witches midwives and nurses a history of female healers

If anything, the medical craft practiced by (female) lay healers, particularly during the Middle Ages, appears to be empirically based and superior to that practiced by the (male) professionals. The professional takeover of health care in both epochs occurred before there was any real scientific superiority of the practicing professionals. The authors find that the conventional reasons given for the rise of (male) professionals are myths. In the United States, the main takeover took place around the 1900’s. Surprisingly, the professional takeover in Europe was accomplished by the suppression of witches which occurred at different times in various countries roughly in the period from 1300-1700. In the pamphlet, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English describe important phases in the male professional takeover of health care in Europe and in the United States. Midwives are also an important part of the medical scene in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. In England eighty percent of all births are delivered by midwives, often in the mother’s home.

Midwivery exists in European countries as a respected occupation for women but has virtually been outlawed in the United States since the early 1900’s. For example, in England, twenty-four percent of doctors are women whereas in the United States seven percent are. Although health care is mainly controlled by male professionals in Western Europe, it is neither as male dominated nor as professionally oriented as in the United States. Conventional medical histories usually claim that the professional takeover was just a case of hard science and technology winning out over women because men are more suited for the incisive, empirical approach demanded by scientific medicine women are more suited for nurturing and curing - to be nurses.ĭifferences from country to country in the structure of health care indicate that there is something not entirely right with these reasons. Before the professionals took over, health care was practiced mainly by autonomous healers, mostly women. Health care in the western world has not always been dominated by (male) professionals.

1 (The Feminist Press, State University of New York/College of Old Westbury, Box 334, Old Westbury, N.Y. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, Glass Mountain Pamphlet No.

Witches midwives and nurses a history of female healers