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92nd out of 432 books
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459 voters
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Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers
Women have always been healers, and medicine has always been an arena of struggle between female practitioners and male professionals. This pamphlet explores two important phases in the male takeover of health care: the suppression of witches in medieval Europe and the rise of the male medical profession in the United States. The authors conclude that despite efforts to...more
Paperback, 48 pages
Published
January 1st 1993
by The Feminist Press at CUNY
(first published November 30th 1970)
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This was quite an interesting read for a non-feminist, 21st century medical student. From 1972, Barbara and Deirdre bring us an academic, synthesized approach to the History of female health professionals. It is quite obvious that women have always been the cornerstone of the medical arts, but for some obscure reason have never been regarded as so.
In the dark ages, we called them witches, inferior to the rational knowledge of physicians and sought out feverishly, for even when their treatm...more
In the dark ages, we called them witches, inferior to the rational knowledge of physicians and sought out feverishly, for even when their treatm...more
I am a fan of Barbara Ehrenreich's work as well as a fan of midwifery, and so it was with great interest that I picked up this pamphlet. However, I naively expected it to go in depth into the history of midwifery and women healers. I was not anticipating that having been written two years before I was born, the over-riding feminist perspective and thesis of this work. I have never stopped to consider that the nursing profession is a way of oppressing women and keeping them locked into the mother...more
I adored this book, especially since the authors included a caveat at the beginning which attempted to neutralize any overly-vehement or one-sided arguments, "...we ... cringe a little at what read now like overstatements and overly militant ways of stating things." From what I've read of Ehrenreich's work, I wonder if more of her books wouldn't be better-served to have this type of warning in the introduction.
Nevertheless, I was able to overlook what I thought were glaring ...more
Nevertheless, I was able to overlook what I thought were glaring ...more
This book was written when I was a preschooler, and it just boggles my mind what a different world it was back then. My mother has said that she started college studying pharmacology but after a year or two her father told her it was time to get serious and her career options were to be a nurse (as her SIL did) or be a teacher, which she chose and then hated.
I would be very interested in learning more of the history of women healers, as the subtitle of this book says it is, but this f...more
I would be very interested in learning more of the history of women healers, as the subtitle of this book says it is, but this f...more
This short pamphlet tells the story of males and the State taking supremacy over medicine, a field traditionally led by women healers. Most interesting to me is the history of the witch-crazes that helped launch capitalism.
From my limited readings (not just this pamphlet), my understanding is that during the 13th-15th century in Europe there were regular peasant rebellions against a decaying feudal order. To undercut these movements, aristocrats and the Church created the bogeyman o...more
From my limited readings (not just this pamphlet), my understanding is that during the 13th-15th century in Europe there were regular peasant rebellions against a decaying feudal order. To undercut these movements, aristocrats and the Church created the bogeyman o...more
Interesting start to sorting the overreaction against certain people engaging in healing activities.
Unfortunately, it fails to recognize that historically, witches, midwives, and wise women engaged in activities that far exceeded the healing that the authors ascribe to them. Healing can be accomplished by sorcery and energy manipulation should one wish to go that route, and the Church realized the spiritual danger in such a decision by Christians. Hammering the evildoers was a terri...more
Unfortunately, it fails to recognize that historically, witches, midwives, and wise women engaged in activities that far exceeded the healing that the authors ascribe to them. Healing can be accomplished by sorcery and energy manipulation should one wish to go that route, and the Church realized the spiritual danger in such a decision by Christians. Hammering the evildoers was a terri...more
For a much better version of this theme, arguing for much more than the mere inclusion of women into the medical industrial complex, please read 'Caliban and the Witch' by Silvia Federici. Compared to this book 'Witches, Midwives and Nurses' isn't worth a second of your time. The writing and history is somewhat sloppy. What can one expect from a cursory glance at the witch trials of Europe and witchcraft but an obvious lack of nuance meant to justify an inclusionary bourgeois politics? Barf. The...more
Jessica
added it
Funny story about how I came to own an original copy of this. The women's center at my alma mater was dismantled, sad story, and all of the books were left out in the campus center. I was looking through and thought this was of interest. I didn't pick it up until about 5 years later when I was doing research on childbirth and picked up For Her Own Good and read the introduction and realized that For Her Own Good is an expanded version of this pamphlet.
2nd edition
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Diane@SanAntonioNaturalParenting.com or Tonia@SanAntonioNaturalParenting.com
Library items are available for checkout by group members who have donated an item(s)to our library. There are no membership fees to join our group. Please be courteous to other members when checking out an item & return it after 1 month. If you would like to
place a hold on a particular item to check out at the next meeting, please contact
Diane@SanAntonioNaturalParenting.com or Tonia@SanAntonioNaturalParenting.com
A brief read packed with a great deal of information. It will provide you with information on how women have fought to be healers or care providers for centuries often to be thwarted and/or punished by male leaders both political and religious, as well as male professionals. Knowing much of this information prior to reading it, as a female care provider, I still found myself often times angry as I read it. It was a great history lesson for me.
For a rather academic text, this is an easy read. It's organized in short chapters, (it's only 48 pages total), and lays out historical events in a clear narrative. It's dry, but you'll get an infuriating picture of how classism and sexism helped ruin our healthcare system and how the medical profession reinforces that classism and sexism. You'll also get more evidence that Barbara Ehrenreich is bad-ass.
The history of nurses and midwives is what attracted my attention to this book. However, there is a feminist agenda with a definite political feel. Written in 1973, it has the feel of fighting docs rather than figuring out how to work with them. An updated version would be interesting for me to see how historians would record the last 40 years.
A quick read with a lot of information. This book is oft-quoted, so I've read many parts of it in other places, but I am glad that I've now read it straight from the source. I love the way that she tied together the witch trials, the attack on midwifery and lay healers, and the emergence of nursing. I found it well worth the time spent!
This is more of a pamphlet than a book. I was actually disappointed in the content. I thought there would be more emphasis put on the midwife/witch, nurse/witch connection. Instead the focus was more on the persecution of witches... and the persecution of women healers. It just wasn't what I expected.
By the author of "Nickeled and Dimed" . This looks like a really interesting book, specially as midwifery is not allowed in Alabama.
view all 7 comments
I have this book and it served as a good historical foundation in the way midwives were treated historically and presently.
Not fully developed, lots of thoughts left unfinished, much too short for all the topics they tried to cover.
Makes you glad we're women living in 21st century. A frighteningly accurate document.
A very short but informative read. More of a pamphlet than a book, but gives a great overview of the history of women in medicine. What once was primarily a female healing role (particularly in the realms of birth and obstetrics) was coopted by male-dominated "science." Eventually even birth was taken from the hands of women, especially in America, where midwifery is still considered by some to be fringe and "dangerous." One of the most fascinating parts of this book was how ...more
short. important. openly political & rightly so. preface to 2nd edition helpfully elucidates historical context in which it was written.
I only wish it had academic footnotes . . .
EXCELLENT!!!!
Great quick read.
Not so much history as polemic. Written during the 1970s, there are some misconceptions (eg the number of executed witches was then estimated to be in the millions, whereas it is now thought to be in tens of thousands as the new preface acknowledges.) However, I liked it that the authors recognised that this was a class issue as well as one of gender. Though a bit over-simplified in parts, it still makes powerful reading today.
Deserves more stars than I gave it. It made me angry, probably because it is true. Packs a punch on the history of women health care providers and how they were edged out by male "professional" institutionalization of the health care system. I first got an inkling of this history while reading "The Diary of Martha Ballard". When we experience the system today, we could wish for a lot more care and a lot less "professionalization".
A depressing read, and a good reminder of why we did/do need feminism.
Loved their history in this book. I know it's a few decades old, and I'd love to see an updated analysis of nursing as it is today. But overall, this is a very valuable little work. And it's very easy and quick to read, available fully online. Put it on your "to-read-soon" list!
can you believe i've actually read this?
i even own it.
i found it at my favourite bookstore, the Bryn Mawr Bookstore, located in Cambridge, MA
(but that's another store-y)
a pun, a pun
ahem.
sorry.
i even own it.
i found it at my favourite bookstore, the Bryn Mawr Bookstore, located in Cambridge, MA
(but that's another store-y)
a pun, a pun
ahem.
sorry.
Jessica Goodman gave me this booklet, which gives a lot of information about the history of women healers, and how the patriarchy has tried to strip that role from them. Short, but informative.
Very brief survey. For a more comprehensive look at women and their relationship to the medical arts, see Ehrenreich's For Her Own Good.
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| The Feminist Press: working women | 2 | 9 | Aug 17, 2011 06:59am |
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Barbara Ehrenreich is the bestselling author of sixteen previous books, including the bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. A frequent contributor to Harpers and The Nation, she has also been a columnist at The New York Times and Time Magazine.
More about Barbara Ehrenreich...
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