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Contemporary Classics - The Feminist Press
Sorcières, sages-femmes et infirmières. Une histoire des femmes soignantes
Engagées dans le Mouvement pour la santé des femmes dans les années 1970, Barbara Ehrenreich et Deirdre English enquêtent sur les racines historiques de la professionnalisation du corps médical. Portant un regard féministe sur les chasses aux sorcières en Europe et la suppression de la profession de sage-femme aux États-Unis, elles s’interrogent : et si, derrière ces événements, se cachait une véritable monopolisation politique et économique de la médecine par les hommes de la classe dominante, reléguant peu à peu les femmes à la fonction subalterne d’infirmière docile et maternelle ? Depuis sa parution aux États-Unis en 1973, cet essai concis et incisif a ouvert la voie à de nombreux travaux de recherche et prises de conscience. Cette traduction s’ouvre sur une préface inédite des deux auteures.
121 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1972
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About the author
Barbara Ehrenreich
105 books2,012 followersBarbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and the Erasmus Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 750 reviews
October 1, 2024
I find this topic fascinating, if enraging.
I need to find more like it!
I need to find more like it!
January 7, 2017
Is Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, first published in 1970, a bit dated? Yes. Does it contain an excellent history of how healing women (who once acted as midwives, yes, but as general healers as well) were first diminished by being deemed witches and then shunted into the supporting role of nurse? Yes, as well. This slim volume still makes for excellent reading, particularly to see how the Church and the emerging physicians’ associations made common cause in keeping women in their place.
December 28, 2010
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 omissions. For example, the 1910 Flexner report, which revolutionized American medical education at a time when anyone could set up a medical practice or even a school, was surely as the authors contend a devastating influence on blacks and women. Not allowed into the more prestigious schools, those who were black and female and sought a medical career found their schools were almost universally forced to close after the report revealed their education to be sub-standard. And it's undoubtedly true, as the authors claim, that "Flexner and the foundation had no intention of making such training available" to anyone except the wealthy white men who attended the schools which received grants from the Carnegie Corporation by whom Flexner was employed. However, a few sentences about what were assuredly the multitudes of dangerous faith healers, quacks, and other people practicing medicine at the time would have given their argument more credence by making it obvious that the authors were more aware of the complex social environment of the time.
It was interesting to note that in Europe, the extensive witch hunts were often targeted at lay healers, usually women, and in this way much of our ancestral herbal knowledge was destroyed. As the authors state so well, "It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bones and muscles, herbs and drugs, while physicians were still deriving their prognoses from astrology and alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold."
The issue of lay healing by women and ultimately midwifery being driven to extinction in America is served especially well. The precedent in Europe for the Church having many motives for ousting lay healers culminates in America, where midwifery, "the last holdout of peoples' medicine," was nearly destroyed: "Midwives were ridiculed as 'hopelessly dirty, ignorant, and incompetent.' Specifically, they were held responsible for the prevalence of puerperal sepsis (uterine infections) and neonatal ophthalmia (blindness due to parental infection with gonorrhea). Both conditions were easily preventable by techniques well within the grasp of the least literate midwife (hand-washing for puerperal sepsis, and eye drops for the ophthalmia.) So the obvious solution for a truly public-spirited obstetrical profession would have been to make the appropriate preventive techniques known and available to the mass of midwives." This is in fact what happened in England, Germany, and most other European nations: Midwifery was upgraded through training to become an established, independent occupation." This rings so true, it is difficult to debate. Especially since just this positive scenario occurred with the midwives on the Farm in Tennessee with the obstetricians who educated and supplied them, contributing to excellent fetal outcomes.
The authors claim midwifery was driven out for the purposes of money; 50% of births attended by midwives in 1910, the authors claim, "was an intolerable situation to the newly emerging obstetrical specialty." I am tired of this claim - for all that I am saddened by the history of midwifery, I don't believe obstetricians to be, on a personal level, evil, and I resent the implication that individuals in healing professions can make such selfish decisions so consistently. Maybe I'm an idealist, and maybe I'm incorrect in assuming that obstetrics is a healing profession, but I would hate to be proven wrong. Further research is clearly necessary on my part.
I especially appreciated the discussion of class as it related to the hospitalization of childbirth. It seems complicated and is not clearly outlined, but touched on throughout the book, so I'd also like to read more about that.
The book does highlight some significant problems I have with second-wave feminism, that is as I understand it the feminism that characterizes "home-making" as a trap for women who should instead be out building careers and keeping up with men. I'm totally in support of that if that's what a woman chooses to do, but in their haste to be free from home and children, second-wave feminists seem to have forgotten or never realized that the beneficiaries of the freedom that they so valiantly won for us might choose, perhaps ignorant of that history, a life of domesticity, and be quite content with it -- while also self-identifying as feminists.
As they write, "...feminists of the late-nineteenth century were themselves beginning to celebrate the nurse/mother image of femininity. The American women's movement had given up the struggle for full sexual equality to focus exclusively on the vote, and to get it, they were ready to adopt the most sexist tenets of Victorian ideology: Women needed the vote, they argued, not because they are human, but because they are Mothers. 'Woman is the mother of the race,' gushed Boston feminist Julia War Howe, 'the guardian of its helpless infancy, its earliest teacher, its most zealous champion. Woman is also the homemaker, upon her devolve the details which bless and beautify family life.' And so on in paeans too painful to quote."
While I can see that, in an era when homemaking is the only acceptable life for a woman, or only alongside a similar occupation such as nursing or teaching, that could be a nauseating tract to read. However, in my life, free to choose what I wish, I actually find it touching. It does, however, highlight a continued controversy in my mind. Men are clearly capable of being the "mother of the race," as defined above, but clearly birth and breastfeeding imply more involvement of the mother in the early life of the child. Where do we draw the distinction between biologically-determined gender roles and those that are imposed only by our culture? It's a very important question, and I think it can only be resolved on a personal level.
I think some of that dilemma is, perhaps unconsciously, addressed later amidst a wildly controversial discussion of the role of the nurse as it developed in the twentieth century. "Healing, in its fullest sense, consists of both curing and caring, doctoring and nursing. The old lay healers of an earlier time had combined both functions, and were valued for both. (For examples [sic], midwives not only presided at the delivery, but lived in until the new mother was ready to resume care of her children.) But with the development of scientific medicine, and the modern medical profession, the two functions were split irrevocably. Curing became the exclusive province of the doctor; caring was relegated to the nurse." The split of the role of healer into superior "curer" (doctor) and subordinate "carer" (nurse) mimics the split into gender roles that our society pushes us, aided by our biology. To become whole, to become the healer, carer and curer in all, is similar to becoming a whole person despite gender roles. (As an aside, while I do see some glimmers of truth in their discussion of the history of nursing as a history of women's oppression, I think it deserves a far more nuanced discussion than they gave it.)
Lastly, I found this tidbit in their conclusion to be worth remembering: "There is no historically consistent justification for the exclusion of women from healing roles. Witches were attacked [in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries] for being pragmatic, empirical, and immoral. But in the nineteenth century the rhetoric reversed: women became too unscientific, delicate, and sentimental. The stereotypes change to suit male convenience -- we don't, and there is nothing in our "innate feminine nature" to justify our present subservience."
All in all, I find that what the authors state, somewhat apologetically, in the new introduction, to be true: "If some of the sources of our anger now seem quaint, this is only because of works like WMN [Witches, Midwives, and Nurses] and the movement it came out of. No matter how I take issue with their bias, I have to affirm that women who charged forth with such bias blazed the way for women like me. I am thankful, but I hope that the polarization of public opinion that such radicals have fueled has not done more harm than good.
Nevertheless, I was able to overlook what I thought were glaring omissions. For example, the 1910 Flexner report, which revolutionized American medical education at a time when anyone could set up a medical practice or even a school, was surely as the authors contend a devastating influence on blacks and women. Not allowed into the more prestigious schools, those who were black and female and sought a medical career found their schools were almost universally forced to close after the report revealed their education to be sub-standard. And it's undoubtedly true, as the authors claim, that "Flexner and the foundation had no intention of making such training available" to anyone except the wealthy white men who attended the schools which received grants from the Carnegie Corporation by whom Flexner was employed. However, a few sentences about what were assuredly the multitudes of dangerous faith healers, quacks, and other people practicing medicine at the time would have given their argument more credence by making it obvious that the authors were more aware of the complex social environment of the time.
