Witches, Midwives And Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich
A History of Women Healers
A revisionist history that traces how women's healing practices were systematically marginalized from the era of witch hunts through the professionalization of modern medicine; it argues that midwives, herbalists, and other female healers were recast as superstitious or dangerous, legally excluded, and driven out as male physicians consolidated authority over childbirth and health care. The book shows how nurses were professionalized in ways that reinforced gender hierarchies and labor exploitation rather than empowered women, and links these shifts to broader forces of patriarchy, class interests, and the rising institutional and commercial power of medicine, ultimately critiquing how technocratic, profit-driven health care undermined community-based, women-centered healing.
- Published
- 1973
- Nationality
- American
- Length
- Unknown
- Pages
- Unknown
- Original Language
- English
- Avg User Rating
-
(4.0)
- Alternate Titles
- None
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