· 2022· Review
Midwives and Medical Men
- 487citations
- 2022year
Short summary
This book traces the historical displacement of women from high-status midwifery to aristocracy and royalty by male physicians, a trend reversed by efforts to preserve female attendance and improve services for the poor, though institutionalization and shortages continue to challenge the profession.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Women in midwifery historically attended aristocracy and royalty until the 17th century.
- Male physicians gradually displaced women from better-paid midwifery work, nearing a male monopoly by the mid-19th century.
- Efforts to preserve women's choice in childbirth attendance and improve services for the poor helped reverse this trend.
- 20th-century institutionalization, mechanization, and midwife shortages have renewed attention on the profession.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Originally published in 1977 and as a second edition in 1988, this book introduces the reader to the women at the top of the midwifery profession up until the 17th Century who attended the aristocracy and Royalty. The author shows how their successors were gradually driven out of the better paid work until in the middle of the 19th Century it appeared that attendance on childbearing women would inevitably become the male monopoly it has virtually become in North America. This downward trend was reversed, thanks to efforts to preserve for women the choice of female attendance in childbirth and also to the labour of philanthropists to improve maternity services to the poor. However, the drive for the institutionalization and mechanization of childbirth during the 20th Century as well as a chronic shortage of midwives, has once again shone a spotlight on the profession. This unique history of developments in midwifery will be of interest to students of medical politics, 19th Century social history, the sociology of the professions and gender studies.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source., 2022 · DOI ↗
Continue with a free account
Ask the paper: 3 free questions a day about this paper; save it, get its citation, new summaries every day for your field. Takeaways are Premium.
Continue free on the webSign in with Google or Apple; no card needed. You come back to this paper.
On your phone:
Field: History
HistoryArts and Humanities