It was interesting to note that in Europe, the extensive witch hunts were often targeted at lay healers, usually women, and in this way much of our ancestral herbal knowledge was destroyed. As the authors state so well, "It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bones and muscles, herbs and drugs, while physicians were still deriving their prognoses from astrology and alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold."
The issue of lay healing by women and ultimately midwifery being driven to extinction in America is served especially well. The precedent in Europe for the Church having many motives for ousting lay healers culminates in America, where midwifery, "the last holdout of peoples' medicine," was nearly destroyed: "Midwives were ridiculed as 'hopelessly dirty, ignorant, and incompetent.' Specifically, they were held responsible for the prevalence of puerperal sepsis (uterine infections) and neonatal ophthalmia (blindness due to parental infection with gonorrhea). Both conditions were easily preventable by techniques well within the grasp of the least literate midwife (hand-washing for puerperal sepsis, and eye drops for the ophthalmia.) So the obvious solution for a truly public-spirited obstetrical profession would have been to make the appropriate preventive techniques known and available to the mass of midwives." This is in fact what happened in England, Germany, and most other European nations: Midwifery was upgraded through training to become an established, independent occupation." This rings so true, it is difficult to debate. Especially since just this positive scenario occurred with the midwives on the Farm in Tennessee with the obstetricians who educated and supplied them, contributing to excellent fetal outcomes.
The authors claim midwifery was driven out for the purposes of money; 50% of births attended by midwives in 1910, the authors claim, "was an intolerable situation to the newly emerging obstetrical specialty." I am tired of this claim - for all that I am saddened by the history of midwifery, I don't believe obstetricians to be, on a personal level, evil, and I resent the implication that individuals in healing professions can make such selfish decisions so consistently. Maybe I'm an idealist, and maybe I'm incorrect in assuming that obstetrics is a healing profession, but I would hate to be proven wrong. Further research is clearly necessary on my part.
I especially appreciated the discussion of class as it related to the hospitalization of childbirth. It seems complicated and is not clearly outlined, but touched on throughout the book, so I'd also like to read more about that.
The book does highlight some significant problems I have with second-wave feminism, that is as I understand it the feminism that characterizes "home-making" as a trap for women who should instead be out building careers and keeping up with men. I'm totally in support of that if that's what a woman chooses to do, but in their haste to be free from home and children, second-wave feminists seem to have forgotten or never realized that the beneficiaries of the freedom that they so valiantly won for us might choose, perhaps ignorant of that history, a life of domesticity, and be quite content with it -- while also self-identifying as feminists.
As they write, "...feminists of the late-nineteenth century were themselves beginning to celebrate the nurse/mother image of femininity. The American women's movement had given up the struggle for full sexual equality to focus exclusively on the vote, and to get it, they were ready to adopt the most sexist tenets of Victorian ideology: Women needed the vote, they argued, not because they are human, but because they are Mothers. 'Woman is the mother of the race,' gushed Boston feminist Julia War Howe, 'the guardian of its helpless infancy, its earliest teacher, its most zealous champion. Woman is also the homemaker, upon her devolve the details which bless and beautify family life.' And so on in paeans too painful to quote."
While I can see that, in an era when homemaking is the only acceptable life for a woman, or only alongside a similar occupation such as nursing or teaching, that could be a nauseating tract to read. However, in my life, free to choose what I wish, I actually find it touching. It does, however, highlight a continued controversy in my mind. Men are clearly capable of being the "mother of the race," as defined above, but clearly birth and breastfeeding imply more involvement of the mother in the early life of the child. Where do we draw the distinction between biologically-determined gender roles and those that are imposed only by our culture? It's a very important question, and I think it can only be resolved on a personal level.
I think some of that dilemma is, perhaps unconsciously, addressed later amidst a wildly controversial discussion of the role of the nurse as it developed in the twentieth century. "Healing, in its fullest sense, consists of both curing and caring, doctoring and nursing. The old lay healers of an earlier time had combined both functions, and were valued for both. (For examples [sic], midwives not only presided at the delivery, but lived in until the new mother was ready to resume care of her children.) But with the development of scientific medicine, and the modern medical profession, the two functions were split irrevocably. Curing became the exclusive province of the doctor; caring was relegated to the nurse." The split of the role of healer into superior "curer" (doctor) and subordinate "carer" (nurse) mimics the split into gender roles that our society pushes us, aided by our biology. To become whole, to become the healer, carer and curer in all, is similar to becoming a whole person despite gender roles. (As an aside, while I do see some glimmers of truth in their discussion of the history of nursing as a history of women's oppression, I think it deserves a far more nuanced discussion than they gave it.)
Lastly, I found this tidbit in their conclusion to be worth remembering: "There is no historically consistent justification for the exclusion of women from healing roles. Witches were attacked [in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries] for being pragmatic, empirical, and immoral. But in the nineteenth century the rhetoric reversed: women became too unscientific, delicate, and sentimental. The stereotypes change to suit male convenience -- we don't, and there is nothing in our "innate feminine nature" to justify our present subservience."
All in all, I find that what the authors state, somewhat apologetically, in the new introduction, to be true: "If some of the sources of our anger now seem quaint, this is only because of works like WMN [Witches, Midwives, and Nurses] and the movement it came out of. No matter how I take issue with their bias, I have to affirm that women who charged forth with such bias blazed the way for women like me. I am thankful, but I hope that the polarization of public opinion that such radicals have fueled has not done more harm than good.
November 2, 2022
Huge caveat here is the glaring omission of the history of gynecological medicine: the torturing of enslaved women by Sims. Not only is it a vital foundation of how modern gynecological practices were established, it would also have been a great support to the argument the authors were making
That said, I did really enjoy the content of this as a whole! I'm a sucker for reading foundational historiography in a subject, and it was fascinating to see how 2nd wave feminists were exploring this topic at the time
That said, I did really enjoy the content of this as a whole! I'm a sucker for reading foundational historiography in a subject, and it was fascinating to see how 2nd wave feminists were exploring this topic at the time
March 12, 2020
There is a lot of information in this book but it's dry, making it seem like a chore to read it. Kinda sad, this is a fascinating topic. I borrowed this book from archive.org
December 30, 2011
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 mothering, nurturing, obedient roles by a ruling class of men. I am not one to read much politically or feminist driven work. So this was a bit out of my comfort zone. Even though I respect both authors and believe they produce work with integrity, the claims in the pamphlet are hard for me to swallow. Rather than dismiss the information, I am the type of person who wants to "see for myself." So this pamphlet is, for me, a gateway to finding more information on the subject before I can really draw any conclusions and before I can probably even fully appreciate this little body of work.
August 26, 2012
This pamphlet obviously has some dated info. The statistics about male to female med school ratios are laughable in our time where numbers have largely equalized. Still, one of the main reasons I did not choose medical school as my own entry into healthcare is the ongoing if not out right patriarchy of medicine then at least its overbearing paternalism. I don’t think the answer necessarily will come from direct reform of the professional role of physician as much as it will come from the diversification of professionally trained and scientifically competent providers and partners (for instance nurse practitioners!) within the health care system as a whole.
I found the examination of witch as medieval healthcare provider as well as the struggle for credibility amongst midwives and other so-called “lay” practitioners in America to be fascinating examinations of the oppression of women, women’s health care, and female providers from a feminist perspective. However, I wish these statements and sources had been better cited. This is a pamphlet not an academic paper and there is a bibliography at the end, but I think more thorough and systematic citations would lend the report more credibility.
Lastly, nurses… I disagree with some of the authors interpretation of the profession of nurse as a means of enforcing upper class ideas of ladyhood on working class women, putting them in the role of subservience to male doctors that mirrored domestic subservience to a male patriarch. Yes, nursing history is tainted by this notion of subservience, and well into the 20th century the relationship of nurse to doctor was one of dominance with nurses giving up their seats to doctors on hospital floors, something that is laughably absent on any hospital floor I have worked on today.
