WS100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Mortality Rate, Middle Ages, Medicalization
Medicalization
● 18th century midwives/healers - had knowledge about what land had to offer and could
provide care - most midwives were women of colour (black women and indigenous
women)
● Word “hag” came from middle ages - knowledge on plants used for medicine
● Mid 19th century this is all wiped out
● Hippocrates is the father of modern medicine → thought menstruation was a problem
with women’s bodies, that bodies were inadequate, odour was toxic
● Women told they couldn’t be in sacred places in they were menstruating (polluting
place), and said they were dangerous “could sharpen any knife”
● Galean said without semen uterus moves throughout female body
● Women saying they are “PMSing” - encourages these notions
● 19th century after midwives and healers banned, introduction of doctors, medicalization
emerges to create another level of status
● Medicalization is applying name to all natural body functions
● Women told not to speak about their bodies - establish social division - doctors would tell
women what was happening with their bodies
● Women not being able to talk safely can be cause of death in medical industry
● “The gaze” feel judgement for who you are
● Alienist: specialists (psychiatrists) for someone who feels they don’t belong - assumed
women were emotional frail
● Neurologists believed anything happening to women was based in bloodstream
● Gynecologists and obstetricians fascinated by women’s bodies - believed whatever ailed
women was rooted in reproductive system
● Notion that is was ok to abort until quickening (when pregnant women feels movement)
→ abortion made illegal, started with doctors then church began to support
● Access to doctors was mostly for white women, traded goods for treatment
● Midwives knew you needed gravity for baby to move in right direction, obstetricians said
it takes too long - put women’s feet in stirrups - factory line idea, no real care
● Mortality rate of women in canada doubled until 1930
● Women often given drugs to keep them silent
● Family doctors in 19th century didn’t want to hear stories of women, 1950s women given
tranquilizers/valium when they talked about their lives, increase of women self
medicating with alcohol because no where to talk
Reproduction/Birth Control
● No legal access to birth control until 1960s
● Stratification of reproduction - less acceptable for women of colour
● Could sterilize indigenous men and women
● Whites moving into indigenous territory - take indigenous babies and gave them to white
families
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
18th century midwives/healers - had knowledge about what land had to offer and could provide care - most midwives were women of colour (black women and indigenous women) Word hag came from middle ages - knowledge on plants used for medicine. Mid 19th century this is all wiped out. Hippocrates is (cid:3247)the father of modern medicine(cid:3248) thought menstruation was a problem with women"s bodies, that bodies were inadequate, odour was toxic. Women told they couldn"t be in sacred places in they were menstruating (polluting place), and said they were dangerous could sharpen any knife . Galean said without semen uterus moves throughout female body. Women saying they are pmsing - encourages these notions. 19th century after midwives and healers banned, introduction of doctors, medicalization emerges to create another level of status. Medicalization is applying name to all natural body functions.
