Gibson, Joan

English

Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

to lead small research groups. Counting numbers of publications in which the woman director is principal author will not tell us much about success in the broad sense. Why should success be defined in terms of leading large groups and having one's name on many papers? Quite aside from gender specificity, surely what is being measured here is not so much suc- cess in science as it is success in applying for grants. However, it is probably best to leave aside the thorny question of gender differ- ence for the moment-at least in this arena. We must seek equality of opportu- nity for women in science, if for no other reason than that equality in the economic rewards of science is desirable. If there are major gender differences, then having a critical mass of women scientists must lead, eventually, to changes in scientific practice. While it won't remove competi- tion, it will surely modify it, since what counts as success in life will change. NOT OF WOMAN BORN: REPRESENTATIONS OF CAESAREAN BIRTH IN MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE CULTURE Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990. by Joan Gibson This study of the early history of Cae- sarean birth is interesting and readable. Blumenfeld-Kosinski uses her material to highlight issues and questions about the birth process andits cultural context, which emerge most clearly under the extreme conditions implied by Caesareans. The author locates her approach within the radical ambiguity which everywhere sur- rounds Caesareans-from its simultane- ous participation in the realms of the natu- ral, the unnatural and the supernatural, to the unnaturalness itself as a sign of the child's fate for either unusually good for- tune or bad, to its simultaneous signaling of both death (the mother's) and life (the child's-at least briefly), to its location on the boundaries between areas of fe- male expertise and male professional ter- ritory. The work extends considerably the analysis of a range of questions already current in the literature on pre-modern women and childbirth, on the origins of male involvement and domination in ob- stetrics and gynecology, and on the social role and vulnerability of the midwife. It draws on a wide range of sources, from medicine, law, religion and art, as well as gender studies: a correspondingly wide range of methodologies is required. Blumenfeld-Kosinski has sought "to give the most comprehensive picture possible of Caesarean birth" for the period, and this she has done. It is both the strength and the weakness of the book. It covers a wide range of both generalist and special- ist material, in a diversity of disciplines, over an extended and formative period for her subject (mainly the fourteenth century through the sixteenth). No one with an interest in any of her fields can fail to be both enlightened and delighted by much of her material and analysis. Chapter I addresses primarily the de- velopment of medical writing about Caesareans, highlighting the difficulties of extrapolating from written texts to prac- tice, and setting the question within the context of religious and legal require- ments to save the unborn child of women dead in childbirth. She argues convinc- ingly that the role of midwives, as it per- tained to Caesareans, was affected and devalued by the resulting pressures long before midwives were marginalized in other areas of obstetrics or gynecology. Questions of maternal and infant survival of the Caesarean are also raised. Chapter I1 mines the iconographic evi- dence for Caesareans with considerable sensitivity to the context of the image, and the relation of text and image. She con- cludes that women were displaced early as the main practitioners of Caesareans, and in Chapter I11 attempts to explain this in terms of the professionalization of medicine and status distinctions within the medical guilds-developments simul- taneous with attacks on midwives as heal- ers from both medicine and religion, which left them vulnerable to charges of witch- craft. The handling of difficult and prob- lematic evidence is deft in these central chapters, but the arguments remain at best probable, and it is unfortunate that Blumenfeld-Kosinski occasionally slides from what "may" or "must" have been the case to what "is" or "was." Chapter IV is a fascinating exploration of the ways in which the popular imagina- tion lent supernatural elements to Caesareans, with such births becoming the proving ground of both the miraculous and the demonic. The benign influence of the Virgin or female saints concerned restoring the health of the mother, while satanic intervention focused on claiming the infant as an anti-christ. A final appen- dix traces the confusion and controversies about the origin of the term "Caesarean birth" from the first century BC to the period under consideration. While all of the material is extremely interesting, such a compendium inevita- bly lacks a certain unity, which makes it hard to know the intended audience. It seems perhaps a bit too challenging and scholarly for the truly general reader, and too diffuse for the specialized researcher or for course material. It is most likely to be useful as a teaching text at the graduate level, and even there probably as back- ground reading. UN PIANO DANS LE NOIR Simone Chaput. Saint-Boniface (Mani- toba): Les ~di t ions  du BlC, 1991. par Elizabeth Aubt AndrCe Bougardsavait ce qu'ellevoulait dans la vie. Pendant quinze ans, elle s 'Ctait voute h la perfection de son talent de musicienne. DisciplinCe et cCrCbrale, elle s6Ctait entourte de personnes qui lui ressemblaient, en particulier Sheila, qui se donnait corps et Ime h l'ttude du chinois, et son amoureux Daniel, musicien de jazz consommt. Mais voila qu'une strie d'tvtnements-un frbe dtfroque, l'autre divorce, et une amie meurt, victime d'un acte de terrorisme-vient bousculer l'ordre qui rCgnait dans le monde et l'esprit VOLUME 13, NUMBER 2 

Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture

https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/download/10465/9554

Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture

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Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)