Birth as an American Rite of Passage (Volume 35) (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care) - Hardcover

Davis-Floyd, Robbie E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520074394 ISBN 13: 9780520074392

Publisher: University of California Press, 1992

Synopsis

Why do so many American women allow themselves to become enmeshed in the standardized routines of technocratic childbirth―routines that can be insensitive, unnecessary, and even unhealthy? And why, in spite of the natural childbirth movement, has hospital birth become even more intensely technologized? Robbie Davis-Floyd argues that these obstetrical procedures are rituals that reflect a cultural belief in the superiority of science over nature. Her interviews with 100 mothers and many health care professionals reveal in detail both the trauma and the satisfaction women derive from childbirth. She also calls for greater cultural and medical tolerance of the alternative beliefs of women who choose to birth at home.

About this title

About the Author

Robbie E. Davis-Floyd is a cultural anthropologist specializing in medical and symbolic anthropology and gender studies. She teaches at the University of Texas.

From the Back Cover

"A magnificent contribution to our understanding of birthing in this country."―Emily Martin, author of The Woman in the Body

From the Inside Flap

"A magnificent contribution to our understanding of birthing in this country."—Emily Martin, author of The Woman in the Body

Reviews

Davis-Floyd has written a brilliant feminist analysis of childbirth rites of passage in American culture. These rites, she argues, take away women's power over their bodies, naturally designed to bring life into the world, and for no physiological reason give it to the medical system. She believes that society, intimidated by women's ability to give birth, has designed obstetrical rituals that are far more complex than natural childbirth itself in order to deliver what is from nature into culture. "In this way," she writes, "society symbolically demonstrates ownership of its product." This beautiful book, full of insightful interviews with women on a range of birth experiences and with an extensive bibliography, is a wonderful addition to the growing literature on the anthropology of the body and the theoretical debates over mind/body and nature/culture dichotomies. Essential for all anthropology and women's studies collections and medical school libraries and highly recommended for public libraries.
- Patricia Sarles, Mt. Sinai Medical Ctr. Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520074394
• ISBN 13: 9780520074392
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 382