New Book on Women and Chronic Illness
[This came through on an email list and I meant to post it ages ago - buuuut, you know.... It’s a bit pricey, $36 US, but looks worth it if the budget allows. According to the info on the website, it looks like it may also be available in other formats as well.]
Dissonant Disabilities: Women with Chronic Illnesses Explore Their Lives
Edited by Diane Driedger & Michelle Owen
Spring 2008 9780889614642
This much-needed collection of original articles invites the reader to
examine the key issues in the lives of women with chronic illnesses. The
authors explore how society reacts to women with chronic illness and how
women living with chronic illness cope with the uncertainty of their bodies
in a society that desires certainty. Additionally, issues surrounding women
with chronic illness in the workplace and the impact of chronic illness on
women’s relationships are sensitively considered.
Distinctive Features:
§ Presents incisive research on the subject from the perspective of women
who themselves live with chronic illness both physical and mental.
§ Discusses the shame, blame, and power imbalances in the family, work,
and educational lives of women with chronic illness.
§ Provides an important dimension of personal experience that demonstrates
that barriers in the women’s lives are primarily socially constructed.
“This collection addresses an under-researched and under-theorized academic
topic, combining the perspectives of critical disability studies and
feminist studies. Most importantly, it does so from the perspective of
women who themselves live with chronic illness. The scholarship is sound
and well researched, but also adds an important dimension of personal
experience that underlines the value of critical identity politics.”
-Pauline Greenhill, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Winnipeg
“This is a strong and much-needed collection about issues that are
significant in the lives of women living with chronic illnesses. I like the
inclusion of physical, cognitive, visible, invisible, and contested
illnesses.”
-Sharon Dale Stone, Department of Sociology, Lakehead University
Diane Driedger is a PhD candidate in the faculty of education, University
of Manitoba. She is author of The Last Civil Rights Movement: Disabled
Peoples’ International and co-editor of two anthologies by women with
disabilities; she is also a published poet. Since 1980, Diane has been an
activist, researcher, administrator and author on the topic of people with
disabilities with a specific interest in the empowerment of disabled women.
Michelle Owen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of
Winnipeg. Her primary teaching, research interests and publications are
focused on gender, sexuality, family and disability. Most recently,
Michelle worked on two projects involving women with disabilities: a
longitudinal study of intimate partner violence, and a participatory action
research initiative investigating intersecting sites of violence in the
lives of girls and young women.
Table of Contents
Part One: Clashing Expectations
Water Wearing on a Stone: The Role of Shame in the Social Construction of
Chronic Illnesses
Charlotte Caron
The Complexities of Negotiating Power under Conditions of Chronic Illness
Mary Delaney and Sandra Bell
Crazy Talk: Dialogue between Two Young Women about Depression
Mandy Fraser and Jennifer Matwee
The Social Construction of Doubt: Women’s Accounts of Uncertainty and
Chronic Illness
Sheilagh Grills and Scott Grills
Part Two: Unpredictable Bodies
The Emergence of Body Image Dissatisfaction among Women in Singapore
Maho Isono
What’s Eating You? A Feminist’s Chronic Struggle with Anorexic Identity
Morgan Gresham
Listening to the Body: Women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia,
and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Talk about Illness and the Body
Debra A. Swoboda
This Is Not Going to Control My Life: Young and Living with Fibromyalgia
Amy Chow
Part Three: Disturbing Work
The Personal Is Pedagogical/The Pedagogical Is Personal
Ruth Roach Pierson
There Always Seems to Be Excuses: A Grad Student’s Narrative of Autoimmunity
Julie Devaney
A Delicate Balance: Chronic Conditions and Workspace
Nancy E. Hansen
Part Four: Shifting Relationships
Chronic Non-malignant Pain: A Queer Woman’s Journey through Relationships
and Healing
Corinne Stevens
Working Together: Women with Musculoskeletal Illnesses Interacting with
Health Care Providers
S. Michelle Driedger, Carrie Sanders, Cindy Gallois, Maree Boyle, and Nancy
Santesso
Circle of Care: Transitioning through One Woman’s Experience of Breast
Cancer
Barbara A. Brown
Part Five: Traversing Dissonance
Recovery and Power: Living with Bipolar Disorder
J. Karen Reynolds
Living Well (with Cancer): Lessons Learned from Dragon-Boat Racers
Terry L. Mitchell, Franci Finkelstein, Eleanor Nielsen, and Christine
Yakiwchuk
Signalling Invisibility, Risking Careers? Caucusing as an SOS
Katherine Teghtsoonian and Pamela Moss
Notes from Bed: Learning from Chronic Illness
Susan Wendell
Visit our website! www.womenspress.ca
Dissonant Disabilities: Women with Chronic Illnesses Explore Their Lives
Edited by Diane Driedger & Michelle Owen
Spring 2008 9780889614642
This much-needed collection of original articles invites the reader to
examine the key issues in the lives of women with chronic illnesses. The
authors explore how society reacts to women with chronic illness and how
women living with chronic illness cope with the uncertainty of their bodies
in a society that desires certainty. Additionally, issues surrounding women
with chronic illness in the workplace and the impact of chronic illness on
women’s relationships are sensitively considered.
