Service Alert

July 1 - Canada Day

CELA will be closed on Tuesday, July 1st for Canada Day. Our office will reopen and our Contact Centre services will resume on Wednesday, July 2nd. Enjoy your holiday!

Public library services for Canadians with print disabilities
  • Mobile accessibility tips
    • Change contrast
      • AYellow on black selected
      • ABlack on yellow selected
      • AWhite on black selected
      • ABlack on white selected
      • ADefault colours selected
    • Change text size
      • Text size Small selected
      • Text size Medium selected
      • Text size Large selected
      • Text size Maximum selected
    • Change font
      • Arial selected
      • Verdana selected
      • Comic Sans MS selected
    • Change text spacing
      • Narrow selected
      • Medium selected
      • Wide selected
  • Register
  • Log in
  • Français
  • Home
  • Newspapers
  • Magazines
  • Recommended
  • For libraries
  • Help
  • Skip to content
      • Change contrast
        • AYellow on black selected
        • ABlack on yellow selected
        • AWhite on black selected
        • ABlack on white selected
        • ADefault colours selected
      • Change text size
        • Text size Small selected
        • Text size Medium selected
        • Text size Large selected
        • Text size Maximum selected
      • Change font
        • Arial selected
        • Verdana selected
        • Comic Sans MS selected
      • Change text spacing
        • Narrow selected
        • Medium selected
        • Wide selected
  • Accessibility tips
CELAPublic library services for Canadians with print disabilities

Centre for Equitable Library Access
Public library service for Canadians with print disabilities

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Français
  • Home
  • Newspapers
  • Magazines
  • Recommended
  • For libraries
  • Help
  • Advanced search
  • Browse by category
  • Search tips
Breadcrumb
  1. Home

All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today

By Elizabeth Comen

Science and medicine biography, Health and medicine, History, Medicine, Science and technology, General non-fiction, Customs and cultures

Synthetic audio, Automated braille

Summary

Finalist for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardUSA Today Bestseller“All in Her Head accomplishes a remarkable feat of storytelling. By combining essential medical histories about women’s bodies with all the narrative propulsion of a medical thriller, Comen has written… a must-read, compelling, and important book.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Song of the Cell“Wow! This book will upend everything you thought you knew about your body while empowering you to make better decisions moving forward. Through storytelling, extensive research, and easy recommendations, Dr. Elizabeth Comen has given us all a priceless road map to reclaim our agency.”—Eve Rodsky, author of Fair PlayA surprising, groundbreaking, and fiercely entertaining medical history that is both a collective narrative of women’s bodies and a call to action for a new conversation around women’s health.For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences. The result is a cultural and societal leg­acy that continues to shape the (mis)treatment and care of women.While the modern age has seen significant advancements in the medical field, the notion that female bodies are flawed inversions of the male ideal lingers on—as do the pervasive societal stigmas and lingering ignorance that shape women’s health and relationships with their own bodies.Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist and medical historian Dr. Elizabeth Comen draws back the curtain on the collective medical history of women to reintroduce us to our whole bodies—how they work, the actual doctors and patients whose perspectives and experiences laid the foundation for today’s medical thought, and the many oversights that still remain unaddressed. With a physician’s knowledge and empathy, Dr. Comen follows the road map of the eleven organ systems to share unique and untold stories, drawing upon medical texts and journals, interviews with expert physicians, as well as her own  experience treating thousands of women.Empowering women to better understand ourselves and advocate for care that prioritizes healthy and joyful lives— for us and generations to come—All in Her Head is written with humor, wisdom, and deep scientific and cultural insight. Eye-opening, sometimes enraging, yet always captivating, this shared memoir of women’s medical history is an essential contribution to a holistic understanding and much-needed reclaiming of women’s history and bodies.

Title Details

ISBN 9780063293021
Publisher HarperCollins
Copyright Date 2024
Book number 6628333
Report a problem with this book

All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today

FAQ

Which devices can I use to read books and magazines from CELA?

Answer: CELA books and magazines work with many popular accessible reading devices and apps. Find out more on ourCompatible devices and formats page.

Go to Frequently Asked Questions page

About us

The Centre for Equitable Library Access, CELA, is an accessible library service, providing books and other materials to Canadians with print disabilities.

  • Learn more about CELA
  • Privacy
  • Terms of acceptable use
  • Member libraries

Follow us

Keep up with news from CELA!

  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Blog
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube

Suggestion Box

CELA welcomes all feedback and suggestions:

  • Join our Educator Advisory Group
  • Apply for our User Advisory Group
  • Suggest a title for the collection
  • Report a problem with a book

Contact Us

Email us at help@celalibrary.ca or call us at 1-855-655-2273 for support.

Go to contact page for full details

Copyright 2025 CELA. All rights reserved.