Witches, Midwives, and Nurses (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Barbara Alexander, Deirdre English
- First Published: 1973
- Type of Work: Social criticism
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: Gender roles, Doctors, Feminism, Women’s issues, Women, Medicine, Health, Witches or witchcraft, Women’s movement, Nursing or nurses, Middle Ages, Hospitals, Persecution
Form and Content
Considering that women have always been healers, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English set out to recover that tradition in Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers. Their book encourages women employed in health care, especially nurses, to work out the struggles that they face in a profession which became the bailiwick of male professionals. The authors approach their task by devoting half their book to the history of witchcraft and medicine in the Middle Ages and half to the history of women and the rise of the medical profession in...
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