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For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women
From the bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed and a former editor in chief Mother Jones, this women's history classic brilliantly uncovers the constraints imposed on women in the name of science. Since the nineteenth century, professionals have been invoking scientific expertise to prescribe what women should do for their own good. Among the experts� diagnoses and remedies: menstruation was an illness requiring seclusion; pregnancy, a disabling condition; and higher education, a threat to long-term health of the uterus. From clitoridectomies to tame women’s behavior in the nineteenth century to the censure of a generation of mothers as castrators in the 1950s, doctors have not hesitated to intervene in women’s sexual, emotional, and maternal lives. Even domesticity, the most popular prescription for a safe environment for women, spawned legions of “scientific� experts.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English has never lost faith in science itself, but insist that we hold those who interpret it to higher standards. Women are entering the medical and scientific professions in greater numbers but as recent research shows, experts continue to use pseudoscience to tell women how to live. For Her Own Good provides today’s readers with an indispensable dose of informed skepticism.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English has never lost faith in science itself, but insist that we hold those who interpret it to higher standards. Women are entering the medical and scientific professions in greater numbers but as recent research shows, experts continue to use pseudoscience to tell women how to live. For Her Own Good provides today’s readers with an indispensable dose of informed skepticism.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Barbara Ehrenreich
108Ìýbooks1,984ÌýfollowersBarbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and the Erasmus Prize.
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November 4, 2020
In January 2019, all hell broke loose in the state of Kerala in India because the Supreme Court allowed women of menstruating age to enter the Sabarimala Temple, which is supposedly a "men-only" club due to the fact that the deity is supposed to be ritually celibate. Among all the brouhaha, a video started doing the rounds, from a lady doctor of Indian origin from the US. This estimable person said, in a highly convincing way, that some temples were centres of "positive cosmic energy" which would play hell with menstrual cycles. She even cited visiting temples during their monthly periods (a strict no-no in Hindu culture) as one of the reasons for endometriosis among women! Of course, anyone with a modicum of common sense would understand that this was nothing but pure, unadulterated gobbledygook - but the "doctor" label of the speaker, and the mixture of New Age claptrap and "Hindu" spirituality, resulted in she being taken seriously by a lot of people.
Why mention this here? Well, as I read this book, my eyes were opened to the fact that the so-called "experts" in the USA had survived for two centuries peddling similar type of bovine excrement, albeit without the spiritual tag. So much of conventional "wisdom" available there on the public domain is aimed at two things: the upkeep of the social status quo and the subjugation of women.
***
Up till the Industrial Revolution, society was static. The old order was unitary,which means most people lived the same humdrum lives, generation to generation; the old order was patriarchal, with the power being vested in the elder males; but the old order was also gynocentric - the skills and work of women were indispensable to survival. With the triumph of the market, however, household productive labour was moved to the factory. While this freed women from the endless round of household productive labour, it also took away their skills and dignity: women were still confined to the home, but without the bargaining power of their contribution to existence. They were relegated to "sexual peonage" and the role of baby-producing machines.
Patriarchy didn't change. Men still considered themselves lords of the manor. But with the work structures changing, they needed a way to redefine "woman" in order to keep her from getting out of the house and into factory workforce, from where it would be just a minor step to full equality.
The authors approach this process from an intriguing angle which I must say I am not fully convinced about. They say that folk medicine and healing which were the traditional province of women, were attacked as witchcraft by the male-centric society: in fact, they see this as part of the male medical practitioner to eliminate the female healer. The same concept was carried over to America, and the medical profession became a sort of boys' club: women had no place there.
Though I am a bit sceptical about the efficacy of traditional healing, the authors are spot on about the total unscientific outlook of professional medicine at its beginnings. In America, it was more about selling a commercial product than healing - and many of the "doctors" were worse than folk healers. Of course, then "scientism" (the worship of science) crept into the profession and methods and knowledge improved drastically: but women were out, by that time.
Now, it's time for the medical experts to enter and "create" the female gender in the mould they want to. And it's from here that things get interesting.
In the mid- and late- nineteenth century, many affluent women were affected with mysterious cases of hopeless invalidism. They just slipped into depression and a life confined to bed. The real reason for this was the suffocating atmosphere of domesticity, with nothing to do than stay home in perfect idleness; the women from the working class who were active were spared this strange malady.
The "experts" diagnosed this as hysteria, a disease connected to the womb and ovaries. In the first attempt at defining the gender in the modern world, woman was seen as little more than her reproductive organs. She had no escape from this miserable existence: the only hope were "rest cures", where women simply withdrew to a vegetative life. They began to depend extensively on their personal physicians, which augured well for their business.
But by the turn of the twentieth century, the invalid suddenly got out of her bed and started to run about on bicycles, organising charities, clubs and civic reform groups. But she was still not willing to abandon domesticity yet. So a new set of experts entered the scene - in the field of domestic science. Most of these were women, thwarted of their academic ambitions due to gender: so they created a discipline which was exclusive to their own - managing the home scientifically by battling against microbes, cooking healthy food, and dealing with economics in an intelligent manner. Feminism too embraced this new ideal. Of course, capitalist America had a heyday in inventing and marketing labour-saving devices (most of which we use today, also).
The turn of the last century also put the child at the centre of the family - and child-raising also became a science, too important to be left to the whimsies of "unprofessional" mothers. The experts moved in with their advice. This was the era of the "industrial approach" to child-raising: the boys were to be moulded into efficient workers and the girls, perfect ladies. Mothers with their maternal emotions could never be trusted to do a proper job!
This very soon took a 180-degree turn and the age of permissiveness started by mid-century. But even now, the mother with her irrational nature couldn't be expected to do a proper job without expert advice! Mothers had to forget all they had learned about "scientific" mothering and go for their instincts alone. Here too, the experts found "bad mothers" who had so many pathological reasons for rejecting, even wanting to kill, their own children.
Soon, the mother was seen as the root cause of all the problems which haunted American manhood. For this, the solution was for dad to spend more time at the house to offset the effects of libidinal motherhood: he was to treat male and female children differently, to bring them up as ideal men and women, which a mother with her unconditional love would find impossible.
This whole cult of permissiveness came a cropper against a generation of rebels. The boogeyman of communism from the Soviet Union, propped up by disciplined children moulded under state guidance was frightening while compared to America's supposed dissolution of a bunch of hippie kids protesting against capitalism and war-mongering. Now permissiveness was seen as subversion, and the experts were advocating a disciplinarian approach. In the words of the authors
***
Coming back to India: in our largely traditional society, gender is still culturally defined. However, the younger generation in the cities have started to break the shackles and fly away, and it has got the guardians of public morality worried. Hence the proliferation of experts like the doctor I mentioned above: and a plethora of women's magazines dishing out advice on everything from cookery to teenage love.
I recommend this book to all and sundry. Please see the experts exposed in their conservative and consumerist agenda!
Why mention this here? Well, as I read this book, my eyes were opened to the fact that the so-called "experts" in the USA had survived for two centuries peddling similar type of bovine excrement, albeit without the spiritual tag. So much of conventional "wisdom" available there on the public domain is aimed at two things: the upkeep of the social status quo and the subjugation of women.
