Doctors in the 1970s dismissed young women’s physical pains as psychological

Evidence

In those days, if a young man said he had a pain, the doctors listened to his heart, took his blood pressure, examined the bit of him he was complaining about. But women patients—especially young women—were routinely suspected of casting mental distress into the form of physical symptoms. — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 221

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how systemic prejudice shapes individual life—broadly relevant to craft of social memoir — connects to: Medical dismissals of women’s pain mask underlying chronic disease processes
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 221