Alec Stone Sweet
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199275533
- eISBN:
- 9780191602009
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019927553X.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
The evolution is charted, through adjudication, of the rules governing sex equality in European Community (EC) law. The first section, ‘The Normative Structure’, provides an overview of the Treaty of ...
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The evolution is charted, through adjudication, of the rules governing sex equality in European Community (EC) law. The first section, ‘The Normative Structure’, provides an overview of the Treaty of Rome rules and secondary legislation that constitute the domain of sex equality, while the second examines how Art. 141 (which provides that male and female workers shall receive equal pay for equal work) evolved once it had been constitutionalized by the European Court of Justice. Section III, ‘Judicialization: The Court and the Legislator’, focuses on the relationship between the Court, its case law on sex equality, and the production of directives by the EC legislator; the impact is also briefly discussed of the Court's rulemaking on national judicial and legislative processes; topics included are indirect discrimination, occupational pensions, pregnancy and maternity rights. In the fourth section, ‘Adjudicating Sex Equality Law’, an analysis is made of the aggregate data on litigation and adjudication in the field, focusing on how precedent‐based lawmaking has organized the development of this area. The conclusion addresses a range of theoretical issues.Less
The evolution is charted, through adjudication, of the rules governing sex equality in European Community (EC) law. The first section, ‘The Normative Structure’, provides an overview of the Treaty of Rome rules and secondary legislation that constitute the domain of sex equality, while the second examines how Art. 141 (which provides that male and female workers shall receive equal pay for equal work) evolved once it had been constitutionalized by the European Court of Justice. Section III, ‘Judicialization: The Court and the Legislator’, focuses on the relationship between the Court, its case law on sex equality, and the production of directives by the EC legislator; the impact is also briefly discussed of the Court's rulemaking on national judicial and legislative processes; topics included are indirect discrimination, occupational pensions, pregnancy and maternity rights. In the fourth section, ‘Adjudicating Sex Equality Law’, an analysis is made of the aggregate data on litigation and adjudication in the field, focusing on how precedent‐based lawmaking has organized the development of this area. The conclusion addresses a range of theoretical issues.
Frank Graziano
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195171303
- eISBN:
- 9780199785193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171303.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter explores the devotion to Difunta Correa, a prominent folk saint in western Argentina. It examines myth development, particularly in relation to Difunta Correa’s miraculous breast; ...
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This chapter explores the devotion to Difunta Correa, a prominent folk saint in western Argentina. It examines myth development, particularly in relation to Difunta Correa’s miraculous breast; religious tourism; penance; relation to the Catholic Church; and contemporary devotion to Difunta Correa at her shrine complex in San Juan.Less
This chapter explores the devotion to Difunta Correa, a prominent folk saint in western Argentina. It examines myth development, particularly in relation to Difunta Correa’s miraculous breast; religious tourism; penance; relation to the Catholic Church; and contemporary devotion to Difunta Correa at her shrine complex in San Juan.
Rachel A. Cichowski
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780199247967
- eISBN:
- 9780191601088
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924796X.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
An examination is made of the impact of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the institutional evolution of European Union sex equality policy, following the provision in the Treaty of Rome (Art. ...