Distinctive Features:
§ Presents incisive research on the subject from the perspective of women
who themselves live with chronic illness both physical and mental.
§ Discusses the shame, blame, and power imbalances in the family, work,
and educational lives of women with chronic illness.
§ Provides an important dimension of personal experience that demonstrates
that barriers in the women’s lives are primarily socially constructed.
“This collection addresses an under-researched and under-theorized academic
topic, combining the perspectives of critical disability studies and
feminist studies. Most importantly, it does so from the perspective of
women who themselves live with chronic illness. The scholarship is sound
and well researched, but also adds an important dimension of personal
experience that underlines the value of critical identity politics.”
-Pauline Greenhill, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Winnipeg
“This is a strong and much-needed collection about issues that are
significant in the lives of women living with chronic illnesses. I like the
inclusion of physical, cognitive, visible, invisible, and contested
illnesses.”
-Sharon Dale Stone, Department of Sociology, Lakehead University
Diane Driedger is a PhD candidate in the faculty of education, University
of Manitoba. She is author of The Last Civil Rights Movement: Disabled
Peoples’ International and co-editor of two anthologies by women with
disabilities; she is also a published poet. Since 1980, Diane has been an
activist, researcher, administrator and author on the topic of people with
disabilities with a specific interest in the empowerment of disabled women.
Michelle Owen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of
Winnipeg. Her primary teaching, research interests and publications are
focused on gender, sexuality, family and disability. Most recently,
Michelle worked on two projects involving women with disabilities: a
longitudinal study of intimate partner violence, and a participatory action
research initiative investigating intersecting sites of violence in the
lives of girls and young women.
Table of Contents
Part One: Clashing Expectations
Water Wearing on a Stone: The Role of Shame in the Social Construction of
Chronic Illnesses
Charlotte Caron
The Complexities of Negotiating Power under Conditions of Chronic Illness
Mary Delaney and Sandra Bell
Crazy Talk: Dialogue between Two Young Women about Depression
Mandy Fraser and Jennifer Matwee
The Social Construction of Doubt: Women’s Accounts of Uncertainty and
Chronic Illness
Sheilagh Grills and Scott Grills
Part Two: Unpredictable Bodies
The Emergence of Body Image Dissatisfaction among Women in Singapore
Maho Isono
What’s Eating You? A Feminist’s Chronic Struggle with Anorexic Identity
Morgan Gresham
Listening to the Body: Women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia,
and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Talk about Illness and the Body
Debra A. Swoboda
This Is Not Going to Control My Life: Young and Living with Fibromyalgia
Amy Chow
Part Three: Disturbing Work
The Personal Is Pedagogical/The Pedagogical Is Personal
Ruth Roach Pierson
There Always Seems to Be Excuses: A Grad Student’s Narrative of Autoimmunity
Julie Devaney
A Delicate Balance: Chronic Conditions and Workspace
Nancy E. Hansen
Part Four: Shifting Relationships
Chronic Non-malignant Pain: A Queer Woman’s Journey through Relationships
and Healing
Corinne Stevens
Working Together: Women with Musculoskeletal Illnesses Interacting with
Health Care Providers
S. Michelle Driedger, Carrie Sanders, Cindy Gallois, Maree Boyle, and Nancy
Santesso
Circle of Care: Transitioning through One Woman’s Experience of Breast
Cancer
Barbara A. Brown
Part Five: Traversing Dissonance
Recovery and Power: Living with Bipolar Disorder
J. Karen Reynolds
Living Well (with Cancer): Lessons Learned from Dragon-Boat Racers
Terry L. Mitchell, Franci Finkelstein, Eleanor Nielsen, and Christine
Yakiwchuk
Signalling Invisibility, Risking Careers? Caucusing as an SOS
Katherine Teghtsoonian and Pamela Moss
Notes from Bed: Learning from Chronic Illness
Susan Wendell
Visit our website! www.womenspress.ca