Difference between revisions of "Week 6 Questions/Comments-327 09"
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I thought that it was particularly interesting how she mentions that women had some degree of power. When they were midwives, which was true. They were governed at every turn in every aspect of their lives by fathers and husbands, but in the field of child birthing, they were in control. They were the only ones knowledgeable, through both experience and readings, up to the mid 1700's when men began to take their places. As was already mentioned above, I am kind of surprised that men would kick midwives out of the birthing process so much, claiming that they were not knowledgeable. And, what is also odd to me is the fact that a man at the time would even consider being kind of a male midwife. -Kristina.S. | I thought that it was particularly interesting how she mentions that women had some degree of power. When they were midwives, which was true. They were governed at every turn in every aspect of their lives by fathers and husbands, but in the field of child birthing, they were in control. They were the only ones knowledgeable, through both experience and readings, up to the mid 1700's when men began to take their places. As was already mentioned above, I am kind of surprised that men would kick midwives out of the birthing process so much, claiming that they were not knowledgeable. And, what is also odd to me is the fact that a man at the time would even consider being kind of a male midwife. -Kristina.S. | ||
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| + | The article “On the Importance of the Obsterick Art” was very interesting and covered general concepts of childbirth (such as positions, people present, the association with medicine, etc) we take for granted today that were not so in early America. I personally found it interesting that women did not lie in bed to deliver until the male midwife came into practice and was for modesty, rather than comfort or ease. I was also horrified at many of the tales of when deliveries went wrong such as on page 84, jerking the child out, dismembering the infant with hooks, and page 88 of accidental mutilations of the infant by “blind” male midwifes. I am frankly surprised as many children and women survived as they did, though it definitely makes more since for explaining to the high death rates! Yeiks! I thought the author could have spend more time on the explanation of the transition of birth to being a medical issue, as well as tying the concepts together such as birth being medical, medical being male role due to the incapability of the female mind, to changes in the understanding of the necessity of pain for females, and changes in ideas of decorum and male interaction in the delivery room. I thought this all could have been analyzed better as well as further explaining the concept of how childbirth is related to nation building and new national identities as talked about on page 78 which I don’t think she explained very well if at all. – Elyse Lawrence | ||
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