Women’s Experience Of Endometriosis

Elaine Denny, Annalise Weckesser
In: Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health · 2019 · pp. 127–139 · doi:10.4324/9781351035620-9 · W4233560644
book-chapter OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 4 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-29 ⓘ

This paper explores the complex, gendered, and stigmatized experiences of women with endometriosis, including diagnostic delays and resistance to biomedical characterizations through community efforts.

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Abstract

Endometriosis is generally viewed as a gynaecological condition, usually seen in women of reproductive age in whom it causes chronic pelvic pain, often around the time of menstruation, pain during sexual intercourse, and other symptoms. Women often experience a delay of many years in receiving a diagnosis and may be disbelieved when seeking medical care. In this chapter we explore the complexities of women’s experience of endometriosis, which, we argue, are bound up by its contested and gendered nature. The association with menstruation makes endometriosis a stigmatised condition, which further compounds its problematic nature. We situate these issues within the context of women’s experience of living with endometriosis, and conclude with a discussion of attempts to resist the dominant biomedical characterisation through recent developments in endometriosis communities and self-help.

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Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

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Cited by (5)

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License: CC0 · commercial use OK