I also know very little about Florence Nightingale, so I guess I can’t really speak about her with complete accuracy. I read a young-adult biography of her life when I was 10 or 11-years old, and other than that I really only have secondhand knowledge acquired by being in a profession that universally loves Nightingale. And I have to say my bias is towards admiring her not criticizing her.
The authors state that she held up the ideal of nurse as lady. A caregiver, not a medical professional based in scientific practice. Anyone who has a passing knowledge of Nightingale’s later work in epidemiology knows this cannot be true. Her lasting influence in public health and hygiene are based in science in a time before such things as antibiotics made cures commonplace. Her rhetoric on nursing as a profession may be politically influenced by the world she lived in where women were not respected for intellect. Her desire to create a credible, as well as viable profession in the Victorian system had to work within such ridiculous notions such as separate spheres for men and women that I do not believe can be judged by today’s feminist morality (or perhaps I should say second-wave feminist morality). The authors cite Victorian suffragette writings on why women should have the right to vote as having similar rhetoric placing women on a pedestal of kindness, gentility, and maternal morality that would guide them when voting. Such notions are absurd by today’s standards, but early advancement of women and opportunities outside the home such as nursing and teaching often sprung to life within notions of womanhood at the time and provided real opportunities for women that became the stepping stones for the 20th century Women's movement.
I think it belittles the history of women and feminism to play down the professional origins of nursing as just another role that confined women to a certain sphere. Nursing provided a very real opportunity outside the home that has created an avenue for economic independence and personal pride for centuries. It has moved well beyond the role of subservience and certainly continuing to harp on notions of “lady hood” is a part of why the profession continues to have a low number of men even as areas such as education have gained more male members.
Perhaps it is time to stop thinking about why there is a health care role that is supposedly stereotypically “female” and to look at what it is about men that keeps them out of the profession. Because a good nurse focuses on patient centered care, holistic approaches to a person’s whole health picture (not just modern “heroic” medical procedures), and patient education and empowerment. Is this too “feminine” to apply to men? I don’t think it is an issue with nursing so much as it represents a crisis among male hyper-reactivity to feminist advances in the 20th Century. From a 2012 perspective, the lack of male nurses is not a problem with nursing, it is a problem with the definition of what is “masculine” and the increasingly restrictive “spheres” that men are allowed to reside in.
I found the examination of witch as medieval healthcare provider as well as the struggle for credibility amongst midwives and other so-called “lay” practitioners in America to be fascinating examinations of the oppression of women, women’s health care, and female providers from a feminist perspective. However, I wish these statements and sources had been better cited. This is a pamphlet not an academic paper and there is a bibliography at the end, but I think more thorough and systematic citations would lend the report more credibility.
Lastly, nurses… I disagree with some of the authors interpretation of the profession of nurse as a means of enforcing upper class ideas of ladyhood on working class women, putting them in the role of subservience to male doctors that mirrored domestic subservience to a male patriarch. Yes, nursing history is tainted by this notion of subservience, and well into the 20th century the relationship of nurse to doctor was one of dominance with nurses giving up their seats to doctors on hospital floors, something that is laughably absent on any hospital floor I have worked on today.
I also know very little about Florence Nightingale, so I guess I can’t really speak about her with complete accuracy. I read a young-adult biography of her life when I was 10 or 11-years old, and other than that I really only have secondhand knowledge acquired by being in a profession that universally loves Nightingale. And I have to say my bias is towards admiring her not criticizing her.
The authors state that she held up the ideal of nurse as lady. A caregiver, not a medical professional based in scientific practice. Anyone who has a passing knowledge of Nightingale’s later work in epidemiology knows this cannot be true. Her lasting influence in public health and hygiene are based in science in a time before such things as antibiotics made cures commonplace. Her rhetoric on nursing as a profession may be politically influenced by the world she lived in where women were not respected for intellect. Her desire to create a credible, as well as viable profession in the Victorian system had to work within such ridiculous notions such as separate spheres for men and women that I do not believe can be judged by today’s feminist morality (or perhaps I should say second-wave feminist morality). The authors cite Victorian suffragette writings on why women should have the right to vote as having similar rhetoric placing women on a pedestal of kindness, gentility, and maternal morality that would guide them when voting. Such notions are absurd by today’s standards, but early advancement of women and opportunities outside the home such as nursing and teaching often sprung to life within notions of womanhood at the time and provided real opportunities for women that became the stepping stones for the 20th century Women's movement.
I think it belittles the history of women and feminism to play down the professional origins of nursing as just another role that confined women to a certain sphere. Nursing provided a very real opportunity outside the home that has created an avenue for economic independence and personal pride for centuries. It has moved well beyond the role of subservience and certainly continuing to harp on notions of “lady hood” is a part of why the profession continues to have a low number of men even as areas such as education have gained more male members.
Perhaps it is time to stop thinking about why there is a health care role that is supposedly stereotypically “female” and to look at what it is about men that keeps them out of the profession. Because a good nurse focuses on patient centered care, holistic approaches to a person’s whole health picture (not just modern “heroic” medical procedures), and patient education and empowerment. Is this too “feminine” to apply to men? I don’t think it is an issue with nursing so much as it represents a crisis among male hyper-reactivity to feminist advances in the 20th Century. From a 2012 perspective, the lack of male nurses is not a problem with nursing, it is a problem with the definition of what is “masculine” and the increasingly restrictive “spheres” that men are allowed to reside in.
November 19, 2011
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 treatments were successful, the Malleus Maleficarum classified them as pure evil, thus protecting the medical class from any competition. In fact, what was labeled as superstitious was the basis of the empiric method we still use in some therapies; and what was called perverse might have been the first attempts at physical examinations, since the doctors even feared touching the patient for too long, dissecting was considered a crime and medical studies were dedicated to ancient history, astronomy and theology.
Then it came the time for the midwives, restrained to child-bearing assistance, since too much knowledge was said to interfere with a woman’s fertility. And politics crept in to keep women from going to medical schools – the course was extended so that only the higher classes could afford to and younger women felt divided between starting a family or a career (this is where it starts sounding familiar). Moreover, even after graduating, women couldn’t perform as physicians since no hospital would take in a female intern.
Finally, Florence Nightingale spreads nursing schools through the country, educating docile, submissive housemaids that History has baptized as the first nurses. Indeed, this was quite a surprise to me – for a woman that conquered so much, I didn’t expect Nightingale to be so determined to keep nurses as assisting maids, heeding to the doctor’s every order, with no scientific knowledge whatsoever. But certainly it was the beginning of a new era, nursing is now more than cleaning and feeding, it is a vast study.
Presently, I can say medical schools are attended by more young women than men but I think such a long history of male supremacy in this profession has left its marks and they won’t fade for a long time.
In the dark ages, we called them witches, inferior to the rational knowledge of physicians and sought out feverishly, for even when their treatments were successful, the Malleus Maleficarum classified them as pure evil, thus protecting the medical class from any competition. In fact, what was labeled as superstitious was the basis of the empiric method we still use in some therapies; and what was called perverse might have been the first attempts at physical examinations, since the doctors even feared touching the patient for too long, dissecting was considered a crime and medical studies were dedicated to ancient history, astronomy and theology.
Then it came the time for the midwives, restrained to child-bearing assistance, since too much knowledge was said to interfere with a woman’s fertility. And politics crept in to keep women from going to medical schools – the course was extended so that only the higher classes could afford to and younger women felt divided between starting a family or a career (this is where it starts sounding familiar). Moreover, even after graduating, women couldn’t perform as physicians since no hospital would take in a female intern.
Finally, Florence Nightingale spreads nursing schools through the country, educating docile, submissive housemaids that History has baptized as the first nurses. Indeed, this was quite a surprise to me – for a woman that conquered so much, I didn’t expect Nightingale to be so determined to keep nurses as assisting maids, heeding to the doctor’s every order, with no scientific knowledge whatsoever. But certainly it was the beginning of a new era, nursing is now more than cleaning and feeding, it is a vast study.
