Cripping Endometriosis - by Maria Rovito (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This book argues for reframing endometriosis as a chronic pain condition, rather than an infertility issue. Drawing from feminist theory, disability studies, historical and archival research, and personal, embodied knowledge of living with the disease, it analyzes the deeply rooted misogyny and racism of Western medicine's research and treatment of endometriosis as a "career woman's disease"--a framing which demonizes women's reproductive choices and focuses on gender roles rather than their pain, experience, and agency. Offering a unique lens through which we can re-examine broader issues of autonomy, authority, and agency within the healthcare system, it will appeal to scholars in gender studies, disability studies, medical humanities, feminist studies, and the history of gynecology, as well as women's health advocates and healthcare practitioners.

From the Back Cover

"For anyone who has been told that their pain isn't real or that it's all in their heads, this book will feel like a revelation. Rovito traces not only the fraught history of endometriosis and gynecological pain, but she also forcefully, boldly, and necessarily argues that we can do better and that we've always deserved better. This is an urgent feminist work that fuses scholarship and activism and offers new insights to anyone interested in the study of biopolitics, power, and gendered bodies."
--Dr. Breanne Fahs, PhD, Professor of Women and Gender Studies, Arizona State University

"Maria Rovito's book is a mirror held up to the systems that have failed people with endometriosis for generations. With courage and clarity, she weaves her lived experience into a larger tapestry that reveals the hidden legacies of medical racism, narcissism, and eugenics that still shape how society responds to pain, to women, and to marginalized bodies. As an advocate for endometriosis, I believe her work is essential reading--not only to understand the disease itself, but to confront the cultural, historical, and medical forces that have silenced millions."
--Dr. Sallie Sarrel, PT ATC DPT, Co-Founder The Endometriosis Summit

This book argues for reframing endometriosis as a chronic pain condition, rather than an infertility issue. Drawing from feminist theory, disability studies, historical and archival research, and personal, embodied knowledge of living with the disease, it analyzes the deeply rooted misogyny and racism of Western medicine's research and treatment of endometriosis as a "career woman's disease"--a framing which demonizes women's reproductive choices and focuses on gender roles rather than their pain, experience, and agency. Offering a unique lens through which we can re-examine broader issues of autonomy, authority, and agency within the healthcare system, it will appeal to scholars in gender studies, disability studies, medical humanities, feminist studies, and the history of gynecology, as well as women's health advocates and healthcare practitioners.

Maria Rovito is Instructor of Medical Humanities at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, USA and an active public intellectual.

About the Author