
The Pain Gap
How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women
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Narrated by:
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Priya Ayyar
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By:
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Anushay Hossain
About this listen
Explore real women’s tales of health-care trauma and medical misogyny with this meticulously researched, in-depth examination of the women’s health crisis in America - and what we can do about it.
When Anushay Hossain became pregnant in the US, she was so relieved. Growing up in Bangladesh in the 1980s, where the concept of women’s health care hardly existed, she understood how lucky she was to access the best in the world. But she couldn’t have been more wrong. Things started to go awry from the minute she stepped in the hospital, and after 30 hours of labor (two of which she spent pushing), Hossain’s epidural slipped. Her pain was so severe that she ran a fever of 104 degrees, and as she shook and trembled uncontrollably, the doctors finally performed an emergency C-section.
Giving birth in the richest country on earth, Hossain never imagined she could die in labor. But she almost did. The experience put her on a journey to explore, understand, and share how women - especially women of color - are dismissed to death by systemic sexism in American health care.
Following in the footsteps of feminist manifestos such as The Feminine Mystique and Rage Becomes Her, The Pain Gap is an eye-opening and stirring call to arms that encourages women to flip their “hysteria complex” on its head and use it to revolutionize women’s health care. This book tells the story of Hossain’s experiences - from growing up in South Asia surrounded by staggering maternal mortality rates to lobbying for global health legislation on Capitol Hill to nearly becoming a statistic herself. Along the way, she realized that a little fury might be just what the doctor ordered.
Meticulously researched and deeply reported, this book explores real women’s traumatic experiences with America’s health-care system - and empowers everyone to use their experiences to bring about the healthcare revolution women need.
©2021 Anushay Hossain. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition or behavior, science has continued to tell us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be described as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of research is now revealing an alternative version of what we thought we knew.
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Amazing
- By natalie cannon on 01-23-18
By: Angela Saini
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Wordslut
- A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
- By: Amanda Montell
- Narrated by: Amanda Montell
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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A brash, enlightening, and wildly entertaining feminist look at gendered language and the way it shapes us, written with humor and playfulness that challenges words and phrases and how we use them. Montell effortlessly moves between history and popular culture to explore these questions and more. Wordslut gets to the heart of our language, marvels at its elasticity, and sheds much-needed light into the biases that shadow women in our culture and our consciousness.
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Loved this book
- By chris boutte on 06-24-21
By: Amanda Montell
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The Feminist Killjoy Handbook
- The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way
- By: Sara Ahmed
- Narrated by: Sara Ahmed
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Do you refuse to laugh at offensive jokes? Have you ever been accused of ruining dinner by pointing out your companion’s sexist comment? Are you often told to stop being so “woke”? If so, you might be a feminist killjoy—and this handbook is for you. In this book, feminist theorist Sara Ahmed shows how killing joy can be a radical world-making project. Presenting sharp analysis of literature, film, and influential feminist works, and drawing on her own experiences as a queer feminist scholar-activist of color, Ahmed reveals the invaluable lessons of the feminist killjoy.
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Killing joy for a better tomorrow
- By marceleen mosher on 03-22-24
By: Sara Ahmed
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Blood
- The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation
- By: Dr. Jen Gunter
- Narrated by: Jen Gunter
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Most women can expect to have hundreds of periods in a lifetime. And yet few are given the tools to understand the science of their own cycle, how it changes over their lifetime, and how it connects to their overall health. In this practical, inclusive guide to menstruation, Dr. Jen Gunter delivers empowerment through knowledge. She explains what's typical, what's concerning, and when to seek care, while also examining the historical and social myths which keep women uninformed and disenfranchised.
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To the point and informative
- By Shannon Wallis on 04-03-25
By: Dr. Jen Gunter
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Invisible Women
- Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
- By: Caroline Criado Perez
- Narrated by: Caroline Criado Perez
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, treating men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias in time, money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the shocking root cause of gender inequality and research in Invisible Women.
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A statistical fire hose
- By B. Andresen on 09-11-19
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On Our Best Behavior
- The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good
- By: Elise Loehnen
- Narrated by: Elise Loehnen
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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We congratulate ourselves when we resist the donut in the office breakroom. We celebrate our restraint when we hold back from sending an email in anger. We feel virtuous when we wake up at dawn to get a jump on the day. We put others’ needs ahead of our own and believe this makes us exemplary. In On Our Best Behavior, journalist Elise Loehnen explains that these impulses—often lauded as unselfish, distinctly feminine instincts—are actually ingrained in us by a culture that reaps the benefits, via an extraordinarily effective collection of mores known as the Seven Deadly Sins.
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Autobiography in Disguise
- By Lindsey on 06-11-23
By: Elise Loehnen
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Hood Feminism
- Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot
- By: Mikki Kendall
- Narrated by: Mikki Kendall
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. Author Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women.
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I Learned So Much!!!
- By Rebecca on 06-13-20
By: Mikki Kendall
What listeners say about The Pain Gap
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Danica
- 12-10-24
Informative
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 out of 5 stars.
My Overall Thoughts/Impressions: This one has been on my list for a long time, and I had high expectations The beginning of the book was also really strong, which quickly reinforced those high expectations. The author's personal story and what drew her to the work she's done was extremely compelling.
I also loved the topics and themes the author chose to address. After reading Invisible Women a while back, I've been looking for a book that is a deeper dive into that topic. The title/subtitle of this one seemed promising. This is the third book I've read now, and after reading this one, I still haven't found quite what I'm looking for.
However, what this book does extremely well:
-takes an intersectional lens throughout the whole book, which was very welcome.
-features interesting and timely stories, anecdotes, stats, and stories.
-discusses how Covid-19 has affected women's health (a lot of this book is about the effects of covid-19
I really appreciated this book for these points. I wish it had taken a deeper dive and got into the weeds a bit more. This one fell a bit short of my expectations, but I still really enjoyed it and am glad I read it.
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- Anahita Badakhshani
- 01-04-24
Thought-provoking, engaging and informative
This book is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the multifaceted issues surrounding women’s health and its impact on individuals and communities.
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- Terry
- 01-14-23
Must read
So much information and well researched. This was a tough book to listen to while 8 months pregnant but it really made me aware of the treatment I received while giving birth. Highly recommend reading, just not while pregnant
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- Diane Folmar
- 06-17-24
Misleading Title
The title is misleading. The main two focuses are racism in pregnancy/ birth and Covid-19. But the author goes on so many tangents it's hard to keep up and stay on either of those topics. Much of the information was quoted from other authors' books and articles. I feel like this could have been such a great book had it been pieced together better before publishing.
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- AMarie Cantal
- 02-08-25
👎🏼
I do not like all the political standpoints and opinions in this book. Wish it mentioned those things in the review. I wouldn’t have bought it if I knew.
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