Presently, I can say medical schools are attended by more young women than men but I think such a long history of male supremacy in this profession has left its marks and they won’t fade for a long time.
January 16, 2019
The book depicted here is the 1972 first edition, main text and intro.
The book I read is the 2010 second edition which has retained the same text but with 2 intros, the 1972 and the 2010.
The writers judge the main text to present a succint and an accurate look at women as medical practitioners.
However it seems that the writers Barabara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English needed to go back to update their intro to reflect their lower level anger/frustration and to update the professionalization of nurses and the increasing number of female doctors.
Somewhere between 2003 and 2005, I read Woman as Healer (1990) by Jeanne Achterberg--effectively an update to Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers
I am now interested in finding a more current book about female medical pracitioners. If anyone has a suggestion, I will consider it.
The book I read is the 2010 second edition which has retained the same text but with 2 intros, the 1972 and the 2010.
The writers judge the main text to present a succint and an accurate look at women as medical practitioners.
However it seems that the writers Barabara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English needed to go back to update their intro to reflect their lower level anger/frustration and to update the professionalization of nurses and the increasing number of female doctors.
Somewhere between 2003 and 2005, I read Woman as Healer (1990) by Jeanne Achterberg--effectively an update to Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers
I am now interested in finding a more current book about female medical pracitioners. If anyone has a suggestion, I will consider it.
April 29, 2014
This book managed to piss me off with its shoddy scholarship. It read as one long thesis statement with little evidence to back it up. There were only 17 books in the bibliography for a pamphlet that was supposed to span Middle Ages to the 1970s.
Objective language is thrown out the window and history is given a value-judgment without much struggle in arriving at that value-judgment. The historian, whether feminist or not, will cringe at some of the value-laden words used in this small pamphlet. I do have strong feelings about history, most of them the same as English and Ehrenreich. But the way I see it, my job is to try and immerse myself in a former culture and then, when out again, understand that I am subject to historiography and write with that understanding. To write with self-awareness, not self-righteousness.
I love history, I'm a feminist, and I have enjoyed some of Ehrenreich's previous works. I picked this book up at a booksale, hoping to read about the very rich history of women healers and midwives. Instead of reading about empowered women, taking power back when they could in difficult circumstances, I read about how men took all the power away.
My grandmother was a midwife in the early 1900's. I heard her stories and remember being awed as a little girl. She knew so much! And she was so stoic, so many secrets. She'd seen so much. She did later become a nurse for Sacred Heart. According to the book the midwives were empowered and the nurses were an extension of sexism. How could my grandma be both? I just don't think that's the only word on the story and I was so disappointed to read this book and hear the flat, good/bad, man/woman simplistic thesis statement. Maybe the authors should have taken a single portion of the history they overviewed and focused on just that, with double the primary documents and double the secondary sources. They could have given the midwives and nurses so much more form and character, given those incredible women bone in our modern day. I want to read that book! I did not enjoy this pamphlet. It pissed me off.
Objective language is thrown out the window and history is given a value-judgment without much struggle in arriving at that value-judgment. The historian, whether feminist or not, will cringe at some of the value-laden words used in this small pamphlet. I do have strong feelings about history, most of them the same as English and Ehrenreich. But the way I see it, my job is to try and immerse myself in a former culture and then, when out again, understand that I am subject to historiography and write with that understanding. To write with self-awareness, not self-righteousness.
I love history, I'm a feminist, and I have enjoyed some of Ehrenreich's previous works. I picked this book up at a booksale, hoping to read about the very rich history of women healers and midwives. Instead of reading about empowered women, taking power back when they could in difficult circumstances, I read about how men took all the power away.
My grandmother was a midwife in the early 1900's. I heard her stories and remember being awed as a little girl. She knew so much! And she was so stoic, so many secrets. She'd seen so much. She did later become a nurse for Sacred Heart. According to the book the midwives were empowered and the nurses were an extension of sexism. How could my grandma be both? I just don't think that's the only word on the story and I was so disappointed to read this book and hear the flat, good/bad, man/woman simplistic thesis statement. Maybe the authors should have taken a single portion of the history they overviewed and focused on just that, with double the primary documents and double the secondary sources. They could have given the midwives and nurses so much more form and character, given those incredible women bone in our modern day. I want to read that book! I did not enjoy this pamphlet. It pissed me off.
April 21, 2021
only a surface commentary of course, given that the book is just 112 pages long, but still an eye-opening, accessible and infuriating short history of what is now the medical profession and how it has excluded women completely for centuries through the cooperation among all dominant institutions and their sickening control over everything of consequence.
“for centuries women were doctors without degrees, barred from books and lectures, learning from each other, and passing on experience from neighbor to neighbor and mother to daughter. they were called “wise women” by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”
(the concerns regarding the book being west-centric and dated are sorted out in the introduction to this 2010 edition)
“for centuries women were doctors without degrees, barred from books and lectures, learning from each other, and passing on experience from neighbor to neighbor and mother to daughter. they were called “wise women” by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”
(the concerns regarding the book being west-centric and dated are sorted out in the introduction to this 2010 edition)
December 2, 2024
2 yıl önce, Slyvia Federici'nin "Tenin Sınırlarının Ötesine" kitabında görüp not almıştım. Sonrasında yeniden "Kadın Sağlığı Hareketinden Sesler" adlı derleme kitapta da makale olarak karşıma çıkınca okumamak olmazdı.
Eksiğiyle, gediğiyle, yanlılığıyla (kendi beyanları) da olsa tarihi ters yüz eden kitaplara bayılıyorum. Erkek tıp tarihini 'kara safraya neden olan mercimek' hikâyesinden başlatan metinler bazen yorabiliyor.
Kilise-devlet otoritesinin, İngiltere'den İskoçya'ya oradan Almanya'ya yüzyıllarca cadı avını nasıl gerçekleştirdiği ve bununla ilintili kadın şifacıların tıbbın tarih sahnesinden nasıl silindiği üzerinde duruyor. Binlerce yıllık şifa geleneğinin, tarihin kısacık bir döneminde el birliğiyle nasıl yok olduğunu anlatıyor. Kitabın altını ısrarla çizdiği nokta, bu yokoluşta herhangi bir rastlantısallığın olmaması.
19. yüzyılda tekrar dirilmeye başlayan kadın halk sağlığı hareketinin düğümlenmesi ve erkek egemen tıbbın yeniden sahne alışı... Kadınların son raddede payına düşenin ise ebelik ve hemşirelik oluşu...Tarihte göz ardı edilen ne varsa çekip çıkarmaya çalışmış bu kitap. Keyifle okudum.
Eksiğiyle, gediğiyle, yanlılığıyla (kendi beyanları) da olsa tarihi ters yüz eden kitaplara bayılıyorum. Erkek tıp tarihini 'kara safraya neden olan mercimek' hikâyesinden başlatan metinler bazen yorabiliyor.
Kilise-devlet otoritesinin, İngiltere'den İskoçya'ya oradan Almanya'ya yüzyıllarca cadı avını nasıl gerçekleştirdiği ve bununla ilintili kadın şifacıların tıbbın tarih sahnesinden nasıl silindiği üzerinde duruyor. Binlerce yıllık şifa geleneğinin, tarihin kısacık bir döneminde el birliğiyle nasıl yok olduğunu anlatıyor. Kitabın altını ısrarla çizdiği nokta, bu yokoluşta herhangi bir rastlantısallığın olmaması.
19. yüzyılda tekrar dirilmeye başlayan kadın halk sağlığı hareketinin düğümlenmesi ve erkek egemen tıbbın yeniden sahne alışı... Kadınların son raddede payına düşenin ise ebelik ve hemşirelik oluşu...Tarihte göz ardı edilen ne varsa çekip çıkarmaya çalışmış bu kitap. Keyifle okudum.
