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Women, health and resistance

  • Series
Digital collage artwork made up of rusts, orange and yellow hues. A cluster of collaged elements sit at the centre of the image. The atmosphere is one the natural world, female humanity and the wider cosmos A large central older female face looks out at us. Her head is framed by 2 symmetric trees, above her head is a Saturn-like planet, a small female figure rests on a golden headdress of rose petals. One the central figure's shoulder sits a crow, beak open.
Crones. © Asma Istwani for Wellcome Collection.

At a time when women’s health and rights are under renewed scrutiny, explore this collection of personal reflections, histories and critical essays that centre women’s experiences of medicine, care and control.

From racialised stereotypes and reproductive harm to ageing, sex work and unpaid labour, these stories reveal how gendered power operates – and how women resist, organise and make meaning from it.

  • Article

Female masturbation and the perils of pleasure

Dr Kate Lister exposes the brutal 19th-century ‘cures’ for women who indulged in masturbation.

  • Article

Why are women more willing donors than men?

Why is there a gender imbalance when it comes to the donation of organs, blood and tissue, and what can be done about it?

The pain that punished feminists

In a society that viewed getting the vote, and pursuing an education and career, as unnatural goals for women, the pain of endometriosis was viewed as nature’s retribution.

  • Article

Rejecting shame and a decade of change

Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.

  • Article

Sex work, stigma and whorephobia

Like everyone, sex workers sometimes need medical or mental health support. But shame and stigma seriously affect attitudes and access.

Thalidomide, a bitter pill

Hear from some of the women who took the drug thalidomide over sixty years ago about the fear, isolation and grief that they experienced as the appalling pharmaceutical scandal unfolded around them.

  • Article

Rediscovering Margaret Louden, a forgotten NHS hero

Bored during lockdown, David Jesudason started bin diving at night. Then a chance discovery set him on a new path: to tell the story of a forgotten female surgeon.

  • Article

Don’t call me a strong Black woman

Her upbringing taught Jaydee Seaforth that she could never show pain or weakness, even when her internal distress was extreme. Find out how she learned to listen to her body.

  • Article

Crones

Menopause can be tough when nobody talks about it and all the stereotypes are negative, but it can also be transformative, marking the start of a new stage of life - cronehood.

  • Long read

Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard

Journalist Florence Wildblood examines the case of Primodos – a conveniently quick but risky hormone pregnancy test that was prescribed in the 1960s and ’70s – and profiles two women at the story’s shocking heart.