What to Read for Women’s History Month
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing a collection of books that have a special focus on the issues and history surrounding women’s health. These titles explore women’s health through the lens of science, history, sociology, and gender studies. At a time when women’s health issues are making headlines, we hope to help readers stay informed and knowledgeable about this complex topic.
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Looking through the Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement
By Judith A. Houck
“At a moment when reproductive and bodily autonomy are under threat more than ever, Houck tells a timely story of women’s health movement activists who demystified and transformed reproductive medicine to establish liberatory health practices and institutions. Houck’s protagonists also grappled with intersectional marginalization, leading many to demand healthcare that embraced the particular needs and demands of lesbians, trans people, and women of color.”—Jennifer Nelson, University of Redlands
Sexualizing Cancer: HPV and the Politics of Cancer Prevention
By Laura Mamo
“An engaging, informative, and exceptionally erudite effort to explicate and analyze the complex, decades-long intertwining of HPV, cancer, gender, and sexuality. Sexualizing Cancer will be a welcome resource for scholars, clinicians, and policymakers.”—Laura M. Carpenter, Vanderbilt University
Birth Figures: Early Modern Prints and the Pregnant Body
By Rebecca Whiteley
“Whiteley’s work, at the intersection of medical and art history, beautifully illuminates the multiple meanings of images of unborn children in early modern Europe. She offers fresh, sophisticated, and nuanced interpretations of images that have puzzled me for years!”—Mary E. Fissell, Johns Hopkins University
Dr. Nurse: Science, Politics, and the Transformation of American Nursing
By Dominique A. Tobbell
“No other volume comes close to Dr. Nurse in describing and analyzing the journey of American nurses to establish nursing as an academic discipline and nurses as valued researchers in the decades after World War II. Tobbell’s book is a critical addition to the current scholarship and will be welcomed by nursing PhD programs and by students and scholars of women’s studies and education and policy history.”—Julie A. Fairman, University of Pennsylvania
The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects
By Sarah S. Richardson Publication
Supported by the Susan Elizabeth Abrams Fund in History of Science
“An outstanding depiction of the mutual constitution of science and society. Cleverly unpacking the complex history of scientific debates on so-called ‘maternal impressions’ (later, ‘maternal effects’) on offspring and future generations, author Sarah Richardson unveils the epistemological origins of concepts we take for granted today. . . . The book is an epistemological provocation, a reminder that science is a political enterprise, and an invitation to produce knowledge that empowers women instead of knowledge that makes them solely responsible for our collective future.”—Science
Tangled Diagnoses: Prenatal Testing, Women, and Risk
By Ilana Löwy
“Löwy gives us a masterful analysis that will be troubling to some, eye-opening to others, and thoroughly useful to all who read it. Tangled Diagnoses will interest not only historians, sociologists, and anthropologists of medicine and reproductive technology, but also advocates and policy-interested constituencies in the fields of disability, public health, and gender studies.”-“Löwy gives us a masterful analysis that will be troubling to some, eye-opening to others, and thoroughly useful to all who read it. Tangled Diagnoses will interest not only historians, sociologists, and anthropologists of medicine and reproductive technology, but also advocates and policy-interested constituencies in the fields of disability, public health, and gender studies.”—Rayna Rapp, New York University
Reconfiguring Reproduction: Feminist Health Perspectives on Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Edited by Sarojini N. and Vrinda Marwah
Examines the Assisted Reproductive Technology industry by bringing a feminist health lens to bear on the experiences of women in countries such as Korea, Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, India, and others.
By Steven Epstein Publication
“An erudite, groundbreaking book.”-Choice
Back to the Breast: Natural Motherhood and Breastfeeding in America
By Jessica Martucci
“Back to the Breast is a fascinating, skillful weaving of the histories of technology and medicine, women’s lived experiences, and feminist analysis. . . . Martucci’s study reminds us that even the most basic biological functions are not immune to the effects of culture and society. This book will be of interest to historians of technology and medicine, as well as women’s studies scholars and those interested in social and cultural movements that have shaped our century.”-Technology and Culture