September 30, 2025
i loved learning about the history of women in the medical field and how desperately society (primarily religious entities such as the catholic church) tried and continues to try to discredit women healers. the professionalism vs expertise conversation was especially enlightening, considering the lengths society has gone to eliminate women and people of color from pursuing the professional path that was created precisely to exclude them.
very quick but very important and interesting read.
very quick but very important and interesting read.
May 28, 2022
(I read the zine version)
I think this book gave a good brief understanding of the (American) system of institutionalized medicine, and how witches, midwives and nurses are the women healers and how they have been pushed into oblivion from the male-dominated medical industry.
I feel like the dominant narrative of the western medical industry today hasn’t taught me or told me that witches and midwives and nurses actually knew how to heal people better than “pseudoscience” doctors that gave way to the medical industry as we know it today.
I thought this was a really good and interesting read and I liked it very much!
UPDATE: (05/28/22) my mom just told me when she was in college she read this in the 90s and cited it in her paper. She wrote a paper about this very text before i was even on this planet!!!! And now she’s a midwife and my best friend, how ironic!
I think this book gave a good brief understanding of the (American) system of institutionalized medicine, and how witches, midwives and nurses are the women healers and how they have been pushed into oblivion from the male-dominated medical industry.
I feel like the dominant narrative of the western medical industry today hasn’t taught me or told me that witches and midwives and nurses actually knew how to heal people better than “pseudoscience” doctors that gave way to the medical industry as we know it today.
I thought this was a really good and interesting read and I liked it very much!
UPDATE: (05/28/22) my mom just told me when she was in college she read this in the 90s and cited it in her paper. She wrote a paper about this very text before i was even on this planet!!!! And now she’s a midwife and my best friend, how ironic!
May 4, 2022
I am a witch the obstetric system is a sham but we all knew this already
December 31, 2024
Este pequeño libro me conmovió profundamente. Tocó algo indescriptible, algo que no tiene un nombre exacto pero que se siente en lo más profundo del corazón y en el fondo del estómago.
“Women have always been healers… they were called ‘wise women’ by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. Medicine is a part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”
Me llevó a reflexionar sobre cómo mi deseo de sanar proviene de un lugar más arraigado que simplemente mi interés por la medicina. También me hizo consciente de cómo la medicina, tal como la conocemos hoy, ha sido moldeada desde una perspectiva masculina, técnica y fría. Ha olvidado la calidez, el acompañamiento, el apapacho, el cuidado que, durante siglos, las mujeres integraron de manera instintiva en los procesos de sanación. Pero ese olvido no es casual ni fortuito; es el resultado de un movimiento sistemático y deliberado para excluir a las mujeres curanderas, marginándolas a roles secundarios como enfermeras, limitadas al cuidado posterior y despojándolas de la capacidad de participar en el proceso curativo completo.
Las llamadas “brujas” eran, en su mayoría, mujeres dedicadas a sanar. El argumento para perseguirlas y asesinarlas fue que podían hacer tanto daño como bien. Sin embargo, lo que realmente aterrorizaba era su capacidad de curar y superar lo que la religión no podía ofrecer. Pero no solo eso. Eran mujeres que pensaban por sí mismas y, además, mujeres organizadas. Nada más peligroso que eso.
“The witch was a triple threat to the Church: She was a woman, and not ashamed of it. She appeared to be part of an organized underground of peasant women. She was a healer whose practice was based in empirical study. In the face of the repressive fatalism of Christianity, she held out the hope of change in this world.”
Como bien se menciona:
“It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bones and muscles, herbs and drugs, while physicians [accepted by religion] were still deriving their prognoses from astrology and alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold.”
Posteriormente, la exclusión se dirigió hacia las parteras. Inicialmente, se permitió que siguieran atendiendo los partos, hasta que los hombres decidieron que eran “incultas” e “incompetentes” y se inventó la medicina obstétrica. Aquí se repite el patrón de que la medicina solo es curar, no cuidar. Se trata al paciente como un objeto de prueba y error, con una distancia fría entre médico y paciente. Por ejemplo, el uso de fórceps, promovido bajo la excusa de la “higiene” y la eficiencia médica, representa esta desconexión. Se comprobó años después que el uso de fórceps puede causar graves daños a los bebés debido a la fuerza desmedida con la que se emplean.
Con el auge de la medicina científica, la práctica se enfocó en la experimentación: cortar y suturar cuerpos para encontrar soluciones. Los doctores curaban, mientras tanto, las mujeres fueron relegadas al rol de enfermeras, encargadas del cuidado. Todo esto permitió grandes avances, como el descubrimiento de los gérmenes y la importancia de lavarse las manos, pero también construyó una medicina centrada exclusivamente en atacar síntomas, dejando de lado una visión holística del paciente. Esto perpetuó la disparidad de género que vemos hasta hoy.
La conclusión del libro resume perfectamente estas ideas:
“There is no historically consistent justification for the exclusion of women from healing roles. Witches were attacked [in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries] for being pragmatic, empirical, and immoral. But in the nineteenth century the rhetoric reversed: women became too unscientific, delicate, and sentimental. The stereotypes change to suit male convenience – we don’t, and there is nothing in our ‘innate feminine nature’ to justify our present subservience.”
Este tema me genera una mezcla de enojo y fascinación. Quiero aprender más sobre “las brujas” y el impacto que tuvieron en la historia de la sanación. Es un tema que llevo años buscando, pero hay poca información al respecto. Si llegaron hasta acá recomiéndenme más libros del tema, ¡¡por favor!!
“Women have always been healers… they were called ‘wise women’ by the people, witches or charlatans by the authorities. Medicine is a part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”
Me llevó a reflexionar sobre cómo mi deseo de sanar proviene de un lugar más arraigado que simplemente mi interés por la medicina. También me hizo consciente de cómo la medicina, tal como la conocemos hoy, ha sido moldeada desde una perspectiva masculina, técnica y fría. Ha olvidado la calidez, el acompañamiento, el apapacho, el cuidado que, durante siglos, las mujeres integraron de manera instintiva en los procesos de sanación. Pero ese olvido no es casual ni fortuito; es el resultado de un movimiento sistemático y deliberado para excluir a las mujeres curanderas, marginándolas a roles secundarios como enfermeras, limitadas al cuidado posterior y despojándolas de la capacidad de participar en el proceso curativo completo.
Las llamadas “brujas” eran, en su mayoría, mujeres dedicadas a sanar. El argumento para perseguirlas y asesinarlas fue que podían hacer tanto daño como bien. Sin embargo, lo que realmente aterrorizaba era su capacidad de curar y superar lo que la religión no podía ofrecer. Pero no solo eso. Eran mujeres que pensaban por sí mismas y, además, mujeres organizadas. Nada más peligroso que eso.
“The witch was a triple threat to the Church: She was a woman, and not ashamed of it. She appeared to be part of an organized underground of peasant women. She was a healer whose practice was based in empirical study. In the face of the repressive fatalism of Christianity, she held out the hope of change in this world.”
Como bien se menciona:
“It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bones and muscles, herbs and drugs, while physicians [accepted by religion] were still deriving their prognoses from astrology and alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold.”
Posteriormente, la exclusión se dirigió hacia las parteras. Inicialmente, se permitió que siguieran atendiendo los partos, hasta que los hombres decidieron que eran “incultas” e “incompetentes” y se inventó la medicina obstétrica. Aquí se repite el patrón de que la medicina solo es curar, no cuidar. Se trata al paciente como un objeto de prueba y error, con una distancia fría entre médico y paciente. Por ejemplo, el uso de fórceps, promovido bajo la excusa de la “higiene” y la eficiencia médica, representa esta desconexión. Se comprobó años después que el uso de fórceps puede causar graves daños a los bebés debido a la fuerza desmedida con la que se emplean.
Con el auge de la medicina científica, la práctica se enfocó en la experimentación: cortar y suturar cuerpos para encontrar soluciones. Los doctores curaban, mientras tanto, las mujeres fueron relegadas al rol de enfermeras, encargadas del cuidado. Todo esto permitió grandes avances, como el descubrimiento de los gérmenes y la importancia de lavarse las manos, pero también construyó una medicina centrada exclusivamente en atacar síntomas, dejando de lado una visión holística del paciente. Esto perpetuó la disparidad de género que vemos hasta hoy.
