Never let it be said I can keep my mouth shut about my politics

[walkitout]

Check out the cover on this standard text on obstetrics. One positive review, from a midwife. I am not commenting on the contents of this book, which may well be excellent (dunno -- I haven't looked at it myself). I am talking _only_ about the cover design.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0838576656/

(1) Why is it human? Men don't give birth. Before you say, well, they had to distinguish the species, think hard about what _that_ says.

(2) Notice that while there is a baby on the cover, there is no mother. Whoa. They _erased_ mom from the picture entirely. Spooky.

(3) While mom has been erased, the time lapsed drawing/diagram tells you exactly what position she is giving birth in. Take a good look -- it's almost certainly semi-sitting. (Either that, or lithotomy.)

Title does get points for saying labor and birth, not labor and delivery, hence it does actually describe work done by mom, rather than focussing primarily on the birth attendants activities (which would be delivery).

Yikes.

I think I'm going to get Robbie Davis-Floyd's book. She may be crazy, but it is increasingly difficult for me to think she's wrong.

Comments

Can't remember if I've told you about this before

[(Anonymous)]

I once looked all the way through an obstetrics book (either Williams Obstetrics or some other that is nearly as famous -- they were shelved next to each other at the library) and did not find a SINGLE picture of a woman's face EXCEPT, get this, an eighteenth-century caricature of a drunken midwife! Lots of vulvas and what not, but not one face. I mean, come ON, they could have put ONE SINGLE FLIPPIN' PICTURE of a mother holding a baby in there SOMEWHERE ... cover, title page ... something!
Helen Schinske

Oh, and I bet you've heard about the index entry

[(Anonymous)]

in the 16th edition of Williams Obstetrics, 1980: "Chauvinism, male, voluminous amounts 1-1102".

Helen