Birth and History

This historiographical essay analyzes the feminist challenge, dating from the 1970s, to the accepted view of childbirth which equated technological — and male — intervention with progress and consigned traditional midwifery to the dark ages. The challenge has come from two groups: feminists whose primary concerns are present-day issues and historians whose objective is a ''social history of childbirth''. The former offer valuable insights into the loss of feminine control over this essentially feminine event, but by simplistically portraying doctors as villains and midwives as heroines, they have equated technology with masculinity and naturalism with femininity. The second group takes a more balanced position: medical technology may have been a masculine monopoly in the past, but it belongs to all of us, and should be shaped and directed by all of us. Cet essai historiographique analyse la remise en question par les féministes depuis les années 1970 de l’opinion voulant que l’intervention technologique — et mâle — lors des accouchements équivalait au progrès et reléguait aux périodes sombres le recours aux sages-femmes. Cette remise en question est venue de deux groupes en fait : les féministes qui se préoccupent principalement des problèmes d’actualité, puis les historiens et les historiennes qui s’intéressent à une histoire sociale des comportements entourant la naissance. L’analyse féministe apporte une perspective valable sur la perte de contrôle des femmes sur cet événement essentiellement féminin, mais en représentant les médecins comme des méchants et les sages-femmes comme des héroïnes, elle associe de façon simpliste la technologie à la masculinité et le naturalisme à la fémininité. Le deuxième gourpe prend une position plus équilibrée : la technlolgie médicale a pu être jusqu’ici un monopole masculin, elle apparient cependant à tout le monde et devrait être développée et dirigée par tout le monde

Caring and Curing

This collection of essays takes the reader from the early 19th century struggle between female midwives and male physicians right up to the late 20th century emergence of professionally trained women physicians vying for a place in the medical hierarchy. The bitter conflict for control of birthing and other aspects of domestic health care between female lay healers, particularly midwives, and the emerging male-dominated medical profession is examined from new perspectives

Caring and Curing

This collection of essays takes the reader from the early 19th century struggle between female midwives and male physicians right up to the late 20th century emergence of professionally trained women physicians vying for a place in the medical hierarchy. The bitter conflict for control of birthing and other aspects of domestic health care between female lay healers, particularly midwives, and the emerging male-dominated medical profession is examined from new perspectives

The Ottawa New School and Educational Dissent in Ontario in the Hall-Dennis Era

This paper traces the history of the Ottawa New School, a parent run alternate school that flourished from 1969-1972. It explores the school’s history in the context of a more general treatment of educational reform in Ontario and North America during the 1960s and 1970s. The author, Deborah Gorham, was involved with the school as a parent. She employs material gathered from interviews with Ottawa New School former teachers, parents and pupils. Her intention is to retrieve the history of this specific experiment, one of many “alternate” or “free” schools of the period. For the most part, these small ventures have left little or no trace in the historical record