Her Body, Her Cure

Unconventional health treatments have long been part of women’s efforts to resist pervasive societal repression at the hands of misogyny and discrimination.Her Body, Her Cure explores this history, from the unorthodox medical practices of the suffragists in the nineteenth century, to the holistic health philosophies of second-wave feminists in the 1970s, to the more modern examples of celebrities and online influencers selling supplements and diet regimens in the name of wellness. Michelle Cohen sifts through these trends while drawing on her personal experiences in wellness culture as well as her own observations and work as a physician and women’s health advocate. She seeks to determine how and why women have been drawn to alternative health treatments, linking the rejection of mainstream medicine to historically important ideas of personal autonomy, populist rebellion, and spiritual belief.In recent years, wellness culture has taken a sharp turn towards far-right extremism, a jarring change due to the association of wellness with New Age spirituality and feminine-coded progressivism. The emphasis on anti-science ideology and extremist political affiliations is a volatile mix with far-reaching implications. Her Body, Her Cure untangles the dangerous evolution of this phenomenon and exposes its troubling consequences in modern times.