***
Up till the Industrial Revolution, society was static. The old order was unitary,which means most people lived the same humdrum lives, generation to generation; the old order was patriarchal, with the power being vested in the elder males; but the old order was also gynocentric - the skills and work of women were indispensable to survival. With the triumph of the market, however, household productive labour was moved to the factory. While this freed women from the endless round of household productive labour, it also took away their skills and dignity: women were still confined to the home, but without the bargaining power of their contribution to existence. They were relegated to "sexual peonage" and the role of baby-producing machines.
Patriarchy didn't change. Men still considered themselves lords of the manor. But with the work structures changing, they needed a way to redefine "woman" in order to keep her from getting out of the house and into factory workforce, from where it would be just a minor step to full equality.
The authors approach this process from an intriguing angle which I must say I am not fully convinced about. They say that folk medicine and healing which were the traditional province of women, were attacked as witchcraft by the male-centric society: in fact, they see this as part of the male medical practitioner to eliminate the female healer. The same concept was carried over to America, and the medical profession became a sort of boys' club: women had no place there.
Though I am a bit sceptical about the efficacy of traditional healing, the authors are spot on about the total unscientific outlook of professional medicine at its beginnings. In America, it was more about selling a commercial product than healing - and many of the "doctors" were worse than folk healers. Of course, then "scientism" (the worship of science) crept into the profession and methods and knowledge improved drastically: but women were out, by that time.
Now, it's time for the medical experts to enter and "create" the female gender in the mould they want to. And it's from here that things get interesting.
In the mid- and late- nineteenth century, many affluent women were affected with mysterious cases of hopeless invalidism. They just slipped into depression and a life confined to bed. The real reason for this was the suffocating atmosphere of domesticity, with nothing to do than stay home in perfect idleness; the women from the working class who were active were spared this strange malady.
The "experts" diagnosed this as hysteria, a disease connected to the womb and ovaries. In the first attempt at defining the gender in the modern world, woman was seen as little more than her reproductive organs. She had no escape from this miserable existence: the only hope were "rest cures", where women simply withdrew to a vegetative life. They began to depend extensively on their personal physicians, which augured well for their business.
But by the turn of the twentieth century, the invalid suddenly got out of her bed and started to run about on bicycles, organising charities, clubs and civic reform groups. But she was still not willing to abandon domesticity yet. So a new set of experts entered the scene - in the field of domestic science. Most of these were women, thwarted of their academic ambitions due to gender: so they created a discipline which was exclusive to their own - managing the home scientifically by battling against microbes, cooking healthy food, and dealing with economics in an intelligent manner. Feminism too embraced this new ideal. Of course, capitalist America had a heyday in inventing and marketing labour-saving devices (most of which we use today, also).
The turn of the last century also put the child at the centre of the family - and child-raising also became a science, too important to be left to the whimsies of "unprofessional" mothers. The experts moved in with their advice. This was the era of the "industrial approach" to child-raising: the boys were to be moulded into efficient workers and the girls, perfect ladies. Mothers with their maternal emotions could never be trusted to do a proper job!
This very soon took a 180-degree turn and the age of permissiveness started by mid-century. But even now, the mother with her irrational nature couldn't be expected to do a proper job without expert advice! Mothers had to forget all they had learned about "scientific" mothering and go for their instincts alone. Here too, the experts found "bad mothers" who had so many pathological reasons for rejecting, even wanting to kill, their own children.
Soon, the mother was seen as the root cause of all the problems which haunted American manhood. For this, the solution was for dad to spend more time at the house to offset the effects of libidinal motherhood: he was to treat male and female children differently, to bring them up as ideal men and women, which a mother with her unconditional love would find impossible.
This whole cult of permissiveness came a cropper against a generation of rebels. The boogeyman of communism from the Soviet Union, propped up by disciplined children moulded under state guidance was frightening while compared to America's supposed dissolution of a bunch of hippie kids protesting against capitalism and war-mongering. Now permissiveness was seen as subversion, and the experts were advocating a disciplinarian approach. In the words of the authors
It is almost as if we had come full circle back to the days of “scientific motherhood,� when experts joined mothers to manufacture upright citizens out of unruly infants. But things never quite repeat themselves. Five decades of historical twists and turns—in the political atmosphere, the economy, and in the content of science—had warped the old mother-child expertWell, by now, women had had enough of masochistic motherhood. In the early sixties, the "single girl" burst out on the scene, who cared a hoot for marriage, domesticity or motherhood. She was just out to enjoy herself. Experts came in once again, riding on the wings of consumer society, to serve as pop psychologists of the singles culture. Permissiveness was taken up as a programme of universal liberation. Everyone was entitled, and the maximisation of personal pleasure was made an end in itself.
triangle beyond all recognition. For one thing the experts had lost status. They had quarreled too often, and they had changed their minds too often in the memory of living women. First there was industrial-style behaviorism, then permissiveness, and finally the reaction against it in the fifties and sixties. “Science,� applied to child raising, began to look like a chameleon which could match any national mood or corporate need.
Psychological ideology had swung 180 degrees from the neo-Freudian theories of libidinal motherhood and female masochism. From being the only source of fulfillment in a woman’s life children had become an obstacle to her freedom. From being a symbolic act of submission, sex had become a pleasurable commodity that women as well as men had a right to demand. But if the rules imposed by the old domestic ideology had denied women any future other than service to the family, the new psychology seemed to deny human bonds altogether—for women or for men. Pop psychology, which had begun with the effusive evocation of universal joy, ended up with the grim “realism� of the lifeboat strategy: not everyone can get on board, so survival depends on learning how to fight it out on the way to “getting yours.� Despite their radical break with the old domestic ideology, the experts of marketplace psychology ended up promoting an ideal of women’s nature that was no less distorted and limiting than the ideal that had once been advanced by nineteenth-century gynecology.With the coming of the women's liberation movement in the seventies, the whole concept of gender identity was challenged. Women simply refused to be what society wanted them to be: they defiantly declared that they are what they are. Of course, it is only a beginning. Women's problems after centuries of subjugation are not to be solved overnight; but the courage to take off the mask and look at the real face beneath is indeed the first bold step.
***
Coming back to India: in our largely traditional society, gender is still culturally defined. However, the younger generation in the cities have started to break the shackles and fly away, and it has got the guardians of public morality worried. Hence the proliferation of experts like the doctor I mentioned above: and a plethora of women's magazines dishing out advice on everything from cookery to teenage love.
I recommend this book to all and sundry. Please see the experts exposed in their conservative and consumerist agenda!
April 26, 2010
Ehrenreich and English look at what kind of advice we've been given for the last two hundred years. Although they provide a good deal of social, political, economic, and general background to the development and evolution of experts, the part I found most fascinating was on the creation of what we consider medical doctors. I hadn't realized how culturally specific, oft-changing, and purposefully created our modern conception of medicine is.
For instance, the cultural ancestors of modern doctors were just dudes who had enough money and class status to go to university and learn classical languages. They never learned anatomy or how to treat illnesses in any evidence-based manner. In fact, to maintain their status as "gentlemen," they didn't touch their patients (instead leaving the dispensing of medicines, bone-setting, childbirth, etc to others) or receive payment for their services (they were instead given "gifts"). But given that their medical knowledge was entirely based in classical literature, they were not particularly helpful. Instead, most people used what we now term folk-medicine (practiced by a healer in their area), which *was* mostly evidence-based and very much in line with modern conceptions of medicine (understandings of anatomy, palpating the lymph nodes, knowing what the patient ate, what their stools looked like, etc). But "regular" doctors had the rich on their side, so when science and the scientific method began to gain credence, they were able to lay claim to science first, while simultaneously suing to have all doctors who didn't go to their specific universities be considered criminals if they practiced medicine. It worked! Oh classism. And thus, for the next hundred years or so, the UK and US were left with doctors who had a very narrow understanding of what to look for to judge health. Mental state, nutrition, environment...all of this fell by the way-side.
