Witches, Midwives and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich

Ehrenreich and English argue that the witch hunts of the early modern era were, in part, a deliberate attempt to target the women healers who embodied a localized form of female authority. Nevertheless, authorities across Europe began to suppress women healers. Many of these remedies were herbal and psychological, and Ehrenreich and English argue that in many cases the remedies of “wise women” would have been more effective than those of early doctors, whose reliance on erroneous Ancient Greek science lead them to prescribe treatments which were often damaging and even fatal. Ehrenreich and English argue that in early-modern Europe, every community had a few women who knew traditional remedies, most of them passed down orally, and specific to the region. The first section of the pamphlet examines the role of women healers in the early modern era. The authors argue that the answer lies in a deliberate and aggressive takeover, in which working-class female healers were displaced by bourgeois male doctors. It asserts that women have always been healers and asks how it is that women have come to be marginalized in the modern healthcare industry. The 1973 introduction outlines the argument to come. The American healthcare system is still male-dominated and driven by an exploitative capitalist rationale. Sadly, the bulk of their polemical argument remains relevant.

However, Ehrenreich and English argue that these updates are cosmetic. Good scholarship about women’s healing practices was hard to find, and as a result, some of the information given in the 1973 edition now needs updating in the light of subsequent research.

The 2010 introduction outlines the context in which the pamphlet was written, pointing out that in the 1970s, feminist history had yet to become a legitimate academic field.

It was republished in 2010 with a new introduction by the authors. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, regarded as a seminal text of second wave feminism, established the public profiles of Ehrenreich and English. It argues that medical practice was the preserve of women healers until the Enlightenment era saw a hostile takeover by male professionals whose methods were-at least initially-less successful than those of the women they displaced.

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (1973) is a feminist polemical pamphlet by American writers Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English.

Witches, Midwives and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich