"As Young has argued: 'Medicine defines the female and male bodies as distinct but not equal; analyses of medical texts throughout history reveals the male body to be constructed as superior and the template against which bodies are judged. Any aspect of the female body that differs from the male or that cannot be given a male comparative (exemplified by the uterus) is viewed as evidence of deviation or 'fault'.
'Because women can bear children, medical discourse associated women with the body and men with the mind, a binary division that reinforces and is reinforced by the public-private division ... In addition to restricting women’s public contribution, such beliefs provide medicine with an explanatory model of disease and illness in women: to deny one’s ‘biological destiny’ is to incite all manner of diseases, as Plato stated when theorising the wandering womb.'
We see this in many predominantly female conditions: women with endometriosis are told that delayed childbearing causes the illness, or that pregnancy will cure it; women with breast cancer were once fed this line until advances in research (which only occurred because women campaigned for better knowledge and treatments) proved otherwise."
~ Gabrielle Jackson
"The female problem: how male bias in medical trials ruined women's health" | Women | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials
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