I deeply appreciated the opportunity to read and review this book. I'll be using it's contents in my teaching and will make sure to keep an eye out for more works from this author/publisher.

I felt seen in reading this book. Sex and gender specialist, McGregor, writes about issues in the male-centric world of medicine and how women's health has been impacted. After working in medicine for fifteen years, I was aware of many of the issues that she brings up, but she has done so much research and covers so many important topics on these pages - from the differences in metabolizing drugs between male and female bodies, how hormones impact health and medication dosing, the types of conditions and diseases that women are more likely to face, and I loved that she put an emphasis on how all of the points she makes are even worse for women of color and transgender individuals. The medical industry has come a long way in figuring out how the human body works, but most of the research has been done on healthy males with the assumption that all bodies are the same, leaving the female body largely understudied. This book is not just for someone who has an interest in medicine though. It can serve as a handbook for how to be your own best advocate when going into a doctor's appointment, as McGregor shares helpful tips for keeping a health history record, questions to take with you when finding a doctor, and how to have an open conversation with your doctor to ensure that you are receiving the best care available, regardless of your gender. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

For the most part, this book is very informative and offers concrete examples of how women can empower themselves and be proactive in a medical system that is undoubtedly biased. Initially, I was put off by McGregor's tone because she comes off a bit too self-congratulatory, but then again in her line of work and study, it's probably necessary for her to speak up about her accomplishments since men are and have always been doing so. I also struggled with the fact that she can be a bit unclear or inconsistent in her language, particularly around gender and sex. The book could have been more inclusive in this sense. She does, however, address health disparities among BIPOC women, which was appropriate and appreciated. The layout of the book worked well, and her summaries make it very accessible. I particularly liked the action steps and suggestions she included because oftentimes these types of books do a good job of outlining the problem without offering any concrete steps for change. It's clear that McGregor is passionate about her work, and we would all do well to pay attention to how our current healthcare system fails large swaths of our population.

I highly recommend this excellent book for all women to read. Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. After I experienced abuse by male doctors, incompetence and dismissive attitudes about my serious health issues including several misdiagnoses. I began to research how our health care system affects women. it proved to be a very eye opening subject. This is a subject that all women need to be educated about.

The author verifies facts here that our health care system is based on a male concentric model. .Therefor women's bodies are left out of all testing, trials and medical training. at all universities. This is shocking in itself and leads to the death of millions of women yearly. Most prescription drugs are not tested on women, therefore the side effects for women bodies can be devastating. Many women have chronic brain damage from drugs that were prescribed by their doctors that were incompetent to prescribe. Our chronic illness, injuries and reproductive issues are usually misdiagnosed . Every single aspect of medical treatment has been designed with men in mind . Unless you educate yourself on this subject you will probably never realize this until you suffer a stroke and your doctor misdiagnosis you, or a heart attack that the dismissive doctor will refer to as a "panic attack". I recently had a friend talk to a male doctor about symptoms that indicated a stroke and the idiot doctor told her it was :nerves". She has since lost her sight which could have been saved had she been diagnosed correctly. Keep in mind that this is at every medical office, every hospital and every surgical center and urgent care. I had severe Fibro symptoms, researched them and went to urgent care in horrific pain as my spine was shutting down due to a chronic neck injury and was "dismissed" by a rude male doctor . 5 minutes was all the time he spent with me and he spent that time rolling his eyes and writing a charge slip. The consequence of his misdiagnose was that I spent almost 8 months unable to walk in bed unable to get to a doctor to get a proper diagnoses as I could not walk. I literally had to spend months crawling due to his incompetence. This is the type of misdiagnose and abusive behavior by male doctors that is common place for all women. Talk to any women you know and you will hear similar stories. I reiterate these occurrences because this book resonates with me and my own experience.

You need to read this book. its critical reading for all women.

Read this book. its critical for your health . The author includes a summary at the end of each chapter as "Your Key Takeaways" to reinforce the fine points of the chapters. She also includes Quick Reference Questions in Appendix B . I recommend you write down these common questions and take them to your doctor. This is a excellent book that all women should be reading. I recommend this book very highly. Review cross posted. My thanks to the author.

This is such an interesting read. I never knew that so much medical research focused on males. The author not only provided evidence of this, but stressed the importance of having females equally represented. This should be required reading for all women, as our health is essential.

