Elise’s Reviews > Pain and Prejudice > Status Update

We see the [assumption of childbearing factors] in many predominantly female conditions: women with endometriosis are told that delayed childbearing caused it [✅], 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.
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In naming hysteria a disease of civilisation, what Sydenham meant was the richer a person was, the more demanding life was, and so the more likely they were to become hysterical. He believed the social conditions that enslaved women caused inner turmoil that resulted in physical illness—an observation ahead of its time.