Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Endometriosis is an illness of the uterus estimated to affect one in ten women, taking an average of ten years and eight physicians to diagnose, offering no cure. Even though the medical research into endometriosis is alarmingly scarce, and diagnostic tools are few, recent research has shown that the main reason for the detrimentally slow diagnosis of the illness is the refusal of doctors to believe in women’s pain: the symptoms women report are actively being dismissed as psychological by nature, while a serious medical condition remains untreated for years, even decades. This paper aims to prove that endometriosis is a social problem, rather than a medical one. My work treats the body as a cultural text, shifting the view of ill bodies from a medical to a cultural one. This paper asks the question: what does endometriosis tell us about the position of women in society? Facts about the illness and the treatment of patients foreground the following issues: the Othering of the female body, the absence of women in medical sciences, the absence of women in policy making, the stigmatizing social discourse surrounding menstruation, and the tabooization of female sexuality. The paper claims that a discussion and resolution of these issues has great potential to change the healthcare women are provided. A fusion of medical humanities, cultural studies, and gender studies, this project is a testament to the ever-broadening scope of humanities, and the significance of the field to contemporary society.