Rebel Bodies: All About The Gender Health Gap Revolution
In Conversation With Author And Journalist Sarah Graham
Have you ever read a book that made you stop and think to yourself ‘I thought I was the only one’? It’s almost like a moment of revelation, really - those sorts of moments where you can remember exactly where you were, who you were with, and the knowing of what you have just learnt will be taken forward with you, wherever you may go.
Rebel Bodies by Sarah Graham has been exactly *that* experience for me.
This book has actually dared to quantify the issues around healthcare and being female - trans and disabled individuals included in that, as well as groups of varying ethnic backgrounds. The book has seemingly been everywhere on Twitter - so many people were talking about this, and the tone of that is best described as hopeful. Here is someone who is listening at last, here is someone who sees us.
Having written about my own health related issues recently, this book felt a little bit like a hug - in that here was someone who got it, and had actually listened, and had a way forward. Rather than the stock response of ‘it’s all in your head’ - UGH - Rebel Bodies will turn everything you know on its head.
As part of launching The Disabled Feminist, I wanted go speak to more of the related themes - and I thought there’d be no better way in doing that than to interview the author. Step forward, Sarah Graham.
Out Now!
My debut book, The Autism Friendly Cookbook, is out now! And this is what people are saying about it….
Natasha Lipman, journalist and host of The Rest Room podcast: “The Autism Friendly Cookbook is a striking manifesto on the importance of accessibility in cooking. With adaptations front and centre, this book from Lydia Wilkins is sure to become a kitchen staple.”
Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity: “Cooking is one of the foundations of independent living. This charming, inviting book is designed to make this basic life-skill accessible to everyone. It's not just a collection of tantalizing recipes, it's a celebration of autistic community.”
Chloe Johnson, editor at Disability Review Magazine: “A delightful guide full of important information for neurodivergent foodies - we've needed this for years!”
Hi Sarah, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview - and congratulations on the publication of Rebel Bodies! As an opening question, can you tell us a little bit about how the book came into being and why?
The book grew out of my blog, Hysterical Women, which in turn grew out of my work as a freelance health journalist. I've spent the last five or so years getting increasingly interested in and frustrated about the stories I hear from women about their healthcare experiences - feeling dismissed, disbelieved, struggling to get a diagnosis or treatment, and so on. I started the blog in October 2018 to curate these stories and, I suppose, to prove a point that this was a problem - that there are biases and inequalities affecting women across the healthcare spectrum, from menstrual issues to neurodiversity, from chronic pain to childbirth, and everything in between. What I've always been really inspired by though is the growing movement of activism and advocacy that's emerged around the gender health gap in recent years. So the idea with the book was to also highlight and celebrate that, as well as equipping women and minority groups with some tools and resources to join the revolution.
How did you start your career as a journalist, and what was it that prompted you to take up the niche of health journalism?
I always knew I wanted to be a journalist and took a fairly traditional route in - a BA in English and French followed by an MA in Newspaper Journalism - before taking a less traditional detour! I started out after my masters working on a small online magazine called Feminist Times, covering all kinds of women's issues. I was struggling a lot with my mental health around that time and so on a personal level I was particularly drawn to stories around women and mental health, as well as things like abortion and reproductive rights. When I went freelance a year later those were the areas I knew I wanted to focus on, still with a feminist/gendered lens, and my interests broadened out from there really.
What would be your advice to students looking to go into the industry?
I feel like it's already changed so much since I started ten years ago - not least because so many more people are freelance now compared to when I first took the leap. I think that's helped to democratise entry to the industry in lots of ways, because anyone can pick up their laptop, send a pitch, and start building up their portfolio and contacts. When I was doing my MA, there was much more of an expectation that your route in would be an MA or NCTJ training course, unpaid internships or work experience stints on big publications, and then a trainee scheme - which is not a particularly inclusive option for many people. I was very privileged to be able to do it but, unless you want to be a reporter, I think it's now much less relevant for many journalism roles. So, to actually answer your question(!), I think my advice would be just to write. Find a niche, connect with people online, don't be afraid to cold pitch editors or publications you want to work with - or even ask them to meet you for coffee or a Zoom chat to discuss what kind of stories they're interested in.