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An examination is made of the impact of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the institutional evolution of European Union sex equality policy, following the provision in the Treaty of Rome (Art. 119 EEC, now Art. 141) that men and women would receive equal pay for equal work – a provision aimed at protecting businesses from unfair competition. This same provision now bestows a positive right on individuals throughout the Member States, and is a judicially enforceable right that remains the backbone of an ever-expanding European social-justice policy. Over time, strategic action on the part of litigants and their lawyers and the ECJ’s judicial rule-making capacity has constructed a supranational space in which women can not only demand the right to equal pay but can also receive protection as pregnant workers. This dynamic process is the focus of the analysis presented, and involves an examination of three basic mechanisms of institutional evolution: the process by which self-interested private litigants and their lawyers are able to activate the European Union (EU) legal system through the Art. 177 (now Art. 234) procedure (which allows national individuals to invoke EU law before national courts); the ECJ’s authoritative interpretation of Art. 119 (focusing on how it became directly effective in national legal systems); and the feedback effects of this judicial rule-making in terms of how the litigation environment has been changed, and the EU and national-level policy consequence. In particular, the latter are traced through the development of EU pregnancy and maternity rights.Less
An examination is made of the impact of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the institutional evolution of European Union sex equality policy, following the provision in the Treaty of Rome (Art. 119 EEC, now Art. 141) that men and women would receive equal pay for equal work – a provision aimed at protecting businesses from unfair competition. This same provision now bestows a positive right on individuals throughout the Member States, and is a judicially enforceable right that remains the backbone of an ever-expanding European social-justice policy. Over time, strategic action on the part of litigants and their lawyers and the ECJ’s judicial rule-making capacity has constructed a supranational space in which women can not only demand the right to equal pay but can also receive protection as pregnant workers. This dynamic process is the focus of the analysis presented, and involves an examination of three basic mechanisms of institutional evolution: the process by which self-interested private litigants and their lawyers are able to activate the European Union (EU) legal system through the Art. 177 (now Art. 234) procedure (which allows national individuals to invoke EU law before national courts); the ECJ’s authoritative interpretation of Art. 119 (focusing on how it became directly effective in national legal systems); and the feedback effects of this judicial rule-making in terms of how the litigation environment has been changed, and the EU and national-level policy consequence. In particular, the latter are traced through the development of EU pregnancy and maternity rights.
Leah F. Vosko
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199574810
- eISBN:
- 9780191722080
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199574810.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Political Economy, HRM / IR
This chapter traces the prehistory of the SER at the national and international levels, demonstrating its gendered roots. Building on scholarship in women's history illustrating how early attempts to ...
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This chapter traces the prehistory of the SER at the national and international levels, demonstrating its gendered roots. Building on scholarship in women's history illustrating how early attempts to establish minimum conditions of work at the national level centred on ‘protecting women’, it traces the emergence of a parallel emphasis in international labour legislation. The selection of initial subjects for international labour legislation was framed by contestation between and amongst trade unionists, working‐class and liberal feminists, women social reformers, and philanthropists over whether to pursue ‘equal protection’ for men and women or protection for women exclusively. The earliest international labour regulations, devised initially by the International Association for Labour Legislation and developed subsequently by the ILO, nevertheless included sex‐specific regulations on maternity and night work. By cultivating a male breadwinner/female caregiver gender contract, such regulations helped lay the foundation for the SER as a normative model of male employment.Less
This chapter traces the prehistory of the SER at the national and international levels, demonstrating its gendered roots. Building on scholarship in women's history illustrating how early attempts to establish minimum conditions of work at the national level centred on ‘protecting women’, it traces the emergence of a parallel emphasis in international labour legislation. The selection of initial subjects for international labour legislation was framed by contestation between and amongst trade unionists, working‐class and liberal feminists, women social reformers, and philanthropists over whether to pursue ‘equal protection’ for men and women or protection for women exclusively. The earliest international labour regulations, devised initially by the International Association for Labour Legislation and developed subsequently by the ILO, nevertheless included sex‐specific regulations on maternity and night work. By cultivating a male breadwinner/female caregiver gender contract, such regulations helped lay the foundation for the SER as a normative model of male employment.
B. Diane Lipsett
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199754519
- eISBN:
- 9780199827213
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199754519.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The chapter offers a close analysis of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, tracing how desire, restraint, and narrative transformation intersect with depictions of virginity, maternity, and masculinity. ...