Ehrenreich and English also talk a bit about how various credentials came to be and the double-binds created by psychologists for women. And don't think women were martyred saints, either--white, middle and upper class women were instrumental in all sorts of bs movements to "improve" the poor and minority groups. Overall, a good read, with nuggets of biting sarcasm to match the facts and anecdotes.
For instance, the cultural ancestors of modern doctors were just dudes who had enough money and class status to go to university and learn classical languages. They never learned anatomy or how to treat illnesses in any evidence-based manner. In fact, to maintain their status as "gentlemen," they didn't touch their patients (instead leaving the dispensing of medicines, bone-setting, childbirth, etc to others) or receive payment for their services (they were instead given "gifts"). But given that their medical knowledge was entirely based in classical literature, they were not particularly helpful. Instead, most people used what we now term folk-medicine (practiced by a healer in their area), which *was* mostly evidence-based and very much in line with modern conceptions of medicine (understandings of anatomy, palpating the lymph nodes, knowing what the patient ate, what their stools looked like, etc). But "regular" doctors had the rich on their side, so when science and the scientific method began to gain credence, they were able to lay claim to science first, while simultaneously suing to have all doctors who didn't go to their specific universities be considered criminals if they practiced medicine. It worked! Oh classism. And thus, for the next hundred years or so, the UK and US were left with doctors who had a very narrow understanding of what to look for to judge health. Mental state, nutrition, environment...all of this fell by the way-side.
Ehrenreich and English also talk a bit about how various credentials came to be and the double-binds created by psychologists for women. And don't think women were martyred saints, either--white, middle and upper class women were instrumental in all sorts of bs movements to "improve" the poor and minority groups. Overall, a good read, with nuggets of biting sarcasm to match the facts and anecdotes.
December 1, 2011
Ok, as if being a woman in this society didn't already make you angry at the medical establishment and how they treat women and women's concerns, this book will infuriate you. However, it is highly useful to see where these attitudes come from that are still prevalent in how medical professionals today treat women. From being dismissed as hysteric, to branding something a syndrome without ever trying to get to the bottom of it, to pathologizing the experience of being a woman.
Great book, really informative, I highly recommend it.
Great book, really informative, I highly recommend it.
September 4, 2011
For Her Own Good is a historical survey of the many ways in which women have been told what to do “for their own good� by experts (usually middle-class white men) over the past two hundred years. The book includes sections on medicine, female health and sickness, homemaking, and child-rearing, each one meticulously researched and extensively annotated. The authors' basic argument is that women have predominantly been viewed as incompetent to make their own decisions � even when it comes to their own bodies, their families, and their livelihoods � without the intervention of professional experts. Furthermore, these experts have relied on the authority of science to convince women that the experts' misogynistic prejudices are actually objective, proven fact.
One of the most interesting sections in the book was about how, starting in the 1700s, men co-opted the practice of medicine from women, who, through their activities as midwives and lay healers, had been their families' and communities' primary healers for centuries � in fact, healing was viewed as part of the whole package of child-rearing and running a household. Then, with the rise of professionalization, distinct academic disciplines, the capitalist market, and other factors, men began to take over medicine as a gentlemanly, aristocratic profession. However, whereas the female lay healers had relied on the transmission of tried and true medical information from one generation to the next (such as folk wisdom concerning the healing properties of particular herbs and natural substances), the male professional doctors discredited this evidence-based tradition and began inflicting a variety of horrific, un-scientific, and dangerous “cures� on a gullible and trusting populace.
In many cases, the so-called cure was far worse than the original disease, as in the case of a poison called calomel, which medical men commonly prescribed for ailments as minor as fever and stomachache and whose side effects included the erosion of the patient's teeth and jaw bone. Most disturbing of all, the doctors were usually aware that these “cures� were painful and ineffectual, but peddled them anyway as a money-making scheme. In order to keep the new medical profession selective and exclusive, the doctors went on a woman-bashing spree to discredit the much more liked and trusted female lay healers who saw healing as a community activity rather than a generator of wealth and who actually relied on observation and experiment to arrive at cures that truly worked. This was one of the most vivid instances of male “experts� (I use quotes because these medical men were mostly quacks and not experts in anything, but they saw themselves that way) telling women how things should be done, especially in a domain that had traditionally belonged to women to start with and which they had successfully managed without male intervention for generations.
There is no doubt that the authors did their research while writing this book. In fact, I would say that the book read almost a bit too much like an academic paper and could have been made more accessible to the casual reader. Nearly every page was crammed with long quotes and references, and there were a few times when the authors dug so deep into a specific issue that I had to read the back cover to remind myself what the overall argument of the book was. The authors must have realized this when they made revisions for the latest edition of the book (the first edition was published in the 70s), because they added a new chapter that was a good summary of their argument and helped to give it some context, as well as some new information on how this trend has played out in the early 21st century.
I also felt a little uncertain about the authors' thesis. I wholeheartedly agree that paternalistic, bigoted men have no business telling women how to live their lives, especially through the deception of passing off personal opinion or small-mindedness as scientific fact. However, the authors seemed to be anti-all-experts rather than anti-bad-experts. It was a bit hard to tell what the authors believed at all, since the book was only a historical review of these types of trends and not really their defense of a different point of view. They made a few comments that indicated they felt nostalgic for a time when women raised their children with the help of other knowledgeable and loving women -- mothers, grandmothers, sisters, neighbors, etc. -- and didn't need to jump every time the (most likely male) pediatrician or child psychologist said jump. I can see where they're coming from, and I do think it's unfortunate how isolated and self-contained most families are today, but I think that's a separate issue from whether to rely on experts or not. I'm sure that in the 1800s, listening to the advice of a friendly midwife, whose mother had taught her everything about the healing properties of local plants, was a wise course of action, especially given the alternatives. But medicine today -- despite all its problems -- is far better and more effective than herbal tea and prayer, even if the person delivering such medicine is not as friendly or caring as a frontier midwife. I have no patience with "alternative" medicine that hearkens back to a time when such flimsy folk remedies were all we had access to; when I'm in pain, give me an expert.
My last comment relates to the editing of this book. I am not the type of person who foams at the mouth every time I see a grammatical or editing mistake, although I do notice such mistakes whether I want to or not. But when I'm reading a book � especially a scholarly book that the authors want us to take seriously and that has been thoroughly and professionally edited no less than twice (once for each edition), I find no excuse for sloppy, distracting mistakes.
Here's the way I see it: let's say you have a deep love of and knowledge of music and are proficient at playing an instrument or two. You recognize that the technical aspects of music, such as the different values of notes and rests and so on, are not the “soul� of music � they are not why you enjoy listening to a sonata. Nevertheless, if the musician doesn't understand the way these mechanics work � if they botch the length of a quarter note, for example � you will not only notice it, but it will mar what would otherwise be a beautiful work of art. It goes from being music to being notes that are not well-played, and it spoils your enjoyment. That's how I feel about grammar in relation to language and reading. Obviously, proper spelling, punctuation, and syntax are not the “soul� of language any more than individual notes are the “soul� of music. But if you use language inexpertly by misunderstanding the purpose of a comma or botching the construction of a sentence, you have taken a thing of beauty and made it unpleasant.
