Sarah Graham on Rebel Bodies and the gender health gap revolution

Join me as I chat to award-winning freelance health journalist Sarah Graham - she is the founder of the Hysterical Women blog, specializing in health, gender and feminism and writes for the i newspaper, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the BMJ and many others.  Her book, ‘Rebel Bodies - A guide to the gender health gap revolution’, was published on 5th January and it is a compelling account of all the ways women, trans, non-binary, and queer people are gaslit, ignored, and let down by the medical establishment. Rebel Bodies grew out of, and weaves in stories from, the blog, and covers topics from endometriosis to menopause and everything in between. (Content warning: there is brief discussion of baby loss, and suicide/suicidal ideation in this interview.) We discuss: The intersection of Sarah’s own pregnancy with the process of writing the book - including a chapter that included some harrowing tales of other people’s experiences - and how that impacted on her own experience of pregnancy and birthing. The story from the book that had, and continues to have the biggest impact on Sarah, and the one she knew she had to include. Some of the shocking statistics highlighted in the book, for example: that endometriosis is estimated to cost the UK economy £8.2 billion a year and that women are seven times more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and discharged in the middle of a heart attack.  The ‘suicide gender paradox’ - it was news to me that women actually attempt suicide at higher rates but men are more likely to die from their attempts - again, the suicide rate for women peaks around the time of peri/meno - yet often when we try to point this out the argument is shut down because rates are far higher in men, so this seems to me to be a really important consideration.    We of course had to cover the current NHS crisis and the impact of many years of underfunding, and Sarah gives us her analysis of the Women’s Health Strategy for England, published in 2022.   I’ll leave you with this quote, which talks about PMDD but could just as easily apply to the peri/menopause, and which really resonated with me: “From a feminist perspective, how do we acknowledge the very real impact of PMDD on sufferers’ mental health without fuelling the idea that women’s menstrual cycles make us irrational, overly emotional and less competent, trustworthy, or reliable?”     You can find Hysterical Women at https://hystericalwomen.co.uk/ and Sarah is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahgraham7 and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarahgraham7writer  Rebel Bodies is published by Bloomsbury: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/rebel-bodies-9781399401142/ - please do consider supporting your local indie bookstore if you buy a copy! You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes/subscribe to the newsletter at https://middlingalong.com     It would mean so much if you’d subscribe, rate, and review us to share the love and help others find the podcast too!  You can also find me at https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  or at www.managingthemenopause.com where we offer 1-2-1 coaching and workplace training.