Reviews for The Cure for Women
Starred Review from Publishers Weekly
*Lydia Reeder. St. Martin’s, $30 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-28445-7. Reviewed on: 09/26/2024
“Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906), the second woman to graduate from the Sorbonne medical school, played a forgotten but critical role in feminist history, according to this brilliant account. Reeder (Dust Bowl Girls) describes how over the course of the 19th century, women excluded from male-only universities were increasingly able to enter the medical profession via newly established women’s colleges, leading to a misogynist backlash from the male-dominated field…. Jacobi, a talented physician and fiery advocate for women’s advancement, came up with the idea of conducting the first-ever scientific, data-backed study of women’s reproductive biology, enlisting other women she met through her suffragist activism to help…. Reeder’s winsomely written narrative touches on issues strikingly similar to ones widely discussed today, including women’s ongoing frustration with the lack of robust medical study of the female body and the troubling reemergence of reactionary assertions that women are by design not fit for work. It’s an urgent and revealing slice of history. (Dec.)”
Read the full review here.
The New York Times Review: “She Revolutionized Medicine. Why Isn’t She a Household Name?”
Lydia Reeder’s “The Cure for Women” tells the story of the remarkable Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi.
‘The Cure for Women reintroduces its subject as a hero for this moment. With relentless hard work, hard science and sharp analysis, Putnam Jacobi changed the ancient narrative that men had written for women. ”
Read the full review at The New York Times
Lee Woodruff Review: “December 2024 Book Marks”
“This timely book explores the life of Mary Putnam Jacobi, a female doctor who persisted in a man’s world, challenging Victorian medical norms around women’s health that would change the course of women’s lives. The belief at the time, echoed in books and by the medical establishment, was that women’s menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick, therefore unfit to hold jobs and go to medical school. The terminology and thinking around pregnancy as an “illness” or “weakened condition,” persisted well into the 20th century, a legacy that only recently began to change. Jacobi was the first woman to be accepted to the Sorbonne Medical School in Paris and we she returned to New York, she fought hard to create the first data backed scientific research on women’s reproduction and biology. I was shocked to learn that it was the end of the 19th century before science and medicine discovered that it took both a male and female to equally create life. It had been believed that a woman was simply a vessel, waiting to be impregnated by a man, whose seed determined life. It’s a highly readable book about an extraordinary woman, her life and challenges, her loves as losses and the bravery it took to challenge a system..”
Read the review here.
The Week: “5 cozy books to read this December”
By Theara Coleman, The Week US
‘The Cure for Women’ by Lydia Reeder
Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi was shattering glass ceilings in the medical field when women were discouraged from studying medicine. Her story is brought to life, with a “somewhat novelistic flair,” in this biography of the “gifted, impetuous social reformer and trailblazer for women’s medical education,” said Kirkus Reviews.
In the late 1800s, Jacobi used a combination of sheer determination and her family’s influence to obtain a medical degree before entering the medical field in New York. She won many prestigious medical awards, researched female reproductive biology and worked with suffragists. Her presence revolutionized women’s health care as she pushed for other women to join the profession. “A much-needed biography of an extraordinary woman,” Kirkus Review added. (Amazon)
Read the full review here.
Kirkus Reviews
“Written with a somewhat novelistic flair, this is a fascinating, detailed biography of the gifted, impetuous social reformer and trailblazer for women’s medical education, Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906), a doctor at a time when male doctors believed that women shouldn’t even study medicine…A much-needed biography of an extraordinary woman.”
Read the full review here.
Library Journal
Reviewed by Rebecca Mugridge , Oct 25, 2024
“This is a fascinating account of women’s rights issues that has continuing relevance today”
Read the full review here.
Book Page
Review by Anna Christensen
“Monumental … By restoring Jacobi’s fascinating story to the forefront of the historical imagination, Reeder returns to us a much-needed, inspiring voice that is equally suited to our current moment in time.”
Read the full review here.
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