La conclusión del libro resume perfectamente estas ideas:
“There is no historically consistent justification for the exclusion of women from healing roles. Witches were attacked [in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries] for being pragmatic, empirical, and immoral. But in the nineteenth century the rhetoric reversed: women became too unscientific, delicate, and sentimental. The stereotypes change to suit male convenience – we don’t, and there is nothing in our ‘innate feminine nature’ to justify our present subservience.”
Este tema me genera una mezcla de enojo y fascinación. Quiero aprender más sobre “las brujas” y el impacto que tuvieron en la historia de la sanación. Es un tema que llevo años buscando, pero hay poca información al respecto. Si llegaron hasta acá recomiéndenme más libros del tema, ¡¡por favor!!
November 22, 2010
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.
September 17, 2021
An excellent jumping off point if you want to learn more about women in medicine from a feminist lens
June 6, 2024
Un court livre qui fait beaucoup réfléchir sur le passé de la luttes des femmes dans le monde de la médecine. J’ai bien aimé 👩⚕️🏥
Read
August 3, 2025Sigh sigh sigh
One big fat sigh.
Those who read these things rarely need to and the ones that need to never do.
Anyway, if the medieval church (that feared the “witches sabbath & covens with devilish rites“) witnessed one women’s & gender studies class session, they’d shit their pants.
One big fat sigh.
Those who read these things rarely need to and the ones that need to never do.
Anyway, if the medieval church (that feared the “witches sabbath & covens with devilish rites“) witnessed one women’s & gender studies class session, they’d shit their pants.
March 26, 2023
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Really Liked it
Kısa sürede bitirdiğim, düşündürücü bulduğum esere dair inceleme yazmak için bilgisayar başına geçtiğimde "konuya dair konuşulacak çok şeyimiz" olduğunu fark ettim.
Her zamanki gibi benden önce okuyanlar ne düşünmüş diye şöyle bir baktığımda eleştiriler gördüm. Girişte verilen biyografilerden de anlaşılacağı üzere iki yazarımızın da aktivistlik geçmişi var. Biyografileri okumadan ya da üzerinde düşünmeden eseri okuyanlar genelde tarihi içeriklerden ziyade siyasi/feminist fikirlerin ağırlıkta olduğuna dair serzenişte bulunmuşlar. İlgili alanlarda kendimi yetkin hissetmediğim için bu konuda yorum yapmamayı tercih ediyor, çevirmen sunuşu kısmından bir alıntı ile devam etmek istiyorum.
Bu alıntı size karşılaşacağınız içeriğe dair detay bilgi veriyor. Tarih kitabı olmaktan ziyade açtığı kapı ile okurunu düşündürmek isteyen bir içerikle karşılacaksınız. İkinci Baskıya Önsöz kısmından bir alıntı ile devam edelim...
İki yazarımızın düşünsel süreçleri sonrası davet edildikleri küçük çaplı bir konferansta yaptıkları sunumdan yola çıkarak hazırladıkları CEH, bir kitapçık olarak yayınlandıktan sonra çeşitli dillere çevrilmiş ve çok okunan bir eser olmuş. İki yazar da güncel gelişmeler ışığında metinde düzeltilmesi gereken yerler olduğuna dair samimi bir açıklamada bulunduktan sonra değişimin kendilerinde yarattıklarına ve gelen eleştirilere cevap vermiştler. Eseri bitirdikten sonra The Malleus Maleficarum okumam gerektiğini hissettim.
İlk Baskıya Önsöz kısmından da küçük bir alıntı yapmak istiyorum: İtaat edişimiz, bilgisizliğimizdendir ve bilgisizliğimiz bize dayatılmıştır. Bilmek anlamaya yetmez diye düşünmüşümdür her zaman. Anlamak için sorgulamak, üzerinde düşünmek, tezin antitezini görmeye çalışmak gerekir. Kitap bu bağlamda Cadıların ve Şifacıların tarihine dair kapı açarken, okurunu düşünmeye iten bir yol sunuyor.
İçeriğe gelince... Sayfa aralarındaki görsel paylaşımlar dönemin anlaşılırlığına dair ipuçları sunuyor. Dipnotlar okurun aklına takılanlar için ikinci bir kaynak arayışına girmeyi gerektirmeyecek şekilde doyurucu. Dil son derece akıcı. Bu bağlamda cadıların ve şifacılara yapılanların günümüzde neye evrildiğini görmek adına aydınlatıcı.
Bu yüzden, yazar biyografileri, çevirmen sunuşu ve baskılara yazılmış önsözleri dikkate alarak okunduğunda okuruna bir şeyler katacak bir çalışma. Daha fazla bilgi edineyim derseniz eserin editörü Ceren Sungur'un youtube kanalında çevirmen Gökçen İleri ile yaptığı söyleşiyi buradan izleyebilirsiniz.
Kısa sürede bitirdiğim, düşündürücü bulduğum esere dair inceleme yazmak için bilgisayar başına geçtiğimde "konuya dair konuşulacak çok şeyimiz" olduğunu fark ettim.
Her zamanki gibi benden önce okuyanlar ne düşünmüş diye şöyle bir baktığımda eleştiriler gördüm. Girişte verilen biyografilerden de anlaşılacağı üzere iki yazarımızın da aktivistlik geçmişi var. Biyografileri okumadan ya da üzerinde düşünmeden eseri okuyanlar genelde tarihi içeriklerden ziyade siyasi/feminist fikirlerin ağırlıkta olduğuna dair serzenişte bulunmuşlar. İlgili alanlarda kendimi yetkin hissetmediğim için bu konuda yorum yapmamayı tercih ediyor, çevirmen sunuşu kısmından bir alıntı ile devam etmek istiyorum.
"Ataerkinin ne olduğu kadınların bu sistematik dayatma altında hangi şekillerde ezildiği, hangi pozisyonlara girmeye zorlandığı ve tüm bunların arasındaki dinamik ilişkinin doğasına dair bu kitabın sundukları, meseleyi bütünüyle ortaya koymaya yetmese de verdiği örneklerle okuyucuya derin ve geniş fikirler edindirebilecek türden.
Bu alıntı size karşılaşacağınız içeriğe dair detay bilgi veriyor. Tarih kitabı olmaktan ziyade açtığı kapı ile okurunu düşündürmek isteyen bir içerikle karşılacaksınız. İkinci Baskıya Önsöz kısmından bir alıntı ile devam edelim...
Cadılar, Ebeler ve Hemşireler (CEH) Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'ndeki ikinci dalga feminizm hareketi içinden çıkan bir belgedir. Kırk yıl sonra bu belgeyi tekrar okurken, etki alanı ve iddiaları bakımından sarsıcı ve çalışmak zorunda olduğumuz materyali yetersizliği dikkate alındığında, çoğu noktada şaşırtıcı ölçüde isabetli olduğunu gördük. Ayrıca, bugün okunduğunda, abartılı ve aşırı militanca gibi görünen bazı ifadeler nedeniyle biraz da utandık. Son kırk yılda hem tarihi açıdan hem de alana yaklaşımımız açısından çok şey değişti. Dolayısıyla CEH'in, haksızlığa karşı duyduğumuz öfke ve kızgınlığın ateşiyle yazıldığını kendimize hatırlatmamız gerek. Eğer o zamanki öfkemizin nedeni bugün tuhaf görünüyorsa, bunu sağlayan CEH gibi çalışmalar ve onun içinden çıktığı harekettir.
İki yazarımızın düşünsel süreçleri sonrası davet edildikleri küçük çaplı bir konferansta yaptıkları sunumdan yola çıkarak hazırladıkları CEH, bir kitapçık olarak yayınlandıktan sonra çeşitli dillere çevrilmiş ve çok okunan bir eser olmuş. İki yazar da güncel gelişmeler ışığında metinde düzeltilmesi gereken yerler olduğuna dair samimi bir açıklamada bulunduktan sonra değişimin kendilerinde yarattıklarına ve gelen eleştirilere cevap vermiştler. Eseri bitirdikten sonra The Malleus Maleficarum okumam gerektiğini hissettim.
