Women Writing Childbirth: Modern Discourses of MotherhoodIn this work, the author's detailed readings of birth stories - both literary and medical - reveal deeply embedded assumptions about how women are viewed and view ourselves. The current debates about natural childbirth as advocated by Sheila Kitzinger, Grantly Read Dick and others, are examined alongside key literary works by writers such as Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon and Toni Morrison. |
Contents
Introduction page | 1 |
Natural childbirth and the primitive woman | 9 |
Institutions machines and male medicine | 47 |
mothers and others other mothers | 77 |
two in one one becomes two | 117 |
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Common terms and phrases
accounts Adah attitude Atwood baby baby's Bagnold Baines Beloved Birth Machine Birth Rites birth-story birthing woman body Bourne Bowder Byatt Caesarean child contrast cultural described Dick Read discourse doctor Doris Lessing Drabble Elizabeth Baines Emecheta epidural Experience of Childbirth Fay Weldon feel female feminist foetus giving birth heroine home birth husband identity imagery implied induction inside Janice Jeanie Kitzinger 1987 Kitzinger's labour Lamaze language Lessing's Liffey Liffey's male obstetrician Margaret Atwood Martha maternal medical institution medical terminology midwife Millstone Morrison mother motherhood natural childbirth movement novel nurse Oakley Oakley's old wives pain painless patients peasant crone placenta praevia poem pregnant presented primitive woman Proper Marriage Puffball Read's role Rosamund Rothman scene seen sense Sethe Sethe's Sheila Kitzinger social solidarity squire Stephanie Stephanie's story telling told Vera Brittain ward Weldon women writers Xenia Zelda