[Valhalla]

Seeing how the first hints at modern anatomy and medicine weren't "let's study the structure of the cell wall" and "we must improve the hygienic conditions of surgery"; and more "the female is created by an imbalance of humours during the gestation period" and "hysteric patients must be cured by channeling the erratic sexuality they cannot control (i.e. give them a good dicking)"; I'd say that your book has more validity than you give it credit.

My question is why didn't it just say something like that. They actually said nothing about the advancement of medical knowledge. The point was that these scientists/doctors (read: these 'experts') took away status from the female healers. And yeah they were by no means experts, as enforced by the books emphasis marks, but it kind of skimmed over the whole thing and said nothing else about the doctors/healers/midwives.

And I can't stand all the little emphasis marks the book uses.

Originally Posted by Saya

To be fair to Val that text book isn't the greatest, I like that it took a transnationalist stance (most other text books in the WS department, at least in the courses I've taken so far, are more American or Euro centric) but not a whole lot of context is given for the excerpts and articles it has.

You're right there. It also doesn't like to back up, or give context to, a lot of the points it makes. It just makes these vague comments then I can either fill in the blank with reasoning, or I can't. I think I'm just supposed to agree with what it says based on the fact that it said it. I think one of the big problems is that it's supposed to introduce the later readings, but does it over pages and pages. Then after I read what the chapter itself says I get to the readings that are better written and supposed to back up it's points. It might have done better to break up the chapter and put the relevant bits in front of the different section readings.

In the Feminist Theory text book there's an awesome excerpt from The Myth Of The Vaginal Orgasm by Anne Koedt that focuses on medical views of female sexuality that is absolutely appalling (no clit stimulation needed! If you can't orgasm from penetration alone, you're frigid! You should get surgery to move your clit down lower to your vag so you can orgasm through penetration alone).

The Victorian stuff was even more scary, it used to be believed that a child could only be produced if the woman orgasm, so if a woman was rraped and consequently got pregnant, she enjoyed it and she's a liar. There was also the medical theory that the vagina is a "quivering sheath" that the woman needs to hold it still for penetration, therefore a single man wouldn't be able to force penetration, it was gang **** or it was consensual.

Also for midwifery, its true. A lot of people like to shit on them as a hippy dippy thing but honestly a lot of women don't need serious medical intervention for giving birth, legislating midwifery would cut down on overcrowding in hospitals as those who can have healthy babies at home or a midwifery centre don't have to bother the hospitals. Newfoundland has a horrific C-section rate primarily because doctors want to get through birthing as quickly as possible and move on to the next patient.

I looked into being a midwife, but its more schooling than being a nurse.

That sounds terrible. Interesting, but terrible. I thought the view was that women didn't orgasm anyway, but that's probably worse since it implied most women were 'broken' or 'wrong'

But see that sounds so much more interesting than what I'm reading. The last thing I read from the book was that text books/people shouldn't say that menstruation is wasteful. Even though I've always thought it was. I mean the body prepares to have a baby, the woman doesn't get pregnant, so it disposes of it's preparations. I never thought of it as being a sexist male way to make my body seem inferior. So after I read that bit I started trying to come up with a way to explain it without using sheds, wastes, disposes, loses, or any other word that could sound negative. Don't think I can do it.

I have nothing against midwifery. I know a woman who chose to have her baby delivered by one, at her house. It was really interesting to hear her talk about it, since I've never met another person (who has brought up) having her baby birthed by a midwife. I didn't even know we had a midwife school.

/Was supposed to get ready 10 minutes ago. Hopes all this was coherent.