İlk Baskıya Önsöz kısmından da küçük bir alıntı yapmak istiyorum: İtaat edişimiz, bilgisizliğimizdendir ve bilgisizliğimiz bize dayatılmıştır. Bilmek anlamaya yetmez diye düşünmüşümdür her zaman. Anlamak için sorgulamak, üzerinde düşünmek, tezin antitezini görmeye çalışmak gerekir. Kitap bu bağlamda Cadıların ve Şifacıların tarihine dair kapı açarken, okurunu düşünmeye iten bir yol sunuyor.
İçeriğe gelince... Sayfa aralarındaki görsel paylaşımlar dönemin anlaşılırlığına dair ipuçları sunuyor. Dipnotlar okurun aklına takılanlar için ikinci bir kaynak arayışına girmeyi gerektirmeyecek şekilde doyurucu. Dil son derece akıcı. Bu bağlamda cadıların ve şifacılara yapılanların günümüzde neye evrildiğini görmek adına aydınlatıcı.
Bu yüzden, yazar biyografileri, çevirmen sunuşu ve baskılara yazılmış önsözleri dikkate alarak okunduğunda okuruna bir şeyler katacak bir çalışma. Daha fazla bilgi edineyim derseniz eserin editörü Ceren Sungur'un youtube kanalında çevirmen Gökçen İleri ile yaptığı söyleşiyi buradan izleyebilirsiniz.
March 31, 2017
Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English traces the systematic and systemic persecution of women as healers beginning with the witch-hunt craze of the 14th through 17th centuries up to the early 20th Century. As Ehrenreich and English demonstrate, women have always been healers, primarily healers of women and the poor. But their journey has been fraught with peril. For over five centuries they faced a systematic, two-pronged attack on their vocation: first from the church and then from the male-dominated medical profession.
The number of women in Europe who were tortured, burned at the stake, or executed by the Protestant and Catholic churches over a period of three centuries is staggering. By some estimates it is in the millions. These women were accused of any number of crimes: consorting with the devil; committing sexual crimes against men (including causing male impotency and making their penises “disappear”); committing murder; distributing poison. They were even persecuted for using their knowledge of human anatomy and medicinal herbs and remedies to heal and help the sick! As Ehrenreich and English point out, there has not been a consistent justification for shunting women from healing roles.
As we moved toward the 20th Century, the establishment of medicine as a profession requiring university training further diminished the role of women as healers since women were denied access to university. Forced out of the role of healers, women adopted the supporting role of nurses. As such, they manifested the “wifely virtue of absolute obedience” to the doctor, and the “selfless devotion of a mother” to the patient.
Even though the situation for women in the medical profession has improved since its publication (the 1970s), Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers is still well worth reading because it illuminates how two powerful forces systematically and consistently colluded for many centuries in ejecting women from their role as healers and replacing them with male physicians.
Highly recommended.
The number of women in Europe who were tortured, burned at the stake, or executed by the Protestant and Catholic churches over a period of three centuries is staggering. By some estimates it is in the millions. These women were accused of any number of crimes: consorting with the devil; committing sexual crimes against men (including causing male impotency and making their penises “disappear”); committing murder; distributing poison. They were even persecuted for using their knowledge of human anatomy and medicinal herbs and remedies to heal and help the sick! As Ehrenreich and English point out, there has not been a consistent justification for shunting women from healing roles.
As we moved toward the 20th Century, the establishment of medicine as a profession requiring university training further diminished the role of women as healers since women were denied access to university. Forced out of the role of healers, women adopted the supporting role of nurses. As such, they manifested the “wifely virtue of absolute obedience” to the doctor, and the “selfless devotion of a mother” to the patient.
Even though the situation for women in the medical profession has improved since its publication (the 1970s), Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers is still well worth reading because it illuminates how two powerful forces systematically and consistently colluded for many centuries in ejecting women from their role as healers and replacing them with male physicians.
Highly recommended.
March 17, 2023
Kadın Çalışmalarında yaptığım yüksek lisans ve sosyoloji lisans geçmişimin üzerine yaptığım bireysel okumalardan ötürü kitap bana yeni bir bilgi vermedi ama kökleşmiş cinsiyetciligin tıbbi ve toplumsal alandaki karşılığını hatırlattı ve hala işimizin ne kadar çok ve zor olduğunu gosterdi. Barbara Ehrenreich çok sağlam ve güçlü yazıları olan bir yazar-aktivist. Henüz birkaç ay önce Eylül 2022 de kaybetmiş olduğumuz önemli bir değer. Cadılar Ebeler ve Hemşireler tam da adını irdeleyen bir kıtap. Cadı diye imlenip infaz edilen kadınlar, küçümsenen şifacı kadınlar ve yumuşak başlı söz dinleyen itaatkar hemşireler olarak görülen, ancak bu anlamda kabul edilen hemşire kadinlar. Neredeyse hepimiz, kadınları nasıl bir pozisyonda konumlandırmaya çalıştığını gördüğümüz, kapitalizmle sermaye ile iş birliği içindeki bir patriyarkal carkin dişlilerinin kadınları nasıl sınırlandırıp kontrol altında tutabilecekleri daracık alanlara, daracık mesleklere, hatta duygulara bile hapsettiklerini biliyoruz. Böyle şiddetli ve acımasız bir sistemin bedelini bizler bile kendi içinde yaşadığımız toplumda kendine özgü nedenlerle yaşıyoruz. Ehrenreich de kadın sifaciyi yaftayalan, sınırlamaya çalışan hayatlarını kast etmeye kadar varan kötücül ve eril köklü bir saldırının nedenlerini anlatıyor. Profesyonelleşen tıbbın eril, üst sınıf beyaz erkeklerin tekelinde nasıl geliştiğini de aktarıyor. Okumak lazım. Hediye etmek lazım. Tartışmak lazım. Bazen en sıradan gördüğümüz bilmeden icsellestirdigimiz, normal addettigimiz şeylerde bile ciddi ayrımcılık, ırkçılık cinsiyetçilik, sınıf savaşımı, dışlama, küçümseme hor gorme ve en kötüsü de imha etmeye varan bir halka var. Daha insani, birleşmiş, birlikte ortak bir yaşami eşit ve adalet duygusu esliginde oluşturabilmemiz icin mücadele etmemiz, inatla değiştirmemiz gereken çok şey var.
August 28, 2025
To know our history is to begin to see how to take up the struggle again.
A remarkably concise yet profoundly engaging and thought-provoking book. Witches, Midwives and Nurses lays the history of sexism in medicine bare. The stark look at politics, religion, and balances of power was captivating and intriguing. Definitely a must-have book for every bookshelf.
Also, the part where it said, "In return for her powers, the witch promised to serve him faithfully. (In the imagination of the Church even evil could only be thought of as ultimately male-directed!)" was really ironic, and it really stuck with me.
October 27, 2020
Foram as bruxas que desenvolveram amplos conhecimentos sobre os ossos e os músculos do corpo, sobre ervas e drogas, enquanto os médicos continuavam baseando seus diagnósticos na astrologia e os alquimistas seguiam tentando transformar chumbo em ouro. Tão amplos eram os conhecimentos das bruxas que, em 1527, Paracelso, considerado o “pai da medicina moderna”, queimou seu manual de farmacologia confessando que “tudo o que sabia tinha aprendido com as Feiticeiras".
March 27, 2022
Tellement intéressant et choquant. C’est tout petit, ça se lit très bien.
May 19, 2023
Görüyorum ki güzel ülkemiz ortaçağ karanlığında. Burada yer alan bir çok şey, 2023 Türkiye’sinde de mevcut.
March 1, 2019
I read this after seeing mention of it in a cool Lithub profile of the radical bookstore Firestorm Books in Asheville, NC, in which the owners mentioned it was their best-selling title in 2018. The owners compared it to a simpler version of Federici's "Caliban and the Witch," which I have been interested in reading, but which isn't available from either of the libraries I use regularly--so I checked this out from the library instead. It's quite short, more of a pamphlet than a book, really.