So let's just say someone should have read For Her Own Good more carefully before sending it to the printer.
One of the most interesting sections in the book was about how, starting in the 1700s, men co-opted the practice of medicine from women, who, through their activities as midwives and lay healers, had been their families' and communities' primary healers for centuries � in fact, healing was viewed as part of the whole package of child-rearing and running a household. Then, with the rise of professionalization, distinct academic disciplines, the capitalist market, and other factors, men began to take over medicine as a gentlemanly, aristocratic profession. However, whereas the female lay healers had relied on the transmission of tried and true medical information from one generation to the next (such as folk wisdom concerning the healing properties of particular herbs and natural substances), the male professional doctors discredited this evidence-based tradition and began inflicting a variety of horrific, un-scientific, and dangerous “cures� on a gullible and trusting populace.
In many cases, the so-called cure was far worse than the original disease, as in the case of a poison called calomel, which medical men commonly prescribed for ailments as minor as fever and stomachache and whose side effects included the erosion of the patient's teeth and jaw bone. Most disturbing of all, the doctors were usually aware that these “cures� were painful and ineffectual, but peddled them anyway as a money-making scheme. In order to keep the new medical profession selective and exclusive, the doctors went on a woman-bashing spree to discredit the much more liked and trusted female lay healers who saw healing as a community activity rather than a generator of wealth and who actually relied on observation and experiment to arrive at cures that truly worked. This was one of the most vivid instances of male “experts� (I use quotes because these medical men were mostly quacks and not experts in anything, but they saw themselves that way) telling women how things should be done, especially in a domain that had traditionally belonged to women to start with and which they had successfully managed without male intervention for generations.
There is no doubt that the authors did their research while writing this book. In fact, I would say that the book read almost a bit too much like an academic paper and could have been made more accessible to the casual reader. Nearly every page was crammed with long quotes and references, and there were a few times when the authors dug so deep into a specific issue that I had to read the back cover to remind myself what the overall argument of the book was. The authors must have realized this when they made revisions for the latest edition of the book (the first edition was published in the 70s), because they added a new chapter that was a good summary of their argument and helped to give it some context, as well as some new information on how this trend has played out in the early 21st century.
I also felt a little uncertain about the authors' thesis. I wholeheartedly agree that paternalistic, bigoted men have no business telling women how to live their lives, especially through the deception of passing off personal opinion or small-mindedness as scientific fact. However, the authors seemed to be anti-all-experts rather than anti-bad-experts. It was a bit hard to tell what the authors believed at all, since the book was only a historical review of these types of trends and not really their defense of a different point of view. They made a few comments that indicated they felt nostalgic for a time when women raised their children with the help of other knowledgeable and loving women -- mothers, grandmothers, sisters, neighbors, etc. -- and didn't need to jump every time the (most likely male) pediatrician or child psychologist said jump. I can see where they're coming from, and I do think it's unfortunate how isolated and self-contained most families are today, but I think that's a separate issue from whether to rely on experts or not. I'm sure that in the 1800s, listening to the advice of a friendly midwife, whose mother had taught her everything about the healing properties of local plants, was a wise course of action, especially given the alternatives. But medicine today -- despite all its problems -- is far better and more effective than herbal tea and prayer, even if the person delivering such medicine is not as friendly or caring as a frontier midwife. I have no patience with "alternative" medicine that hearkens back to a time when such flimsy folk remedies were all we had access to; when I'm in pain, give me an expert.
My last comment relates to the editing of this book. I am not the type of person who foams at the mouth every time I see a grammatical or editing mistake, although I do notice such mistakes whether I want to or not. But when I'm reading a book � especially a scholarly book that the authors want us to take seriously and that has been thoroughly and professionally edited no less than twice (once for each edition), I find no excuse for sloppy, distracting mistakes.
Here's the way I see it: let's say you have a deep love of and knowledge of music and are proficient at playing an instrument or two. You recognize that the technical aspects of music, such as the different values of notes and rests and so on, are not the “soul� of music � they are not why you enjoy listening to a sonata. Nevertheless, if the musician doesn't understand the way these mechanics work � if they botch the length of a quarter note, for example � you will not only notice it, but it will mar what would otherwise be a beautiful work of art. It goes from being music to being notes that are not well-played, and it spoils your enjoyment. That's how I feel about grammar in relation to language and reading. Obviously, proper spelling, punctuation, and syntax are not the “soul� of language any more than individual notes are the “soul� of music. But if you use language inexpertly by misunderstanding the purpose of a comma or botching the construction of a sentence, you have taken a thing of beauty and made it unpleasant.
So let's just say someone should have read For Her Own Good more carefully before sending it to the printer.
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January 5, 2010Ehrenreich put together a very comprehensive, well-researched book on the effect of "expert" advice on women over a two-hundred-year span. The chronicle is both hilarious and frightening. We see women being celebrated as frail, delicate creatures whose reproductive organs are the source of every illness... then later women are descended upon by psychologists and deemed too dangerous to run a family, having penis envy and ambition compelling them to kill their children. Mothers were considered the heart of the home for their childrearing powers, then considered too weak to raise their own sons. It's enough to make a woman never buy a self-help book again.[return][return]It's amazing to see how much the woman's role has changed in two centuries. Before machines became a way of life, women had a lot of work to do. Surprisingly, we learn that housecleaning was low on the list. It wasn't until the the 20th century where women's boredom and advertisers met to compel a frenzy for housecleaning. Early women were too busy making all their home's supplies. When all of women's traditional work was being taken over by factories, and their healing knowledge taken away by men, the Woman Question arrived. With so little to do, what was a woman's role in society? What was her contribution to her household? Early feminists argued that women were reduced to glorified prostitutes, with their skills and knowledge taken away. The Woman Question is one that was debated until the feminists exploded into the 1960s and '70s.[return][return]At this point, after the women's rights movement of the '70s, Ehrenreich falters a bit when describing the "Let's think about me, now" attitude of women who eschewed a husband and kids for a childfree life. She paints these as selfish people obsessed with money and free time. True, many women feeling stifled under the confines of traditional society would start thinking of their own needs in a manner considered "selfish" after centuries of thinking solely of their family's comfort. Ehrenreich seems to think that the advice of earlier "experts" who encouraged permissiveness went too far and made child-haters of these women. On the contrary, the childfree movement that stemmed from modern feminism is all about the choice to have children. Since Ehrenreich clearly approves of abortion in her writing, it is strange that she gets a little touchy over the choice to be a mother or not. Since the author is pro-choice, she may not have thought out the connection to those who abstain from childrearing entirely, and how they must fight charges of selfishness just as those who get an abortion fight charges of being a "murderer." I wonder if Ehrenreich, being a mother, is aghast at how feminism inspired future generations of women to live a childfree life.[return][return]Other than that criticism, I found the book a valuable source of information. I want to wave it under the nose of every person who thinks the feminist movement was a mistake. I want to yell at them, "Do you know where these doctors would put leeches on a woman because her husband could drag her in to a doctors office for an attitude adjustment? Think of a place only her gynecologist would see - that's where they put those leeches!" But, as Ehrenreich points out, there are many people who buy into the romance of the woman invalid, the lobotomized housewife, and sheltered female who never has to make an important decision. Some may find this a blissful life, but as history proves, it's not necessarily a healthy one for women.
July 28, 2007
gender roles are social constructs.
October 11, 2020
After a rather great and intriguing premise (woman's changing social position in light of the evolution of the economic market/changes of the social system), this book was quite a disappointment.
To mention two most prominent let-downs:
1. Factual inaccuracies and mistakes, which I noticed especially in the first quarter of the book. Firstly, the completely misleading numbers and facts regarding witch hunts in medieaeval and early modern Europe. Secondly, the picture of medical professionals in the same historical epochs. Both are topis I am interested in and know a bit about, and I was very put off by these mistakes.
Just to mention a couple: witches, especially in the beginning, were not predominantly women. On the contrary, the ratio was more or less 50/50 female/male (in some areas, it was even more men), and most of the witches were accused or religious haeresy (at the beginning). The punishment was not death, but most often monetary fine. Burnings and hangings mostly occured later, in Early Modern times. Also the numbers given of executed people is way blown out of proportions: it was not millions, but maybe ten thousands of people - during the whole time of persecutions. Quite a difference, I would say.
Another one, the book paints a very black-and-white and two dimensional picture of the medical practitioners in medieaveal and early modern times - it puts into stark contrast male medical "professionals" (i.e. doctors who were academically educated) and "peasant" female healers. There was a broad plethora of practitioners in between, and for long times they co-existed quite succesfully. Also, though academic medicine indeed relied generally on the Theory of four humours, observation played an important role as well, especially when administering medicine (plant- or otherwise based).
I cannot say much to the developement of medicine in the early US, as I am not knowleadgeable in this area, but the botched beginning of the book makes me suspicious about the rest of the presented facts.
2. The other problem I had with this book is that although women are supposed to stand in the focus, the text often handles so many different topics in such a broad context that the woman literally sinks under and disappears out of sight. A bit ironic, isn't it?
Also, the conclusion of the book comes of somewhat weak. Women had been told for centuries what to do - well, yes, and? What am I as a woman to take away from this book? Other than bitterness and disillusionment?
To conclude: not a complete loss of time, but the gain is definitely not worth the hours invested in reading.
To mention two most prominent let-downs:
1. Factual inaccuracies and mistakes, which I noticed especially in the first quarter of the book. Firstly, the completely misleading numbers and facts regarding witch hunts in medieaeval and early modern Europe. Secondly, the picture of medical professionals in the same historical epochs. Both are topis I am interested in and know a bit about, and I was very put off by these mistakes.
Just to mention a couple: witches, especially in the beginning, were not predominantly women. On the contrary, the ratio was more or less 50/50 female/male (in some areas, it was even more men), and most of the witches were accused or religious haeresy (at the beginning). The punishment was not death, but most often monetary fine. Burnings and hangings mostly occured later, in Early Modern times. Also the numbers given of executed people is way blown out of proportions: it was not millions, but maybe ten thousands of people - during the whole time of persecutions. Quite a difference, I would say.
Another one, the book paints a very black-and-white and two dimensional picture of the medical practitioners in medieaveal and early modern times - it puts into stark contrast male medical "professionals" (i.e. doctors who were academically educated) and "peasant" female healers. There was a broad plethora of practitioners in between, and for long times they co-existed quite succesfully. Also, though academic medicine indeed relied generally on the Theory of four humours, observation played an important role as well, especially when administering medicine (plant- or otherwise based).
I cannot say much to the developement of medicine in the early US, as I am not knowleadgeable in this area, but the botched beginning of the book makes me suspicious about the rest of the presented facts.
2. The other problem I had with this book is that although women are supposed to stand in the focus, the text often handles so many different topics in such a broad context that the woman literally sinks under and disappears out of sight. A bit ironic, isn't it?
Also, the conclusion of the book comes of somewhat weak. Women had been told for centuries what to do - well, yes, and? What am I as a woman to take away from this book? Other than bitterness and disillusionment?
To conclude: not a complete loss of time, but the gain is definitely not worth the hours invested in reading.
July 25, 2008
I absolutely loved Witches, Midwives and Nurses, so I thought this would be an expanded version of that. And it's true that For Her Own Good was full of interesting facts. But somehow, when I was done, I felt like I couldn't really summarize much of interest in a few words. In fact, I was quite relieved to be done so I could move on to some light fiction -- although the book was full of interesting, often shocking, facts, reading it almost felt like homework by the end.
I did dog-ear a couple of interesting quotes from the book:
A quote from an 1830s Grahamian on p. 61 (alas, the Grahamians -- proponents of vegetarianism and health food stores -- didn't gain much traction...)
"Any system that, of itself, creates a privileged class who can by law, or otherwise, lord it over their fellow men, destroys true freedom and personal autonomy. Any system that teaches the sick that they can get well only through the exercise of the skill of someone else, and that they remain alive only through the tender mercies of the privileged class, has no place in nature's scheme of things, and the sooner it is abolished, the better will mankind be."
I found the following descriptions by a man named Watson especially hilarious (pp. 224 & 225). He was writing in the 1920s:
"The ideal child, he wrote, is, 'a child who never cries unless actually stuck by a pin, illustratively speaking...who soon builds up a wealth of habits that tides him over dark and rainy days -- who puts on such habits of politeness and neatness and cleanliness that adults are willing to be around him at least part of the day ... who eats what is set before him -- who sleeps and rests when put to bed for sleep and rest -- who puts away two year old habits when the third year has to be faced ...'"
and this:
"There is a sensible way of treating children. Treat them as though they were young adults. Dress them, bathe them with care and circumspection. Let your behavior always be objective and kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. ..."
I love trying to picture my friends with two year olds shaking their kids' hands in the morning.
I did dog-ear a couple of interesting quotes from the book:
A quote from an 1830s Grahamian on p. 61 (alas, the Grahamians -- proponents of vegetarianism and health food stores -- didn't gain much traction...)
"Any system that, of itself, creates a privileged class who can by law, or otherwise, lord it over their fellow men, destroys true freedom and personal autonomy. Any system that teaches the sick that they can get well only through the exercise of the skill of someone else, and that they remain alive only through the tender mercies of the privileged class, has no place in nature's scheme of things, and the sooner it is abolished, the better will mankind be."
I found the following descriptions by a man named Watson especially hilarious (pp. 224 & 225). He was writing in the 1920s:
"The ideal child, he wrote, is, 'a child who never cries unless actually stuck by a pin, illustratively speaking...who soon builds up a wealth of habits that tides him over dark and rainy days -- who puts on such habits of politeness and neatness and cleanliness that adults are willing to be around him at least part of the day ... who eats what is set before him -- who sleeps and rests when put to bed for sleep and rest -- who puts away two year old habits when the third year has to be faced ...'"
and this:
"There is a sensible way of treating children. Treat them as though they were young adults. Dress them, bathe them with care and circumspection. Let your behavior always be objective and kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. ..."
I love trying to picture my friends with two year olds shaking their kids' hands in the morning.
September 20, 2019
An eye-opening and very informative account of how women have been treated over the past two centuries in the medical industry. Ehrenreich takes us through the history of the establishment of the medical industry, how to raise children, how feminism changed and adapted over the centuries, and up to modern society and how women are viewed.
There are sections on female health, the 'rise of sick and languishing women', how they were treated, the creation of home economics and its importance, how to rear children and suggestions suggestions on how to be the perfect wife, and more. All of it is annotated and researched with a giant footnote section in the end to refer to.
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of Experts' Advice to Women demonstrates how attitudes towards women in the health industry started and how these attitudes have remained. These biases are still well and thriving in the medical industry today.
From looking at how the medical establishment was created (upper class white men who had money to go to university, but did not study anatomy or how to treat illnesses) to how midwives were vilified, removed, and replaced by men with no knowledge of female anatomy to male doctors dismissing women as hysterical and 'doctors' who specialized in the 'psychologically abnormal' experience of being a woman - this book will hit a lot of nerves!
For a book that was first published in 1978, this book has aged fairly well. Very informative and a great read.
Best Takeaway Fact
"With a patriarchal self-confidence that had almost no further need of instruments, techniques, medications, Osler wrote:
If a poor lass, paralyzed apparently, helpless, bed-ridden for years, comes to me, having worn out in mind, body, and estate a devoted family; if she in a few weeks or less by faith in me, and faith alone, takes up her bed and walks, the saints of old could not have done more... ~Sir William Osler
Now at last the medical profession had arrived at a method of faith-healing potent enough to compare with women's traditional healing - but one which was decisively masculine. It did not require a nurturant attitude, nor long hours by the patient's bedside. In fact, with the new style of healing, the less time a doctor spends with a patient, and the fewer questions he permits, the greater his powers would seem to be."
There are sections on female health, the 'rise of sick and languishing women', how they were treated, the creation of home economics and its importance, how to rear children and suggestions suggestions on how to be the perfect wife, and more. All of it is annotated and researched with a giant footnote section in the end to refer to.
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of Experts' Advice to Women demonstrates how attitudes towards women in the health industry started and how these attitudes have remained. These biases are still well and thriving in the medical industry today.
From looking at how the medical establishment was created (upper class white men who had money to go to university, but did not study anatomy or how to treat illnesses) to how midwives were vilified, removed, and replaced by men with no knowledge of female anatomy to male doctors dismissing women as hysterical and 'doctors' who specialized in the 'psychologically abnormal' experience of being a woman - this book will hit a lot of nerves!
For a book that was first published in 1978, this book has aged fairly well. Very informative and a great read.
Best Takeaway Fact
"With a patriarchal self-confidence that had almost no further need of instruments, techniques, medications, Osler wrote:
If a poor lass, paralyzed apparently, helpless, bed-ridden for years, comes to me, having worn out in mind, body, and estate a devoted family; if she in a few weeks or less by faith in me, and faith alone, takes up her bed and walks, the saints of old could not have done more... ~Sir William Osler
Now at last the medical profession had arrived at a method of faith-healing potent enough to compare with women's traditional healing - but one which was decisively masculine. It did not require a nurturant attitude, nor long hours by the patient's bedside. In fact, with the new style of healing, the less time a doctor spends with a patient, and the fewer questions he permits, the greater his powers would seem to be."
August 5, 2024
Un chascarrillo habitual entre las feministas es que el feminismo te arruina la vida porque ya no puedes ver pelÃculas, leer libros o hablar con tu tÃo Casiano sin que te enfades por las evidentes desigualdades que siguen capando a sus anchas en tantos discursos. Igual ocurre con este libro, que de repente te arruina la confianza qua habÃas depositado en cualquier experto de tu vida (médico, psicólogo o fontanero) porque te pone de evidencia que aquà quien más quien menos no tiene ni idea de lo que hace, que experimentan en tiempo real con personas reales y que, lamentablemente, todos tienen su propio plan que suele ser habitualmente enriquecerse a costa de las dudas de los demás, sobre todo de las mujeres por ser consideradas como más proclives a necesitar ayuda y, claro, más fáciles de engañar. Un libro fe 1989 que sigue tristemente vigente, aunque nos pueda parecer que no, porque ahora las cosas se hacen más sibilinas, o llevan la preposición “neoâ€� delante, que es la misma cacota de siempre adaptada a los tiempos tecnológicos, sin más.
Una cosa que me ha sorprendido del libro, por otro lado, es que está llenÃsimo de typos. Aviso para quien le produzca incomodidad.
Una cosa que me ha sorprendido del libro, por otro lado, es que está llenÃsimo de typos. Aviso para quien le produzca incomodidad.
January 5, 2016
I read this as an undergraduate in college. Away from home and in the company of other women who were passionate about learning, I saw the world open up to me. Reading this book (alongside other books such as Barbara Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Anything in Virginia Woolf's collection, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, and others) I became extremely aware of the women who fought so hard so that someday I could have an education and the possibility of equality in my own society.
I remember losing sleep over what I read in the pages of this book. It was shocking and horrifying. And yet, it felt like the biggest gift anyone had ever given up to that point in life. I felt something click inside me. I felt aware of my own power for the first time. This book will always hold a special place in my heart.
I do wonder what I would think of it if I read it now, so many year later.
I remember losing sleep over what I read in the pages of this book. It was shocking and horrifying. And yet, it felt like the biggest gift anyone had ever given up to that point in life. I felt something click inside me. I felt aware of my own power for the first time. This book will always hold a special place in my heart.
I do wonder what I would think of it if I read it now, so many year later.
October 14, 2019
Well documented history of how the medical industry has ignored, mismanaged and abused women. Relevant, this is still happening today! If I wasn't currently taking a Women's Studies course load I would have found the book more interesting. I found the writing stale, textbook style and cumbersome. I think it has a lot of important information and is a valuable read but it was dull in its presentation.
July 8, 2021
This is an interesting exploration of how science intersects with the construction of gender, and how the scientific method was distorted, and women were harmed, by people who worked to make science fit their preconceived notions of gender. If you'd like to be infuriated, pick this up! If you think the feminists are mostly just making things up, and that traditional gender roles are usually for the best, pick this up!
June 29, 2017
Actually super interesting, if impossible to summarize to anyone who casually asks "so what are you reading?" without their eyes glazing over. A tour de force through the history of the medical establishment, capitalism, psychiatry, child-rearing, feminism and modern society in general that draws a lot of really interesting connections.
October 12, 2018
Vachement intéressant, mais lu trop en pointillé, j'ai littéralement passé des mois dessus. D'un autre côté d'une seule traite ce serait sûrement indigeste, mais j'aurai quand même pu faire mieux. La conclusion fait douloureusement écho à l'actualité, en rappelant que malgré tous les progrès, rien n'est jamais acquis et est toujours remis en cause, coucou le conservatisme religieux, entre autres...
December 28, 2017
Un ensayo escrito de manera casi narrativa que se lee con agilidad y mucha curiosidad. Con bastante documentación y un hilo muy claro, se aborda un tema tan poco reconocido como es, básicamente, el robo sistemático y organizado por parte del "nuevo patriarcado" (organizado alrededor de los hombres especialistas) de conocimientos y espacios propios de las mujeres, con el fin de comercializarlos o, simplemente, expropiárselos. Este texto pone a pensar al lector y le abre toda un área sobre la que probablemente no habÃa reflexionado. Arranca prejuicios sobre la situación de la mujer en los últimos siglos (ni siempre ni todas fueron amas de casa semi-ociosas) y revela el peligro potencial de la ciencia que se presenta como objetiva y absoluta y con ese pretexto se convierte casi en otra religión. Haciendo un repaso desde los cambios producidos entre la sociedad pre-industrial y la industrial, y presentando los distintos conceptos que hubo sobre la mujer por parte de los hombres (de los expertos) a lo largo del siglo XIX y de la primera mitad del siglo XX, estas dos autoras exponen de forma, en mi opinióm, muy eficaz (y de importancia aún ahora, décadas después) un ámbito más de la opresión patriarcal.
April 22, 2010
LJ user 's review:
One of those books that puts into stark reality how patronizing and riddled with errors and judgement the 'advice' given to women over two centuries of American history has been. They look at the medical industry as a whole as well as psychology and child-rearing as a whole.
One of those books that puts into stark reality how patronizing and riddled with errors and judgement the 'advice' given to women over two centuries of American history has been. They look at the medical industry as a whole as well as psychology and child-rearing as a whole.
October 9, 2007
this just in: men have believed ridiculous things about women. did this book really need updating?
April 4, 2021
Though the book was originally published in 1978, this edition came out in 2004 with a new foreword and afterward. Given that this is primarily a history, the text holds up very well, and it's one of the rare cases where the subtitle actually gives you a good idea of the topic; "Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women." Ehrenreich and English don't limit themselves to a single discipline, focusing on medicine prior to the 20th century, before expanding to include psychologists, domestic scientists, and various child raising experts in later years. Chapter 2, "Witches, Healers, and Gentleman Doctors," regurgitates a lot of the information from Ehrenreich's earlier pamphlet "Witches, Midwives and Nurses," but not its entirety (I would still recommend reading WMaN for her discussion of the nursing profession). However, this text gives a much more comprehensive discussion of the evolution of medicine as a profession, such as the competition between "regular" doctors and the "irregular" medicine borne out of the popular health movement, prior to the incorporation of laboratory science into medicine in the late 1800's. This could be considered valuable as a history of medicine alone, but what makes it so satisfying is how Ehrenreich and English always make a point of putting everything in the context of the socioeconomic climate, and the prevailing attitudes and beliefs about women, during a given period. For example, chapter 5 focuses on the oft forgotten domestic scientists who strove to bring homemaking to the status of a profession (you can thank them for your home ec. classes in high school). When discussing their advice to women, its explained that the movement was part of the trend to find the most "scientific" method to complete all tasks, spurred by the industrial revolutions focus on efficiency, as well as 19th century feminism's embrace of the "field" since it bolstered their arguments in favor of higher education for women without threatening the prevailing ideas about femininity. Though on the whole excellent, it should be noted that there is decided lack of intersectionality. However, this is in part due to the subject matter; as the authors point out, experts in most fields tend to be from the middle/upper class, and historically have been predominately white men (with the exception of the women healers who are discussed in depth). Due to both these experts own spheres of experience, as well the fact that their client bases were limited to those who could afford to pay, expert advice for women over the past 2 centuries has been predominately geared towards white women of means. Still, while there is a fair amount of discussion of issues of class, there is hardly any mention of race, which is disappointing. Also, discussion is limited to cis women only, with only brief reference to queer women(during discussion of the 1960-70's). That being said, this is still a valuable resource for anyone interested in women's studies, particularly if you're looking for a history of women's medicine and/or psychology. Absolutely fascinating and well researched.
May 9, 2018
Este es uno de esos libros que lo lees y es inevitable no enfadarte ni indignarte con lo poco que tiene de cientÃfica y lo mucho de mantener el status quo de lo hombres la "ciencia" sobre las mujeres. De ahà que, si vas a ver mi Reading Progress vas a ver un montón de citas directas del libro (y las que me he guardado para no hacerme pesada).
A pesar de la importancia de lo que se comparte en el libro, hay veces en que se me ha hecho pesado de leer. Sobretodo porque es un libro totalmente USA-céntrico, por lo que cuando entra en detalles que son solamente aplicables en los USA me ha costado seguir el hilo sin saltarme páginas por completo.
Hay que tener en cuenta también que es un libro que se escribió en los 70. Por eso, el último capÃtulo es como un resumen muy resumido de lo que ha pasado desde que se escribió hasta que se reeditó esta edición de 2005 que yo me he leÃdo. Aunque es muy complicado hacer reflexión cuando te encuentras en medio de lo que se está desarrollando, me gustarÃa leer el mismo tipo de contenido con lo que ha pasado/está pasando a nivel médico/psicológico/ginecológico en estos 13 años que van desde que se escribió el libro.
Recomendado para aquellas personas que piensen que la ciencia es todopoderosa, para que vean que la ciencia nació de una manera muy poco cientÃfica. Y para aquellas personas que, cuando acuden a un "experto", les da no-respuestas que espera que sean seguidas al pie de la letra sin rechistar, sienten que hay algo que falla.
A pesar de la importancia de lo que se comparte en el libro, hay veces en que se me ha hecho pesado de leer. Sobretodo porque es un libro totalmente USA-céntrico, por lo que cuando entra en detalles que son solamente aplicables en los USA me ha costado seguir el hilo sin saltarme páginas por completo.
Hay que tener en cuenta también que es un libro que se escribió en los 70. Por eso, el último capÃtulo es como un resumen muy resumido de lo que ha pasado desde que se escribió hasta que se reeditó esta edición de 2005 que yo me he leÃdo. Aunque es muy complicado hacer reflexión cuando te encuentras en medio de lo que se está desarrollando, me gustarÃa leer el mismo tipo de contenido con lo que ha pasado/está pasando a nivel médico/psicológico/ginecológico en estos 13 años que van desde que se escribió el libro.
Recomendado para aquellas personas que piensen que la ciencia es todopoderosa, para que vean que la ciencia nació de una manera muy poco cientÃfica. Y para aquellas personas que, cuando acuden a un "experto", les da no-respuestas que espera que sean seguidas al pie de la letra sin rechistar, sienten que hay algo que falla.
March 30, 2024
I really wanted to like this book. It takes an interesting topic (namely how women have been treated in various arenas throughout history), and elaborates on it through medicine, the home, child-rearing and other areas.
Unfortunately though, I just found this book long-winded and dry. There was so much setup and detail for each area (and so much talk of the men who were doing the oppressing, that the women didn't really get their chance to shine. Which I guess is fitting in a sense for the topic. It just made it really hard to get through.
While I did appreciate the understanding of how women's voices were shuttered through history; I would have liked to have heard more about the women dealing with this expert advice. Those that prefer a more academic tone and don't mind the subject matter definitely being about the experts rather than the reaction to those expert's advice should like this book though. And I do think it's an important topic.
Review by M. Reynard 2024
Unfortunately though, I just found this book long-winded and dry. There was so much setup and detail for each area (and so much talk of the men who were doing the oppressing, that the women didn't really get their chance to shine. Which I guess is fitting in a sense for the topic. It just made it really hard to get through.
While I did appreciate the understanding of how women's voices were shuttered through history; I would have liked to have heard more about the women dealing with this expert advice. Those that prefer a more academic tone and don't mind the subject matter definitely being about the experts rather than the reaction to those expert's advice should like this book though. And I do think it's an important topic.
Review by M. Reynard 2024
June 20, 2025
I think what this book does well, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is criticize public health and Big Pharma’s capitalist roots and how medical advice towards women has always been rooted in a sense of productivity, either of the women themselves or the men in their lives.
I think I went into this book thinking it was going to focus more on women’s *health* advice, not necessarily lifestyle advice more broadly. however, taking away a star in my review bc of mismatched expectations is not fair to the book :)
I think I went into this book thinking it was going to focus more on women’s *health* advice, not necessarily lifestyle advice more broadly. however, taking away a star in my review bc of mismatched expectations is not fair to the book :)
December 10, 2018
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July 20, 2022
Mind-blowing information about the history of science of medicine and doctors started to appear and mal-practice mainly. Also, history of advice towards women around household and around raising children properly that were lately replaced by total opposite advise multiple times. Makes you admire the resilience of humans!!
November 13, 2024
Wow this took me forever. I feel like it was just a whole lot of information and technical knowledge. Very interesting it’s true but I would love to see a more updated version this is from 2005�.my COMM 311 teacher gave it to me to read so I was on a mission. Very systematic compiling of women’s historical society roles as mothers, doctors, femme fatale, or virgins. There’s nothing society hates more than a powerful woman.
September 7, 2023
This book is excellent; I'm so glad I read it. I loved the first 150 pages, much of which dealt with illness, healing, medicine, and/or men’s ideas of their own authority when practicing medicine:
as well as the pathologizing of femaleness:
Unfortunately, the next fifty pages are about housework, and I found that section as hard to read as I find it to clean my house some days. It was as carefully and persuasively written as the rest of the book, but I didn’t find it as compelling as most of the other material. The same goes for the section on “The Century of the Child�: It was about the ways children in the abstract were idealized, and so felt abstract and obligatory rather than immediate and urgent, the way stories of specific bodies can be.
I mention that to let other readers know that the book can be hard to persevere with—I actually took a break of several months from it once I hit the housework chapter. But I’m glad I returned; everything became worthwhile when I read passages like this:
I really can’t recommend it enough.
The wider and freer a men’s [sic] general education the better practitioner he is likely to be, particularly among the higher classes to whom the reassurance and sympathy of a cultured gentleman of the type of Eryximachus [an aristocratic Greek doctor], may mean much more than pills or potions.
So if science was culture, and culture was really class, then, in the end, it was class that healed. Or rather, it was the combination of upper class and male superiority that gave medicine its essential authority. With a patriarchal self-confidence that had almost no further need for instruments, techniques, or medications, Osler wrote:If a poor lass, paralyzed apparently, helpless, bed-ridden for years, comes to me, having worn out in mind, body, and estate a devoted family; if she in a few weeks or less by faith in me, and faith alone, takes up her bed and walks, the saints of old could not have done more....
Now at least the medical profession had arrived at a method of faith-healing potent enough to compare with woman’s traditional healing—but one which was decisively masculine. It did not require a nurturant attitude, nor long hours by the patient’s bedside. In fact, with the new style of healing, the less time a doctor spends with a patient, and the fewer questions he permits, the greater his powers would seem to be.
as well as the pathologizing of femaleness:
the theories which guided the doctor’s practice from the last nineteenth to the early twentieth century held that woman’s normal state was to be sick. This was not advanced as an empirical observation, but as physiological fact. Medicine had “discovered� that female functions were inherently pathological. Menstruation, that perennial source of alarm to the male imagination, provided both the evidence and the explanation. Menstruation was a serious threat throughout life—so was the lack of it.
Unfortunately, the next fifty pages are about housework, and I found that section as hard to read as I find it to clean my house some days. It was as carefully and persuasively written as the rest of the book, but I didn’t find it as compelling as most of the other material. The same goes for the section on “The Century of the Child�: It was about the ways children in the abstract were idealized, and so felt abstract and obligatory rather than immediate and urgent, the way stories of specific bodies can be.
I mention that to let other readers know that the book can be hard to persevere with—I actually took a break of several months from it once I hit the housework chapter. But I’m glad I returned; everything became worthwhile when I read passages like this:
The idea that women were masochistic seemed to solve everything. Woman's lot, from a masculinist point of view, consisted of menial labor and sexual humiliation. But as a masochist, these were precisely the things that she liked and needed. (The explanation of "mascochism" is so convenient and totalistic that we can only wonder why the psychomedical didn't think to extend it to other groups, like the poor and racial minorities.) But at the same time, the idea of female masochism signaled the mounting bankruptcy of sexual romanticist theory. Once, women had been lured into domesticity with promises of intellectual challenge, activity, and power over the household and children. No one had argued, in the early-twentieth-century mothers' movement or domestic science movement, that women had to resign themselves to motherhood, that they had to give up anything. Energy, intelligence, and ambition were precisely the character traits that the scientific mother needed to run her household and raise her children. To say now, at mid-century, that it was not energy, but passivity, that held a woman to her home, not ambition, but resignation, not enjoyment, but pain—was to say that from a masculinist point of view that the female role was unthinkable, and that those who fit into it were in some sense insane. The theory of female masochism stood as an admission from the psychomedical experts that the feminine ideal they had helped construct was not only difficult to achieve, but probably impossible.
I really can’t recommend it enough.
April 12, 2010
Finally!
Interesting history of the practice of medicine and treatment of women. As a result, "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Mrs. Dalloway" have new meaning.
I know why we were constantly have tea parties in home ec class and more understanding for the airs put on by my teacher.
I always thought Freud was twisted.
The end is - the woman question really is - that the human values that women were assigned to preserve expand out of the confines of private life and become the organizing principles of society. A society that is organized around human neds: a society in which child raising is not dismissed as each woman's individual problem, but in which the nuturance and well-being of all children is a public priority - a society in which healing is not a commodity distributed according toi the dictates of profit but is integral to the network of community life - in which wisdom about daily life is not hoarded by experts or doled out as a commodity but is drawn from the experience of all people and freely shared among them.
The womanly values of community and caring must rise to the center as the only human principles.
Interesting history of the practice of medicine and treatment of women. As a result, "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Mrs. Dalloway" have new meaning.
I know why we were constantly have tea parties in home ec class and more understanding for the airs put on by my teacher.
I always thought Freud was twisted.
The end is - the woman question really is - that the human values that women were assigned to preserve expand out of the confines of private life and become the organizing principles of society. A society that is organized around human neds: a society in which child raising is not dismissed as each woman's individual problem, but in which the nuturance and well-being of all children is a public priority - a society in which healing is not a commodity distributed according toi the dictates of profit but is integral to the network of community life - in which wisdom about daily life is not hoarded by experts or doled out as a commodity but is drawn from the experience of all people and freely shared among them.
The womanly values of community and caring must rise to the center as the only human principles.
December 12, 2009
I enjoy Ehrenreich and her ideas about life and work. In this book she gives a research-filled history of how women were seen by medical doctors, psychologists, men, ad agencies, and employers. It's almost vulgar to think of of frailty and sickness were sought-after traits in an upper-class woman. It's fascinating to see how advice on things like femininity, child-bearing and child-rearing has changed. Expert "opinions" aimed at women have largely been based on false assumptions and quackery. This books takes you through many of them. I found it fascinating, angering, and even a little eye-opening. I finished this book feeling grateful that I have enough power in my life to make my own choices.
April 3, 2011
What an infuriating book! It was well-written and seemingly well-researched. The infuriation didn't come from the writing but by the crap that they unearthed and portrayed. The thesis of the book can be found in the afterward, essentially that the Women Question isn't what is wrong with us, or how should we deal with us/ourselves, but instead how can we change the society so the roles and norms for women don't constrain and appear to be so one-size fits all. What was interesting was that through the ages women have been considered: gentile, naive, in need of protection, masochistic, ignorant, at-fault, and a host of other things at both ends of the spectrum.
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