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The chapter offers a close analysis of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, tracing how desire, restraint, and narrative transformation intersect with depictions of virginity, maternity, and masculinity. Select comparisons are made to the Greek romances Daphnis and Chloe and Leucippe and Clitophon as well as to The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Andrew. In Thecla’s fast-paced tale with minimal interiority, desire destabilizes the protagonist and propels conversion: social reidentification, ritual act, changes in language, changes in the self. Self-restraint and resurrection (companion values in this narrative) are not the antidotes to Thecla’s desire, but its objects. The reading is also informed by selections from several literary interpreters, including Judith Butler and Julia Kristeva, as they draw from psychoanalytic views of desire’s displacements, movements and returns.Less
The chapter offers a close analysis of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, tracing how desire, restraint, and narrative transformation intersect with depictions of virginity, maternity, and masculinity. Select comparisons are made to the Greek romances Daphnis and Chloe and Leucippe and Clitophon as well as to The Acts of Peter and The Acts of Andrew. In Thecla’s fast-paced tale with minimal interiority, desire destabilizes the protagonist and propels conversion: social reidentification, ritual act, changes in language, changes in the self. Self-restraint and resurrection (companion values in this narrative) are not the antidotes to Thecla’s desire, but its objects. The reading is also informed by selections from several literary interpreters, including Judith Butler and Julia Kristeva, as they draw from psychoanalytic views of desire’s displacements, movements and returns.
Pat Willmer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691128610
- eISBN:
- 9781400838943
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691128610.003.0022
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
This chapter examines competition in the context of pollination ecology. Competition is typically treated from the perspective of the plants, but it is also likely to occur among and between the ...
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This chapter examines competition in the context of pollination ecology. Competition is typically treated from the perspective of the plants, but it is also likely to occur among and between the pollinators. Furthermore, competition can occur at various levels—as a structuring factor in communities, as a selective force on an individual plant’s phenology, morphology, or rewards, and at a genetic level structuring competition for pollens between males, and female choice between possible mates. The chapter first considers several types of of competition in pollination ecology, potential outcomes of competition, and competition between pollinators before discussing how selection reduces intraspecific competition among plants and competition among pollinators. It also explores paternity, maternity, and gene flow in coflowering communities, focusing in particular on male competition and female choice, along with gene flow via pollen dispersal and seed dispersal.Less
This chapter examines competition in the context of pollination ecology. Competition is typically treated from the perspective of the plants, but it is also likely to occur among and between the pollinators. Furthermore, competition can occur at various levels—as a structuring factor in communities, as a selective force on an individual plant’s phenology, morphology, or rewards, and at a genetic level structuring competition for pollens between males, and female choice between possible mates. The chapter first considers several types of of competition in pollination ecology, potential outcomes of competition, and competition between pollinators before discussing how selection reduces intraspecific competition among plants and competition among pollinators. It also explores paternity, maternity, and gene flow in coflowering communities, focusing in particular on male competition and female choice, along with gene flow via pollen dispersal and seed dispersal.
Julia Bush
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199248773
- eISBN:
- 9780191714689
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199248773.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Anti-suffrage women believed that their particular virtues and capacities would be needed more than ever during the First World War. Political campaigns were suspended, but an undercurrent of ...
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Anti-suffrage women believed that their particular virtues and capacities would be needed more than ever during the First World War. Political campaigns were suspended, but an undercurrent of suffrage debate flowed through the war relief efforts of suffragists and anti-suffragists alike. Anti-suffrage women were keen to demonstrate their superior patriotism, and to carry forward their gender beliefs into the new wartime debates over such issues as female employment, maternity, and childcare. In 1916, it became clear that franchise reform was inevitable, and supporters and opponents of votes for women resumed subdued levels of activism. The NLOWS was a much-weakened organization, but far from entirely quiescent as women's suffrage inexorably neared the statute book. Women continued to play a significant opposition role beyond Parliament, and were outraged by Lord Curzon's final capitulation. The NLOWS wake in April 1918 was a mainly female affair, emphasizing commitment to the future political education of women voters.Less
Anti-suffrage women believed that their particular virtues and capacities would be needed more than ever during the First World War. Political campaigns were suspended, but an undercurrent of suffrage debate flowed through the war relief efforts of suffragists and anti-suffragists alike. Anti-suffrage women were keen to demonstrate their superior patriotism, and to carry forward their gender beliefs into the new wartime debates over such issues as female employment, maternity, and childcare. In 1916, it became clear that franchise reform was inevitable, and supporters and opponents of votes for women resumed subdued levels of activism. The NLOWS was a much-weakened organization, but far from entirely quiescent as women's suffrage inexorably neared the statute book. Women continued to play a significant opposition role beyond Parliament, and were outraged by Lord Curzon's final capitulation. The NLOWS wake in April 1918 was a mainly female affair, emphasizing commitment to the future political education of women voters.
