Women's Health

A memoir from bestselling 'House of Glass' author Hadley Freeman, recounting her battle with anorexia from ages 14-17 in psychiatric hospitals, tracking the recovery journeys of women she was hospitalized with 20 years later, and revealing the deep connection between eating disorders and the difficulties girls face coming of age. Called 'riveting' by The New York Times.

Acclaimed humor writer Elissa Bassist's memoir about reclaiming her authentic voice in a culture that doesn't listen to women. Between 2016-2018 she saw 20+ medical professionals for mysterious ailments, until an acupuncturist suggested her physical pain could be caged fury. This is medical mystery, cultural criticism, and rallying cry. Semi-finalist for 2023 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Harriet A. Washington links environmental racism and toxic exposure to health and cognitive harm, challenging claims that racial inequality is biological.

Annie Ernaux revisits her 1963 illegal abortion through memory and writing, examining the body, law, class, and the silence surrounding the experience.

Thirty years after 'The Feminine Mystique,' Betty Friedan challenges another powerful societal myth: the 'mystique of age.' She attacks the 'medical model of decline' and argues that old age is not a pathology or loss, but a unique life stage full of vitality, growth, and self-realization.

Demographer Diana Greene Foster uses the Turnaway Study to examine how abortion denial can shape health, economic security and life trajectories, while the study’s design reminds us to read its findings within their limits.

Kate Kahle reflects on how diagnostic frameworks can miss autistic women and girls. Her talk connects masking, gender expectations and clinical recognition while cautioning against treating one personal story as every autistic person’s experience.