Are women cursed?

While some believe women’s suffering in reproductive health is down to the Fall, Michelle Tant asserts that it is far more to do with how society dismisses and normalises our health issues

From puberty to period pain, infertility, childbirth and finally menopause, it is not hard to believe that women are cursed. Women and girls often run a gauntlet with their reproductive health, built on a foundation of misogyny in healthcare and medical research predominantly conducted with male bodies. Recent reports show that women’s health issues are frequently normalised and dismissed, impacting every aspect of their lives. In maternity, the stark reality is that black and brown women currently are around four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, and around 70 per cent of all women suffer some form of trauma in the childbearing continuum.