I read the recent re-issue edition from The Feminist Press at CUNY, which has an interesting foreword by the authors reflecting on the genesis of the book and the circumstances of its publication. I thought this alone was worth reading--it was a fascinating window onto the women's health movement of the early 1970s (which produced the famous "Our Bodies, Ourselves") and the grassroots efforts of a couple of college teachers who scraped together what information they could find and self-published a pamphlet that they distributed in diaper boxes.
Although Ehrenreich and English acknowledge, in the foreword, some weaknesses and inaccuracies in their original analysis--likely inevitable given the extremely limited scholarship available at the time--overall they say they are surprised at how well the analysis has held up over the ensuing decades. Their primary argument is a class- and gender-based analysis of the process, in Western Europe and the US, by which society removed recognition of the medical expertise of traditional healers (who were largely women) and limited it to professionally-recognized men (who were almost all men), and in the process created the gendered and (at least originally) de-skilled role of nurse.
In particular, they set out to dispute the just-so story that traditional healers were people of unscientific superstition ("old wives' tales"), who were replaced by professionals when scientific medicine came along. In fact, E&E argue, the "professionalization" of medicine and stigmatization of traditional healers began, and was largely completed, long before medicine developed any real scientific character--while it was still the domain of leeches and the four humors. Furthermore, they argue that traditional healers were at least quasi-scientific in the sense of being empirical, as contrasted to the ineffective theoretical ideas of contemporaneous professionals--and in fact, for this reason, were perceived as a threat to the church, which favored theistic ideas around illness and recovery.
I'm clearly in no place to judge the arguments independently, but they struck me as very believable. Things have improved a lot since the era of the book's publication, both in terms of the representation of women in medicine, and the availability of information about women's bodies and health. But the legacy has by no means been erased, as is obvious from current articles about biases in diagnosis and treatment of women's pain, maternal morbidity in the United States, and racial biases in health care delivery. This book is, I think, a good example of history as a radical discipline. We can see, from a sufficient remove, the obvious injustices and biases of both the historical era under study and the one in which it was written. Reflecting on these should lead us to think more carefully about current injustices and biases that we may otherwise be quick to dismiss or disinclined to confront.
I read the recent re-issue edition from The Feminist Press at CUNY, which has an interesting foreword by the authors reflecting on the genesis of the book and the circumstances of its publication. I thought this alone was worth reading--it was a fascinating window onto the women's health movement of the early 1970s (which produced the famous "Our Bodies, Ourselves") and the grassroots efforts of a couple of college teachers who scraped together what information they could find and self-published a pamphlet that they distributed in diaper boxes.
Although Ehrenreich and English acknowledge, in the foreword, some weaknesses and inaccuracies in their original analysis--likely inevitable given the extremely limited scholarship available at the time--overall they say they are surprised at how well the analysis has held up over the ensuing decades. Their primary argument is a class- and gender-based analysis of the process, in Western Europe and the US, by which society removed recognition of the medical expertise of traditional healers (who were largely women) and limited it to professionally-recognized men (who were almost all men), and in the process created the gendered and (at least originally) de-skilled role of nurse.
In particular, they set out to dispute the just-so story that traditional healers were people of unscientific superstition ("old wives' tales"), who were replaced by professionals when scientific medicine came along. In fact, E&E argue, the "professionalization" of medicine and stigmatization of traditional healers began, and was largely completed, long before medicine developed any real scientific character--while it was still the domain of leeches and the four humors. Furthermore, they argue that traditional healers were at least quasi-scientific in the sense of being empirical, as contrasted to the ineffective theoretical ideas of contemporaneous professionals--and in fact, for this reason, were perceived as a threat to the church, which favored theistic ideas around illness and recovery.
I'm clearly in no place to judge the arguments independently, but they struck me as very believable. Things have improved a lot since the era of the book's publication, both in terms of the representation of women in medicine, and the availability of information about women's bodies and health. But the legacy has by no means been erased, as is obvious from current articles about biases in diagnosis and treatment of women's pain, maternal morbidity in the United States, and racial biases in health care delivery. This book is, I think, a good example of history as a radical discipline. We can see, from a sufficient remove, the obvious injustices and biases of both the historical era under study and the one in which it was written. Reflecting on these should lead us to think more carefully about current injustices and biases that we may otherwise be quick to dismiss or disinclined to confront.
November 14, 2020
Books that look at the witch trials of Europe and beyond are always at risk of sharing bad information. There is so much misinformation, misunderstanding, and outright fabrications, surrounding the witch trials that I think it's impossible to ever unravel it all and get to the truth. Couple that with the lack of records anyway, we will never truly know what really happened.
Nonetheless I find myself angry at any book that dares to suggest that large numbers of the women who were murdered as witches were actually witches or pagans of some form. They don't seem to realise that by saying this they are essentially saying that their murders were legally justified. Morally, no. But legally, if they were indeed pagans, then legally yes. I am never going to be okay with that.
And so I am glad that I have a revised edition of this book which states outright in the introduction that they were using wrong information when they first wrote the book and they retract such things now. Thank you. Because I think that would have made me sour on the book otherwise. This book does have some incorrect information about certain things, but they acknowledge that and so I was able to read this book with that in the forefront of my mind and not feel unease about that bad information.
Moving on. This book was to me a mix of Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the WestEve's Herbs and Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive AccumulationCaliban and the Witch but in short booklet form. It was packed with great information, actual quotes from various people throughout history, and interesting tidbits that I knew nothing about. The Popular Health Movement in the US and its relation to feminism, and the beginnings of the nursing profession and how it related to feminism, being two examples of things I hadn't known about (possibly they are mentioned in Caliban and the Witch, but I forgot, it has been a couple years now).
The book lacks some relevance today of course, and that's a good thing. We now have a large number of female doctors, and nursing though still stereotyped as mostly feminine has changed quite a bit, and midwifery has gained in popularity and we now have doulas and such as well. A lot has changed for the better (seemingly this booklet might be partly responsible for this). But not everything has changed. And so this book also still remains relevant today. And even if it didn't, its historical value is certainly without question imo.
Nonetheless I find myself angry at any book that dares to suggest that large numbers of the women who were murdered as witches were actually witches or pagans of some form. They don't seem to realise that by saying this they are essentially saying that their murders were legally justified. Morally, no. But legally, if they were indeed pagans, then legally yes. I am never going to be okay with that.
And so I am glad that I have a revised edition of this book which states outright in the introduction that they were using wrong information when they first wrote the book and they retract such things now. Thank you. Because I think that would have made me sour on the book otherwise. This book does have some incorrect information about certain things, but they acknowledge that and so I was able to read this book with that in the forefront of my mind and not feel unease about that bad information.
Moving on. This book was to me a mix of Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the WestEve's Herbs and Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive AccumulationCaliban and the Witch but in short booklet form. It was packed with great information, actual quotes from various people throughout history, and interesting tidbits that I knew nothing about. The Popular Health Movement in the US and its relation to feminism, and the beginnings of the nursing profession and how it related to feminism, being two examples of things I hadn't known about (possibly they are mentioned in Caliban and the Witch, but I forgot, it has been a couple years now).
The book lacks some relevance today of course, and that's a good thing. We now have a large number of female doctors, and nursing though still stereotyped as mostly feminine has changed quite a bit, and midwifery has gained in popularity and we now have doulas and such as well. A lot has changed for the better (seemingly this booklet might be partly responsible for this). But not everything has changed. And so this book also still remains relevant today. And even if it didn't, its historical value is certainly without question imo.
July 7, 2015
Reading the history of women healers and the development of the medical profession was fascinating. However, I was surprised at the authors' conclusions on the nursing profession at present. The authors state, 'The drive to professionalize nursing is, at best, a flight from the reality of sexism in the health system.'...a completely absurd statement and a very outdated perspective. It is truly a profession that requires skill and intelligence, in addition to showing compassion and 'nurturing tendencies'. It is a fine, delicate balance. One that should be celebrated and applauded by feminists.
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