Judith N. McArthur and Harold L. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195304862
- eISBN:
- 9780199871537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195304862.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Having won the ballot, the former suffragists organized the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, through which women could continue to work as a pressure group for a female reform agenda. Minnie ...
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Having won the ballot, the former suffragists organized the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, through which women could continue to work as a pressure group for a female reform agenda. Minnie Fisher Cunningham helped found both the Texas and the national LWVs; from 1921-23 she served in Washington, D.C. as the national organization's first executive secretary, working closely with President Maud Wood Park. She helped the LWV, as part of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, lobby through Congress two signature achievements: the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act (1921) and the Cable Act (1922). Cunningham oversaw the planning for the LWV's Pan American Congress of Women in 1922, and she quietly and persistently worked to keep the LWV's Negro Problems Committee from dying of neglect. After becoming chair of the committee in 1924, she advocated that the LWV encourage and assist African-American women to vote.Less
Having won the ballot, the former suffragists organized the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, through which women could continue to work as a pressure group for a female reform agenda. Minnie Fisher Cunningham helped found both the Texas and the national LWVs; from 1921-23 she served in Washington, D.C. as the national organization's first executive secretary, working closely with President Maud Wood Park. She helped the LWV, as part of the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, lobby through Congress two signature achievements: the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act (1921) and the Cable Act (1922). Cunningham oversaw the planning for the LWV's Pan American Congress of Women in 1922, and she quietly and persistently worked to keep the LWV's Negro Problems Committee from dying of neglect. After becoming chair of the committee in 1924, she advocated that the LWV encourage and assist African-American women to vote.
Jane Spencer
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199262960
- eISBN:
- 9780191718731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262960.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter argues that while literary paternity has been understood in historical terms as set of relationships between real men, literary maternity has been imagined in mythical terms, its common ...
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This chapter argues that while literary paternity has been understood in historical terms as set of relationships between real men, literary maternity has been imagined in mythical terms, its common tropes being that of the male poet as metaphorical mother to his poems, and the poet as son to a maternal goddess. However, a few cases in the 18th and early 19th centuries of female writers who were in real life the mothers of writers began to alter cultural representations of literary maternity. The chapter examines both the negative picture of the mother-goddess presented by Pope in The Dunciad, and the more positive attitude of the later 1700s to poetic inheritance from mother Nature. Cases of mother-son and mother-daughter relationships between writers are examined, including those between Frances and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.Less
This chapter argues that while literary paternity has been understood in historical terms as set of relationships between real men, literary maternity has been imagined in mythical terms, its common tropes being that of the male poet as metaphorical mother to his poems, and the poet as son to a maternal goddess. However, a few cases in the 18th and early 19th centuries of female writers who were in real life the mothers of writers began to alter cultural representations of literary maternity. The chapter examines both the negative picture of the mother-goddess presented by Pope in The Dunciad, and the more positive attitude of the later 1700s to poetic inheritance from mother Nature. Cases of mother-son and mother-daughter relationships between writers are examined, including those between Frances and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.
Eileen Boris
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199731633
- eISBN:
- 9780199894420
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731633.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, World Early Modern History
The United States, nearly alone of industrial nations, lacks paid parental leave. But by considering U.S. efforts in light of the construction of International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on ...