You also have a feminist health blog - what prompted you to identify with the term?
I think I was always a feminist on some level but it was studying women's literature - people like Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter - at uni that first made me identify with the term and start reading and writing more about the issues.
Rebel Bodies is great in that it quantifies issues we have perhaps spoken about, but the underlying issue has yet to be fully realised. It's also great in the inclusion on the grounds of diversity - such as with trans individuals and disabled people, too. Was that a deliberate choice you decided to take when writing? It's interesting to me as there is no book truly like this - and inclusion is so often missed when we speak to matters of health, which is arguably to our collective detriment.
Yes, it was. I think, as you say, diversity and inclusion are often a tick box exercise when we talk about health, or they're forgotten about entirely. I was very clear from the beginning that I wanted Rebel Bodies to be truly inclusive, with the experiences of queer, trans and non-binary people, women of colour, disabled women and so on running all the way through it, rather than mentioned in passing and then ignored for the rest of the book. There are inevitably gaps and things that were missed - like I wish the cancer chapter addressed some of the racial inequalities in cancer screening and diagnosis - but I tried to be as comprehensive as possible and to highlight all of the different intersections and nuances that affect different people's healthcare experiences.
Health has various intersectional issues as identified in your book, especially seemingly when it comes to women - could you identify, for people who may be unaware, how this starts to become ingrained?
Medicine and healthcare, like any other sector, reflect the patriarchal society that we live in. Sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fatphobia and other biases are really deeply ingrained in our culture and, although we are starting to see things shift, that progress is particularly slow when it comes to big, long-standing structures like our healthcare system. Modern medicine has its roots in Ancient Greece, 4000 years ago, and it has historically been a system designed by and for men. This means there are huge gaps in medical knowledge and research around health issues that primarily affect women, because these haven't been prioritised, and the same is true of medical training and text books, of how healthcare services are commissioned, and the diagnostic tools and treatment pathways that are available. There's also still a definite hangover from outdated attitudes and beliefs about women - namely that we're hysterical hypochondriacs - as well as long-standing but false racist beliefs like Black people having thicker skin or feeling less pain.
And what about the impact - how can we negate that?
Fundamentally the change has to come from the top down. We need investment in research, investment in medical education and ongoing training - including how to recognise and challenge your own biases, a commitment to making healthcare management properly diverse and representative of communities, and investment in the NHS workforce, services and other resources to ensure that no one slips through the cracks. In a healthcare system that's struggling to function as it should, it will always be the most vulnerable who are worst affected, and so that's the big thing - we need a well-funded, properly functioning NHS, with staff who are treated fairly. There's only so much that individual patients and healthcare professionals can do to negate the gaps and biases that are inherent within the system. That said, I think that challenging and calling out inequalities, and campaigning for better care, is really important and is helping to move the conversation forward. That's how we keep it on the political agenda.
Women shouldn't have to advocate for themselves when it comes to healthcare - but are often forced to. This can potentially be problematic, such as if they have a disability, or they are non-verbal. Would you mind speaking to that?
Absolutely, and one of the things I say in the book is that it's never your fault if you don't receive the healthcare you should - no matter how much or how little you're able to advocate for yourself. But this is absolutely an intersectional issue as well; different layers of privilege and oppression mean that some people will feel more able to advocate for themselves than others, and some people will be taken more seriously or face fewer barriers than others.
If anyone reads your book, what is the one thing you hope that they take away from it?
Ultimately I hope it makes people feel validated and less alone with whatever health issues they're dealing with. I hope it makes people angry about the state of our healthcare, but that it also makes them feel inspired to advocate for themselves or join a campaign to help change things.
Rebel Bodies is out now; click here to get your copy.