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Elinor Cleghorn: The Sacrifices Behind Women's Health

·54 min·3 clips

Puerto Rican women were given early birth-control pills without being told they were in a clinical study.

Simplify opens in a new Berlin studio. Caitlin Schiller and Benjamin Soller joke about being both newer and older, then explain that the show is now independent. They keep the tone relaxed but make clear the interview shape stays the same. The conversation then turns to women’s health and the medical history of pain. The core argument is straightforward. Women’s pain has often been treated as part of female existence rather than as something that needs real diagnosis. The episode traces that habit back to the Christian story of Eve and the punishment of pain in childbirth. It also shows how that idea still lingers in secular culture, even when people no longer say it out loud. From there, the discussion links older beliefs to the way pain is handled in doctor’s offices today. Pain becomes something women are expected to carry. Male pain is treated as medical, while female pain is more easily folded into endurance and morality. The conversation spends time on labor pain because it reveals the pattern so clearly. The hosts point to Charles Meigs and his claim that labor pain was the most important thing and the most desirable, salutary, and conservative manifestation of life force. That logic shows up again in modern language that treats suffering as useful, even character-building, for mothers. The hosts do not skip over the religious language behind it. Instead, they ask for definitions, examples, and the lived stakes. Caitlin Schiller keeps mirroring memorable phrases so the listener can hear what matters. Benjamin Soller helps hold the frame steady as the argument widens from medicine to culture. The show closes by reminding listeners that it now has a newsletter and is growing through word of mouth, ratings, and reviews. What remains is a careful conversation about how old stories still shape the way pain is understood.

As heard by us

A reflective interview about how cultural stories shape how women's pain is heard.

The episode treats women's pain as something history has long normalized, from biblical ideas about Eve and childbearing to medical thinking that treats pain as natural to female bodies.

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Why you'd press play

You want a clear reason old assumptions still shape how women's pain gets handled.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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