Women, Body, Illness

Space and Identity in the Everyday Lives of Women with Chronic Illness

By (author) Pamela Moss, Isabel Dyck

Hardback - £119.00

Publication date:

25 June 2002

Length of book:

240 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780847695430

This provocative and moving work explores concepts of body and space to better understand the daily lives and struggles of women with chronic illness. Moss and Dyck show how such women—coping with associated notions of illness, health, and being female—restructure their physical and social environments through the strategies they choose to accommodate disabling illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, or rheumatoid arthritis. Strategies might include disclosing or concealing illness from employers and friends; seeking or rejecting emotional support through old friends and new contacts; and pursuing or resisting specific diagnoses from the biomedical community. Featuring a wealth of original research and personal stories, Women, Body, Illness tells the tales of chronically ill women forging networks of support, redefining themselves, and challenging what it is to be ill.
This is an exciting book that proposes a radical body politics. The authors combine a critical analysis of women's health with rich empirical material to rethink our embodiment. Written in an imaginative and accessible way, this book makes an important contribution to feminist theory.