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A review by jrrrck
The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women by Anushay Hossain
2.0
thanks to netgalley & tiller press for the review copy in exchange for an honest review.
The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women is just okay. As other reviewers have pointed out, the marketing is a bit off. The title and description should have made it more clear that Hossain's dominant focus is sexism and racism within maternity healthcare. Most of the stories, policies, statistics, and suggestions related specifically to maternal health which is just one aspect of women's health and a facet that many women do not experience! She's also notably focused specifically on cisgender women's experience; at no point are there stories or reference points that introduce how anti-trans bias affect women's healthcare (or, on the flip side, care related to pregnancy).
There's also no substantive exploration of how either anti-fat bias affects healthcare access for women or women of color, especially black women. This is a huge point of health inequity and there are resources available to address it; it's a glaring omission and weakens the overall introduction and analysis of the topic. The primary mention of it was towards the end when she quotes Regen Chastain's advice about avoiding anti-fat bias at the doctor's office (which just amounts to ... look up doctor's ahead of time? lmao). For a more helpful resource for this specifically, I really recommend What's Wrong with Fat? by Abigail Saguy.
Finally, there's very little exploration of how financial inequity within healthcare and how that negatively impacts women and women of color. Again, really surprising especially given that she correctly identifies and highlights how much the United States underperform when it comes to maternity health. But believing women and women's pain isn't the only point of inequity within women's healthcare. The prohibitive cost of healthcare in the United States is part of the inequity that is almost completely ignored in The Pain Gap.
If this book were to serve as an introduction to the topic, it would be missing major facets of the issue. I wouldn't recommend it, unfortunately. I had much higher hopes!
The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women is just okay. As other reviewers have pointed out, the marketing is a bit off. The title and description should have made it more clear that Hossain's dominant focus is sexism and racism within maternity healthcare. Most of the stories, policies, statistics, and suggestions related specifically to maternal health which is just one aspect of women's health and a facet that many women do not experience! She's also notably focused specifically on cisgender women's experience; at no point are there stories or reference points that introduce how anti-trans bias affect women's healthcare (or, on the flip side, care related to pregnancy).
There's also no substantive exploration of how either anti-fat bias affects healthcare access for women or women of color, especially black women. This is a huge point of health inequity and there are resources available to address it; it's a glaring omission and weakens the overall introduction and analysis of the topic. The primary mention of it was towards the end when she quotes Regen Chastain's advice about avoiding anti-fat bias at the doctor's office (which just amounts to ... look up doctor's ahead of time? lmao). For a more helpful resource for this specifically, I really recommend What's Wrong with Fat? by Abigail Saguy.
Finally, there's very little exploration of how financial inequity within healthcare and how that negatively impacts women and women of color. Again, really surprising especially given that she correctly identifies and highlights how much the United States underperform when it comes to maternity health. But believing women and women's pain isn't the only point of inequity within women's healthcare. The prohibitive cost of healthcare in the United States is part of the inequity that is almost completely ignored in The Pain Gap.
If this book were to serve as an introduction to the topic, it would be missing major facets of the issue. I wouldn't recommend it, unfortunately. I had much higher hopes!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Domestic abuse, Racism, Sexism, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy