By the time I had to ask a doctor to read my own medical file, I was already familiar with the feeling of being dismissed.
Across several appointments, my PMOS symptoms were reduced to the same advice: lose weight, exercise more and make lifestyle changes. At one point, I was told I did not have PMOS, even though the diagnosis was already there in my records.
Treatment conversations rarely went much further. Hormonal contraception was presented as a way to stop my periods, while painkillers often came with side effects that made me feel worse. I left appointments feeling as though the aim was to manage the most visible symptom and move on.
Living with a reproductive health condition reaches into every part of your life. It affects work, friendships, family and the way you see your own body. After being dismissed enough times, you also start questioning whether you are just overreacting. That feeling followed me into Bleeding Out, an exhibition at Seventh Circle in Digbeth exploring medical misogyny through painting, textiles, photography, sculpture and digital collage. I was greeted at the first-floor gallery by Gallery Director Marie Hutton and Curator Sophie Mason, who gave me first access to the space.
Mason contacted each artist individually, bringing together work by Amelia Fox, Charlie Fitz, Leah Hickey, Larissa Shaw, Sally Butcher, Z’Khayha James and Yasmeen Fathima Thantrey.
On each wall you can see how every artist approaches healthcare from a different angle. Some pieces come directly from personal experiences of pain, surgery and recovery. Others look further back, tracing the history of how women’s bodies have been discussed, studied and controlled.
The exhibition also includes a collaboration with Birmingham-based charity Cysters, whose community contributed letters and collages about their own healthcare experiences, falling from the ceiling on pieces of string for you to discover from all angles.
“Medical Misogyny” can sound like a term reserved for research papers and policy reports. Inside the gallery, it feels much more familiar. It is the doctor who immediately points to your weight. The symptoms blamed on anxiety. The period pain treated as something everyone simply has to put up with.
A parliamentary inquiry into reproductive healthcare found that women and girls were living with pain that affected their education, work, relationships and social lives. The report linked poor care to stigma, gaps in medical education, limited research and the normalisation of symptoms. PMOS affects an estimated 10 to 13 per cent of women of reproductive age worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, yet as many as 70 per cent of those affected may remain undiagnosed. The condition can affect periods, fertility, mental health, body image and long-term physical health.
Figures like these show the scale of the issue; the artwork shows what those figures look like in daily life.
How The Body Holds Pain: Paintings By Amelia Fox
When I spoke to Amelia Fox about her work, she described it as capturing the everyday moments when her body was “holding pain”.
Fox only realised how visible that pain had become after receiving treatment. Her friends and family noticed a clear difference in her, showing her how much endometriosis had shaped her life and the lives of those around her.
The phrase she used, “how my body holds the pain,” stayed with me.
Anyone who has worked a shift while unwell will recognise it. You stand in front of customers, smile and keep yourself together until you can finally go home. Plans are cancelled at the last minute because your body has reached its limit. You apologise, even though you had no real choice.
The people around Fox’s work recognised themselves in it too. Some compared the experience to looking into a mirror and coming face to face with a physical version of their own pain.
Her work captures the way illness settles into the body. It appears in posture, movement and expression, even while someone is trying to carry on as normal.
Endometriosis affects around one in ten women of reproductive age worldwide. Symptoms can include severe menstrual pain, chronic pelvic pain, heavy bleeding, nausea and infertility. It can also have a major impact on mental health, relationships and work.
Endometriosis UK reported in 2026 that the average diagnosis time had reached nine years and four months. That can mean almost a decade of trying to study, work, socialise and maintain relationships while searching for an explanation. That’s a decade of holding pain in your body with no way to displace it.
Reclaiming Research: Hospital Gown, Larissa Shaw
Larissa Shaw’s work begins with an object many patients will recognise immediately: a hospital gown.
She displayed the gown she wore when leaving the hospital after treatment. In that setting, the garment represented vulnerability and surrender. You remove your own clothes, put on something provided by the hospital and hand control of your body over to the medical team.
Shaw has since covered the gown with research and case studies about medical negligence and women’s treatment within healthcare. The fabric that once represented a loss of control now carries evidence.
Printed across the back is a reference to a now-retracted study about the perceived attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis. The research assessed women’s appearance, figures and sexual history while patients with the condition continued to face lengthy diagnosis times and limited treatment options.
Shaw chose the study because of how absurd she found it. With so many gaps in reproductive health research, time and funding had still been found to rank the attractiveness of patients.
Visitors gathered around the gown and remembered seeing the study circulate online. The gown was surrounded by eye rolls, shared sighs and conversations about how ridiculous it all was, taking advantage of the vulnerability of women depending on the healthcare system.
The Women and Equalities Committee found that an average of 1.3 per cent of the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s annual budget had been spent on gynaecological and urogynaecological conditions over the previous decade. Shaw brings that imbalance out of reports and journals and places it across a garment worn by a patient. Once worn by herself. The research becomes part of the body it failed to prioritise.
A History That Keeps Unfolding: Legacies, Charlie Fitz
Charlie Fitz, who describes herself as a sick, disabled and neurodivergent artist, displayed digital collages alongside paintings exploring surgery, trauma and medical history.
Digital work allowed Fitz to continue creating when other processes were less accessible. The phrase “I am so tired of fighting to be believed ” encapsulates the fatigue felt by every one of these artists and by women everywhere. How do you describe your chronic pain to someone who has never felt anything like it? Alongside managing symptoms, patients often have to document them, repeat them and defend them. Each appointment can become another attempt to convince someone that the pain is real, and this becomes a daily battle.
Another of Fitz’s works looks across centuries of women’s healthcare. It moves through witch trials, the diagnosis of hysteria, medical negligence and the use of women’s bodies for research, training and public demonstration.
This was one of the pieces I kept returning to and even still can’t stop thinking about.
The longer you look, the more it reveals. Each section contains another figure, symbol or scene linked to the history of women’s treatment.
Fitz pointed out a woman being cut open beneath the raised seating of an old operating theatre, with spectators watching from above. Elsewhere, women burn as accused witches. Other details reference hysteria and the long history of describing women’s pain and distress as irrational behaviour.
This painting is one that I would personally display. It holds much more than my own trauma, but also the history and research of all the women before me
– Charlie Fitz, Artist of Legacies
I agree that this painting stood out amongst her other works. Whilst the other documents her strength and bravery, this felt collective and educational, leaving me with many new rabbit holes to fall through.
Visitors compared the painting to Midsommar. The folk-horror reference made sense. The work uses rich colour, beauty and symbolism to draw people closer, before the full horror of the scenes becomes clear.
Every new detail opens another part of the history. The painting rewards people who stay with it, giving them more to uncover each time their eyes move across the canvas.
Bleeding Out: An Exhibition You Must Follow
The private view drew a busy crowd. Camera in hand, I moved between groups and caught pieces of conversations around the room.
People praised the way Sophie Mason had curated such a wide range of mediums without losing the focus of the exhibition.
Amelia Fox’s work prompted recognition. Visitors spoke about seeing their own pain reflected at them.
Larissa Shaw’s gown brings back memories of the endometriosis study, followed by frustration that such research had ever been published.
Charlie Fitz’s paintings starts longer discussions about surgery, disability and the history of women’s healthcare. People stood in front of the work pointing out details to one another, each person finding something the others had missed.
That is where Bleeding Out impresses. It gives people a reason to stop, look and talk.
Statistics can show how many people are affected or how long they wait for treatment. The artwork fills in the rest: the missed plans, difficult shifts, strained relationships, hospital memories and years spent trying to get answers. For people already familiar with medical misogyny, the exhibition offers recognition. For everyone else, it offers a way into the subject through experiences you remember after leaving the gallery.
After years of being made to question my experience of PCOS, seeing these stories displayed so openly feels validating. No one inside the exhibition had to prove that their pain was real here. The evidence was already there, across bodies, canvases, hospital fabric and handwritten letters.
Bleeding Out was hosted at Seventh Circle, Unit C3, 2 Bowyer Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, until Sunday 9 August 2026. The exhibition remains documented online through the gallery’s exhibition page and brochure, while work by the participating artists can be found through their individual portfolios, galleries and upcoming exhibitions
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Thank you for such a beautiful and powerful review! Wonderful to hear how deeply the exhibition resonated with you.