Much of what we know about women’s bodies and health has come from men. Their points of view have helped shape the way we feel about our bodies—and the kind of medical attention we receive. Our “normal” bodily functions—as well as our pain, pleasure, strength, and intellectual capacity—have been based on an overwhelmingly male narrative uninformed by women’s own voices, and often used to shame and subjugate us. The result is a cultural and societal legacy that continues to shape our health and care, despite recent advances that challenge it. In ALL IN HER HEAD: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today (Harper Wave; on-sale February 13; ISBN: 9780063293014; 448 pages), medical historian and Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist Elizabeth Comen, M.D. unpacks this legacy and reframes the conversation to empower women.

Comen shines a light on the female medicalized body and illuminates the myths and blind spots we’ve unwittingly inherited through generations. She takes readers back in time to meet the legendary—and sometimes infamous—doctors who shaped the field of medicine, as well as the patients they cared for (or in some cases, didn’t.) Comen explores the sanitariums of 18th century Europe, the anatomy labs of Victorian New York City, the makeshift hospitals of the Antebellum South. She connects the dots to show how a legacy of ignorance, indifference, oppression, and subjugation toward women’s medical issues commands women’s medical present.