I think this is a book that all women, and men too, should read if they care about their own health or the health of loved ones. Sexism in the medical field. What, you say? Yeah, we of the Ms. John Q Public, are blatantly uninformed, whether intentionally or not.
A lot of information in here discusses the differences of men and women, and no, not the obvious ones, though they too, do play a large part to the differences we don't think about, or maybe even know, between males and females.
This goes further and gets into the nitty gritty that almost all drug trials are performed mostly on men, making the drugs, male-centric, a term used repeatedly in here. I got it now though.
Women ARE different, so our symptoms and remedies are highly unlikely to be cookie cutter textbook cases. It cites several reknowned specialists, findings, and random incidences the author has firsthand knowledge of. How it may differ than what they've had access to, because again, it's a male-centric medical world we live in.
It talks about the sad dilemma some women face, the stereotypical "it must be that time of the month" or "its all in your head". Inevitably, women also then, may not get the intensified focus to the root cause of symptoms, from a medical professional either. Heart issues are horribly overlooked due to women not having the obvious male-centric symptoms, and are often misdiagnosed as anxiety, panic attacks or other imbalances. The book discusses to be aware of yourself, how to go about that, be frank with your medical professionals, bridge the communication gaps, and don't give up.
This can't be fixed overnight, but the more it's addressed should lead to rectifying a large oversight.
Medicine and the human body is complex enough; diagnoses, causes, remedies, side effects, interactions ... mind boggling. Even more so when a person has to take a regimen of medicines.
I found very useful techniques that may apply for either sex while reading this. The emphasis, however, is to vouch for myself as a woman! And because of the male-centric geared higher learning, my own medical professionals should need to meet MY criteria.
This is truly eye opening, it's finally being recognized as a huge problem that does need to be corrected for the better health of women.
I am grateful to Hachette Books, through NetGalley, for allowing me the chance to read an ARC.
I am voluntarily putting into my own words, my thoughts and opinions on Sex Matters

*Sex Matters* discusses how the western model of modern medicine is male centered. Virtually every aspect of medical treatment in modern society has been designed with men in mind -- "health-care systems, procedures, and philosophy." This is so pervasive that many people don't even recognize it.

The book gives a fairly comprehensive overview of the issue for the lay person, and demonstrates "how the current male-centric model of medicine is causing women to receive potentially inappropriate, ineffective, or even substandard care, every single day." Some of the topics include hormones, drugs (how they affect women differently -- including generics), and how women are often perceived to be suffering from "anxiety" and thus written off.

One of the things I like most in this book is how the author includes a summary at the end of each chapter as "Your Key Takeaways" to reinforce the most important concepts of that chapter. She also includes Quick Reference Questions in Appendix B (as well as an earlier chapter) to ask your medical provider, and a great list of resources for reference.

Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.

Important book on women’s health

I think that this is an important book, not just for women, but for men as well, for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is an opportunity for men to learn about a form of sexism with which they were likely not familiar. The second is that many men will, at some point, have to advocate on behalf of the women in their lives, when women may not be able to advocate for themselves.

I have experienced physicians being dismissive of women. At a follow-up visit, a doctor sloughed off my wife’s complaint that her condition had returned. A few hours later, my wife was in the emergency room being treated. So yes, this happens.

A lot of the advice in the book is very practical, such as keeping lists of medicines and lists of questions to ask. Dr. McGregor suggests doing a lot of online research but this raised alarm bells as a lot of the information on the web is unreliable and even dangerous. However Dr. McGregor does give a list of reliable websites to mitigate against bad information. I liked that McGregor identified people by their degrees, for example, MD or PhD, important in this and many contexts for clairy when discussing health issues.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.

Learning is something you can never do to much of; and it’s books like this that open your eyes and your mind to something you’ve never given a lot of thought to. I did know about women showing different signs when it comes to heart attacks; but there was so much more information. Women’s bodies are different than men, end of story. Medically it doesn’t make sense to treat both genders the same. Our bodies are inherently different, so it doesn’t make any sense that we would respond the same way in medical situations. Learning how to be an advocate for yourself and your medical treatment, learning the difference in how our bodies react to medications, learning that not everyone presents the same way are all important lessons for not only the patients; but anyone in the medical field. I think everyone would benefit from the lessons and knowledge in this book. I’ve never even thought about being treated different in the emergency room based on my gender, I’ve always done my research; but how I’m going to pay even more attention.

I received an advance copy of this book from netgalley.com.

This is a fairly exceptional book. The author does a great job of outlining the traditional male-centric focus in medicine, and then discussing the implications of this for women's health. Through numerous illustrative and compelling examples of women's experiences of health, she helps to highlight many of the assumptions and blind spots we have in accurately and equally treating women in medicine.

My only complaint is that the author repeatedly uses some memorable phrases and approaches to outlining the book's goals and framework, especially early in the book, leading to redundancy that detracts from the content. This is a minor complaint in an otherwise informative, accessible, and well-written book.

If you are a woman (or identify as anything other than a cis-gendered man) then this book will be vital to your navigation of the health care system as it stands. Women, people of color and members of the LGBTQI+ community have long known, anecdotally, that we receive inferior healthcare at every turn. In “Sex Matters” McGregor provides the scientific back-up for that truth and well explains how to advocate for yourself within the male-centric system.

Like Dusenbery’s “Doing Harm” and Saini’s “Inferior,” “Sex Matters” opens each chapter with a solid discussion of how male-centric medicine has become the standard from the bottom up. Each chapter provides a primer on how the science behind care gets its sexist start. With much in depth research and further reading suggested, the “how” of male-centric care comes to light.

Anecdotes of McGregor’s patients outline cases where thinking outside the male-centric box was required for care and provide real-life examples of how women, and providers, can better advocate for quality diagnosis and treatment. The crown jewel of each chapter, and the book as a whole, is the well outlined suggestions for action on behalf of the reader. These guidelines will help patients navigate the healthcare system, arrive to appointments well researched and help us all prepare to be our own best advocates.

If you need to use the healthcare system, and eventually we all do, add this book to your toolkit.