Difference between revisions of "Week 6 Questions/Comments-327 09"
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I did not know how much birth used to be a "spectator's sport". All these women standing around trying to soothe the woman who is giving birth and going through extreme amounts of pain. I guess I understand that a joke might ease the mood, but I am personally glad men stepped into the picture. I think it would be a little awkward having people stand around even if they were all females. Most of the time, the midwives were not even trained that well. I like the idea of having a doctor who is medically trained and knows what he is doing involved in the process of birth.I thought it was a little comical how prude people were and did not want the male physician to look at the female as much as possible. No wonder "things" got cut off on occasion. -Amy Van Ness | I did not know how much birth used to be a "spectator's sport". All these women standing around trying to soothe the woman who is giving birth and going through extreme amounts of pain. I guess I understand that a joke might ease the mood, but I am personally glad men stepped into the picture. I think it would be a little awkward having people stand around even if they were all females. Most of the time, the midwives were not even trained that well. I like the idea of having a doctor who is medically trained and knows what he is doing involved in the process of birth.I thought it was a little comical how prude people were and did not want the male physician to look at the female as much as possible. No wonder "things" got cut off on occasion. -Amy Van Ness | ||
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| + | I feel that the idea of men taking over midwife positions was an infringement to women's rights. As midwives, women had a responsibility, and a respectable one at that. Many women worked within their own homes, but these midwives were in the business of helping women outside of their own homes. When male physicians entered the scene, female midwives slowly lost their jobs. At the time, I believe female midwives would have been better than male physicians because the midwives understood the female body, and could sympathize with the women they helped. Also, Scholten talks about how the male physicians could not even look at specific parts of the woman's body... I'm sure that made giving birth even more unsafe than it already was. It just seemed contradictory because people believed that male physicians made childbirth safer because they knew more about medicine and had pain relief, etc, yet they were constrained in their duties by social norms, which sometimes put the woman or baby in danger.I also thought it was interesting how the women supported one another in child birth. It goes back to the idea of women forming bonds with one another through similar experiences, and childbirth was definitely one of those bonding experiences among women, especially how they would take up the pregnant woman's chores and would give moral support. --- Alex Mankarios | ||