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The United States, nearly alone of industrial nations, lacks paid parental leave. But by considering U.S. efforts in light of the construction of International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on the pregnant worker and in comparison with Latin American nations, major signatories to such conventions, it can be seen that in the immediate postwar years this situation was not as apparent. This chapter first considers international conventions on maternity leave before World War II and the transnational networks behind them. It then looks at the ideas of labor feminists in the United States and their role in revising the ILO maternity convention in the early 1950s as part of transnational debates over wage-earning women. Finally, the chapter examines homegrown, as opposed to international, precedents for government-sponsored maternity leave in the United States: Rhode Island's cash disability program, benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act, and a failed attempt to obtain coverage for civil service employees in Washington, D.C. Seen in the transnational perspective, social policy in the U.S. resembled the practice of nations far less industrialized. Despite better laws on their books, other countries in the Americas more closely resembled the U.S. in practice, reminding us how the politics of social reproduction illuminate large questions of power and authority.Less
The United States, nearly alone of industrial nations, lacks paid parental leave. But by considering U.S. efforts in light of the construction of International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on the pregnant worker and in comparison with Latin American nations, major signatories to such conventions, it can be seen that in the immediate postwar years this situation was not as apparent. This chapter first considers international conventions on maternity leave before World War II and the transnational networks behind them. It then looks at the ideas of labor feminists in the United States and their role in revising the ILO maternity convention in the early 1950s as part of transnational debates over wage-earning women. Finally, the chapter examines homegrown, as opposed to international, precedents for government-sponsored maternity leave in the United States: Rhode Island's cash disability program, benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act, and a failed attempt to obtain coverage for civil service employees in Washington, D.C. Seen in the transnational perspective, social policy in the U.S. resembled the practice of nations far less industrialized. Despite better laws on their books, other countries in the Americas more closely resembled the U.S. in practice, reminding us how the politics of social reproduction illuminate large questions of power and authority.
Neil Corcoran
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198186908
- eISBN:
- 9780191719011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186908.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter offers a reading of Bowen's novel, The House in Paris, as her major statement about maternity and orphanhood — subjects that preoccupied her all her life, having strong autobiographical ...
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This chapter offers a reading of Bowen's novel, The House in Paris, as her major statement about maternity and orphanhood — subjects that preoccupied her all her life, having strong autobiographical roots. It understands the novel as self-consciously both aligning itself with, and divorcing itself from, the work of Henry James and the 19th-century novel of adultery (Flaubert, Tolstoy), placing unique emphasis on the figure of the child. It interprets the novel's arrestingly unique structure as both a response to Modernist forms and a necessity of the subject matter. It also explores the novel's fairy tale elements and considers its view of its Jewish characters in the light of the rise of European fascism in the 1930s.Less
This chapter offers a reading of Bowen's novel, The House in Paris, as her major statement about maternity and orphanhood — subjects that preoccupied her all her life, having strong autobiographical roots. It understands the novel as self-consciously both aligning itself with, and divorcing itself from, the work of Henry James and the 19th-century novel of adultery (Flaubert, Tolstoy), placing unique emphasis on the figure of the child. It interprets the novel's arrestingly unique structure as both a response to Modernist forms and a necessity of the subject matter. It also explores the novel's fairy tale elements and considers its view of its Jewish characters in the light of the rise of European fascism in the 1930s.
Veronica Makowsky
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195078664
- eISBN:
- 9780199855117
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195078664.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
Susan Glaspell is well known for the widely anthologized Trifles (1916), and many critics treat the plays as her greatest works because they are an exciting and innovative contribution to American ...
