Society in general moved to medicalise birth though
You missed the "patriarchal" off the beginning of that. You know WHY women were encouraged for a couple of centuries to give birth lying on their backs, even though it vastly increases the danger to the women, the pain, the length of labour, etc? To make it easier for the doctor to see what was going on without having to do any of that nasty bending down. Up until recently, what gender were pretty much all doctors?
I think that there's a little sentence in the wikipedia entry on childbirth that sums up the attitude of people who favour the medicalisation of childbirth very well: Some studies find that although epidural use can lengthen the labour and increase the need for operative intervention, it has no adverse effect on perinatal outcome.
i.e. the baby is fine, so who cares if the woman suffers from exhaustion and is more likely to need to be sliced open?! That doesn't matter!
Again, it's all about the subjugation of women; although in this instance it's as baby-producing machines, rather than sex objects. And of course, we both know that postpartum women can NEVER be sexy.
With apologies for rantiness, but you know the strength of my feeling on matters like this
You missed the "patriarchal" off the beginning of that. You know WHY women were encouraged for a couple of centuries to give birth lying on their backs, even though it vastly increases the danger to the women, the pain, the length of labour, etc? To make it easier for the doctor to see what was going on without having to do any of that nasty bending down. Up until recently, what gender were pretty much all doctors?
I think that there's a little sentence in the wikipedia entry on childbirth that sums up the attitude of people who favour the medicalisation of childbirth very well: .
i.e. the baby is fine, so who cares if the woman suffers from exhaustion and is more likely to need to be sliced open?! That doesn't matter!
Again, it's all about the subjugation of women; although in this instance it's as baby-producing machines, rather than sex objects. And of course, we both know that postpartum women can NEVER be sexy.
;)