "female disease" or a "period problem" and had also been found in men. Compelling and impressively, Norman's narrative not only offers an unsparing look at the historically and culturally fraught relationship between women and their doctors. It also reveals how, in the quest for answers and good health, women must still fight a patriarchal medical establishment to be heard.Disturbing but important reading.
| BN ID: | 2940173569257 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hachette Audio |
| Publication date: | 03/06/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