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Susan Glaspell is well known for the widely anthologized Trifles (1916), and many critics treat the plays as her greatest works because they are an exciting and innovative contribution to American drama. In terms of her fiction, the plays are not a startling flowering or reversal, but can be seen as the thematic and symbolic bridge between Glaspell’s early and late novels. In keeping with this thematic continuum, this chapter discusses the plays that emphasize women, and especially the maternity theme. In these plays, motherhood becomes less connected with sweetness and light, and increasingly related to entrapment and oppression. In contrast to the self-sacrificial struggles of Ernestine Hubers in The Glory of the Conquered (1909) or the long self-immolation of Ruth Holland in Fidelity, Glaspell produces dramatic heroines who begin to realize that in living for others they are destroying themselves.Less
Susan Glaspell is well known for the widely anthologized Trifles (1916), and many critics treat the plays as her greatest works because they are an exciting and innovative contribution to American drama. In terms of her fiction, the plays are not a startling flowering or reversal, but can be seen as the thematic and symbolic bridge between Glaspell’s early and late novels. In keeping with this thematic continuum, this chapter discusses the plays that emphasize women, and especially the maternity theme. In these plays, motherhood becomes less connected with sweetness and light, and increasingly related to entrapment and oppression. In contrast to the self-sacrificial struggles of Ernestine Hubers in The Glory of the Conquered (1909) or the long self-immolation of Ruth Holland in Fidelity, Glaspell produces dramatic heroines who begin to realize that in living for others they are destroying themselves.
Jenny M. Luke
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496818911
- eISBN:
- 9781496818959
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496818911.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Health, Illness, and Medicine
Delivering babies was merely one aspect of the broad role of African American midwives in the twentieth-century South. Yet little has been written about the type of care they provided, or how ...
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Delivering babies was merely one aspect of the broad role of African American midwives in the twentieth-century South. Yet little has been written about the type of care they provided, or how midwifery and maternity care evolved under the increasing presence of local and federal health care structures. Using evidence from nursing, medical, and public health journals of the era; primary sources from state and county departments of health; and personal accounts from varied practitioners, Delivered by Midwives: African American Midwifery in the Twentieth-Century South provides a new perspective on the childbirth experience of African American women and their maternity care providers during the twentieth century. Moving beyond the usual racial dichotomy, the monograph exposes a more complex shift in childbirth culture to reveal the changing expectations and agency of African American women in their rejection of a two-tier maternity care system, and their demands to be part of an inclusive, desegregated society. This book identifies valuable aspects of a maternity care model that were discarded in the name of progress. Today concern about maternal mortality and persistent racial disparities have forced a reassessment of maternity care and elements of the long-abandoned care model are being reincorporated into modern practice, answering current health care dilemmas by heeding lessons from the past.Less
Delivering babies was merely one aspect of the broad role of African American midwives in the twentieth-century South. Yet little has been written about the type of care they provided, or how midwifery and maternity care evolved under the increasing presence of local and federal health care structures. Using evidence from nursing, medical, and public health journals of the era; primary sources from state and county departments of health; and personal accounts from varied practitioners, Delivered by Midwives: African American Midwifery in the Twentieth-Century South provides a new perspective on the childbirth experience of African American women and their maternity care providers during the twentieth century. Moving beyond the usual racial dichotomy, the monograph exposes a more complex shift in childbirth culture to reveal the changing expectations and agency of African American women in their rejection of a two-tier maternity care system, and their demands to be part of an inclusive, desegregated society. This book identifies valuable aspects of a maternity care model that were discarded in the name of progress. Today concern about maternal mortality and persistent racial disparities have forced a reassessment of maternity care and elements of the long-abandoned care model are being reincorporated into modern practice, answering current health care dilemmas by heeding lessons from the past.
Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198201243
- eISBN:
- 9780191674846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201243.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Social History
This chapter deals with women's conceptions of adult life. They usually conceptualised female maturity in terms of being married, with a household to run, possibly with children to rear and servants ...
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This chapter deals with women's conceptions of adult life. They usually conceptualised female maturity in terms of being married, with a household to run, possibly with children to rear and servants to oversee. Gender mattered most during women's reproductive years. Physical maturity brought shared physiological experiences to women, although their bodily experiences varied with their levels of nutrition, age at marriage, and social customs relating to sexuality and lactation. In later years, differences of sex mattered less than earlier, especially for a small proportion who were widows. There were no new ways for women to control their fertility and to alter the significance of sexuality in the patterns of their lives. Throughout the early modern period, mothers reared their daughters in conventional ways to enable them to function in a patriarchal society.Less
This chapter deals with women's conceptions of adult life. They usually conceptualised female maturity in terms of being married, with a household to run, possibly with children to rear and servants to oversee. Gender mattered most during women's reproductive years. Physical maturity brought shared physiological experiences to women, although their bodily experiences varied with their levels of nutrition, age at marriage, and social customs relating to sexuality and lactation. In later years, differences of sex mattered less than earlier, especially for a small proportion who were widows. There were no new ways for women to control their fertility and to alter the significance of sexuality in the patterns of their lives. Throughout the early modern period, mothers reared their daughters in conventional ways to enable them to function in a patriarchal society.
Irvine Loudon
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198229971
- eISBN:
- 9780191678950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229971.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines maternal care and maternal mortality in Great Britain during the period from 1935 to 1950. During this period, the maternal mortality rate fell so steeply that the 1950 rate was ...
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This chapter examines maternal care and maternal mortality in Great Britain during the period from 1935 to 1950. During this period, the maternal mortality rate fell so steeply that the 1950 rate was only a fifth of the rate in 1935. The majority of women gave birth in hospital, and the mortality rate from all causes including abortion and puerperal fever fell significantly because of the development of sulphonamides. However, there are still criticisms that maternity services had become too technological and impersonal and dominated by male obstetricians prone to resort too readily to induction, instrumental delivery, or Caesarean section.Less
This chapter examines maternal care and maternal mortality in Great Britain during the period from 1935 to 1950. During this period, the maternal mortality rate fell so steeply that the 1950 rate was only a fifth of the rate in 1935. The majority of women gave birth in hospital, and the mortality rate from all causes including abortion and puerperal fever fell significantly because of the development of sulphonamides. However, there are still criticisms that maternity services had become too technological and impersonal and dominated by male obstetricians prone to resort too readily to induction, instrumental delivery, or Caesarean section.
Irvine Loudon
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198229971
- eISBN:
- 9780191678950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229971.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter discusses the problems of American general practitioners who were providing home maternity services during the late 19th century to early 20th century. In the 1920s, specialist ...
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This chapter discusses the problems of American general practitioners who were providing home maternity services during the late 19th century to early 20th century. In the 1920s, specialist obstetricians began criticising general practitioners with the purpose of obtaining the monopoly on obstetric care. Like their British counterparts, the American general practitioners were being blamed for the high maternal mortality rate. But unlike the British situation, hospital delivery in the US had reached 70 percent by 1930 and it had become uncommon for an urban, native-born American mother from the middle or affluent classes to be delivered at home by a midwife or a general practitioner.Less
This chapter discusses the problems of American general practitioners who were providing home maternity services during the late 19th century to early 20th century. In the 1920s, specialist obstetricians began criticising general practitioners with the purpose of obtaining the monopoly on obstetric care. Like their British counterparts, the American general practitioners were being blamed for the high maternal mortality rate. But unlike the British situation, hospital delivery in the US had reached 70 percent by 1930 and it had become uncommon for an urban, native-born American mother from the middle or affluent classes to be delivered at home by a midwife or a general practitioner.
Irvine Loudon
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198229971
- eISBN:
- 9780191678950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229971.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines the condition of lying-in hospitals in the US during the period from 1850 to 1910. Lying-in hospitals had very high maternal mortality rates, but for humanitarian or ...
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This chapter examines the condition of lying-in hospitals in the US during the period from 1850 to 1910. Lying-in hospitals had very high maternal mortality rates, but for humanitarian or self-serving reasons they were supported by the medical profession and civic authorities. In addition to this, some lying-in hospitals employed the so-called ‘waiting women’. They are mostly homeless women who spent their pregnancy working as cleaners in lying-in hospitals in exchange for maternity services.Less
This chapter examines the condition of lying-in hospitals in the US during the period from 1850 to 1910. Lying-in hospitals had very high maternal mortality rates, but for humanitarian or self-serving reasons they were supported by the medical profession and civic authorities. In addition to this, some lying-in hospitals employed the so-called ‘waiting women’. They are mostly homeless women who spent their pregnancy working as cleaners in lying-in hospitals in exchange for maternity services.
Irvine Loudon
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198229971
- eISBN:
- 9780191678950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229971.003.0025
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter describes midwives in Europe. It argues that certain European countries were safer than the US and Great Britain in terms of childbirth not only because of the quality of obstetric ...
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This chapter describes midwives in Europe. It argues that certain European countries were safer than the US and Great Britain in terms of childbirth not only because of the quality of obstetric service and lying-in hospitals, but largely because their system of maternal care placed great importance on home deliveries by trained midwives. It explains that midwives in France, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark were better trained and more qualified in providing maternal care and services than those in the US and Britain.Less
This chapter describes midwives in Europe. It argues that certain European countries were safer than the US and Great Britain in terms of childbirth not only because of the quality of obstetric service and lying-in hospitals, but largely because their system of maternal care placed great importance on home deliveries by trained midwives. It explains that midwives in France, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark were better trained and more qualified in providing maternal care and services than those in the US and Britain.
Irvine Loudon
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198229971
- eISBN:
- 9780191678950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229971.003.0026
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter examines the lying-in or maternity hospitals and the obstetricians in Europe. Though there was more childbirth in lying-in hospitals in Europe compared to Great Britain and the U.S., ...
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This chapter examines the lying-in or maternity hospitals and the obstetricians in Europe. Though there was more childbirth in lying-in hospitals in Europe compared to Great Britain and the U.S., European countries also experienced high maternal mortality rates caused by puerperal fever. Most of the cases were in hospital delivery. The chance of a woman contracting puerperal fever was around seven times higher if she was delivered in a maternity hospital in the mid-19th century than it would have been if she had been delivered at home.Less
This chapter examines the lying-in or maternity hospitals and the obstetricians in Europe. Though there was more childbirth in lying-in hospitals in Europe compared to Great Britain and the U.S., European countries also experienced high maternal mortality rates caused by puerperal fever. Most of the cases were in hospital delivery. The chance of a woman contracting puerperal fever was around seven times higher if she was delivered in a maternity hospital in the mid-19th century than it would have been if she had been delivered at home.
Raymond De Vries, Therese A. Wiegers, Beatrijs Smulders, and Edwin Van Teijlingen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520248632
- eISBN:
- 9780520943339
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520248632.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
The singularity of the Dutch maternity care system has made it a model for all those who seek to slow or reverse the march toward the medicalization of birth found in the developed world. This ...
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The singularity of the Dutch maternity care system has made it a model for all those who seek to slow or reverse the march toward the medicalization of birth found in the developed world. This chapter offers a description of the Dutch way of birth that includes stories and statistics which paint a picture of the players and outcomes of the system. It accounts for the history of midwifery and its place in the organization of medical care, explaining the ways obstetrics in the Netherlands expresses the culture of that country. The study provides a statistical picture of the Dutch way of birth, interspersed with stories of births that reveal what birth in the Netherlands feels like and how it is valued. Most explanations of the persistence of home birth and independent midwifery in the Netherlands look to the structure of maternity care and health care.Less
The singularity of the Dutch maternity care system has made it a model for all those who seek to slow or reverse the march toward the medicalization of birth found in the developed world. This chapter offers a description of the Dutch way of birth that includes stories and statistics which paint a picture of the players and outcomes of the system. It accounts for the history of midwifery and its place in the organization of medical care, explaining the ways obstetrics in the Netherlands expresses the culture of that country. The study provides a statistical picture of the Dutch way of birth, interspersed with stories of births that reveal what birth in the Netherlands feels like and how it is valued. Most explanations of the persistence of home birth and independent midwifery in the Netherlands look to the structure of maternity care and health care.
