The One Where I Talk To Writers Joan DelFattore & Christina Campbell

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In this week's episode, I talk to writers Joan DelFattore & Christina Campbell.

Joan DelFattore writes about living a single life in a world geared towards couples. Following her own experience of discrimination against being single in relation to her own cancer treatment, Joan wrote a peer-reviewed article that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2019, showing that patients with cancer are more likely to receive surgery or radiotherapy if they're currently married than if they're divorced, separated, widowed, or never married. 

Previous guest, Christina, writes about invisible illness, singles’ rights, and the inexorable onslaught of entropy. After earning her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from George Mason University, Christina co-founded the singles’ advocacy blog, Onely. The site deconstructs cultural stereotypes about single hood, such as the myth that unmarried people die alone, eaten by their cats! 

Topics that Joan, Christina & I cover are

• Joan’s Tedx talk, ‘Sick While Single? Don’t Die of Discrimination’, and what prompted her to do it;
• how her research unearthed the systematic under treatment of single people;
• Joan’s 2019 article, Death by Stereotype, that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine;
• how many physicians can’t get their heads around a set up that isn’t family-based;
• Christina’s thoughts around the cultural expectation that people will automatically receive all the support they need from a spouse;
• the hesitation she sometimes feels around asking friends for help as a single woman;
• how Christina’s chronic tick-borne disease has often be misunderstood and even, at times, disbelieved;
• the discrimination Christina faces with regards her healthcare as a single woman;
• how she went to see a psychologist due to her ‘abnormality’ with regards not wanting to get married;
• Joan and Christina’s thoughts and advice around going through illness as a single;

Christina’s Website:
www.christinadc.com  

Contact Christina:
www.onely.org 

Email Joan at:
jdel4444@gmail.com

Joan’s Website:
joandelfattore.com 

Joan’s Tedx Talk - Sick While Single? Don’t Die Of Discrimination:
https://www.ted.com/talks/joan_delfattore_sick_while_single_don_t_die_of_discrimination/details