The much heralded "completion" of the human genome project in the year 2000 raises urgent questions: Do we now have a map of who we are? How will we control the uses of the potentially healing but also likely destructive and highly marketable information genetics brings us? Using her own life as well as her research, Barbara Katz Rothman presents an impassioned defense for the theory that humans are not "ready made from the factory", as one recent popular book on genetics put it, but social beings who grow, mature, and learn who they are.
What a wonderful mix of scholarship and feeling! With insight and sympathy, Barbara Katz Rothman shows us how the new techniques for diagnosing fetal health problems confront pregnant women with new burdens and responsibilities. Anyone who thinks that prenatal diagnosis is liberating for women needs to read this book." -Ruth Hubbard, professor of biology, Harvard University
Weaving together the sociological, the historical, and the personal, Barbara Katz Rothman looks at the contemporary American family through the lens of race, race through the lens of adoption, and all-race, family, and adoption-within the context of the changing meanings of motherhood.
Presents a woman-centered, class-sensitive way of understanding motherhood and the family in the face of scientific advances in genetics and fertility technology. Claims that the real needs of people in families have been swept aside in an attempt to reduce the complex process of human reproduction to a clinical event controlled by medical technology. Suggests ways to accomplish social and legal changes that would allow technological advances and evolving gender roles to affirm the mother-child relationship without cost to women's identities. This edition contains a new chapter on how advances in reproductive technology and genetics combine with new marketing to pose troubling social questions. Originally published in 1989 by W. W. Norton and Company. The author teaches sociology at the City University of New York. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
We are all citizens of the Biomedical Empire, though few of us know it, and even fewer understand the extent of its power. In this book, Barbara Katz Rothman clarifies that critiques of biopower and the "medical industrial complex" have not gone far enough, and asserts that the medical industry is nothing short of an imperial power. Factors as fundamental as one's citizenship and sex identity—drivers of our access to basic goods and services—rely on approval and legitimation by biomedicine. Moreover, a vast and powerful global market has risen up around the empire, making it one of the largest economic forces in the world. Katz Rothman shows that biomedicine has the key elements of an imperial power: economic leverage, the faith of its citizens, and governmental rule. She investigates the Western colonial underpinnings of the empire and its rapid intrusion into everyday life, focusing on the realms of birth and death. This provides her with a powerful vantage point from which to critically examine the current moment, when the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the power structures of the empire in unprecedented ways while sparking the most visible resistance it has ever seen.
Looks to 19th-century women's magazines and to confession magazines to explore the antecedents of modern writings on maternal grief and the information they convey about women from each time period. This book analyzes popular consolation literature as it changed over two centuries.
Pregnancy and Birth: A Reference Handbook provides students with information too often ignored in sex education—on what pregnancy and birth are, have been, and can be as transformative personal and social events. Pregnancy and Birth: A Reference Handbook is a person-centered reference book on pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. The medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth is a theme; however, primary emphasis is on the historical and contemporary significance of the Midwifery Model of Care and how that can improve outcomes for all. The volume opens with a background and history of the topic, followed by a chapter on related problems, controversies, and solutions. A Perspectives chapter contains essays from a variety of individuals who are invested in the topic of pregnancy and birth. The remaining chapters provide students with additional information, such as profiles, data and documents, resources, a chronology, and a glossary. This book is accessible to high school and college-level researchers, as well as general-interest readers curious about the topic.
There are people dedicated to improving the way we eat, and people dedicated to improving the way we give birth. This title compares these two social movements and brings insight into the relationship between our most intimate, personal experiences, the industries that control them, and the social movements that resist the industrialisation of life and seek to birth change.
An expert in the field of social and biological ethics offers an analysis of the impact of scientists' ever-increasing knowledge of the genetic basis of life on family, society, and mortality.
How do couples get beyond the reactivity and blaming that destroy self-esteem and good will? How can couples sort out the multiple layers and complexities in their relationships? Is it possible to move from impasse to dialogue? Here, in one brief volume, are the answers to these questions and many others. Doing Couple Therapy will be a lifesaver for family therapy students and beginning therapists. In a straightforward manner, the authors sift through years of family therapy theory to draw out for readers a a treasury of ways to sort out the many factors, past and present, that crowd couples' relationships. These include family-of-origin issues, previous relationships, secrets, children, in-laws, unresolves lodes, job demands, financial worries—to name just a few. The authors' framework, built from the major influential theories of family and marital therapy, will enable therapists to work effectively and briefly, though not superficially, with couples. The book not only presents theory but also links theory with practice. An extraordinary contribution is the presentation of a typical case from beginning to end, through tender moments, rough spots, family-of-origin work, revelation of deeply held secrets, alcohol abuse, ultimatums, and finally, renewal of commitment to the relationship. This practical, real-life guide to couple therapy will give both students and seasoned therapists a new take on the demanding work of couple therapy.
Facing the polar forces of an epidemic of Cesarean sections and epidurals and home-like labor rooms, American birth is in transition. Caught between the most extreme medicalization — best seen in a Cesarean section rate of nearly 30 percent — and a rhetoric of women’s "choices" and "the natural," women and their midwives, doulas, obstetricians, and nurses labor on. Laboring On offers the voices of all of these practitioners, all women trying to help women, as they struggle with this increasingly split vision of birth. Updating Barbara Katz Rothman's now-classic In Labor, the first feminist sociological analysis of birth in the United States, Laboring On gives a comprehensive picture of the ever-changing American birth practices and often conflicting visions of birth practitioners. The authors deftly weave compelling accounts of birth work, by midwives, doulas, obstetricians, and nurses, into the larger sociohistorical context of health care practices and activism and offer provocative arguments about the current state of affairs and the future of birth in America.
An interdisciplinary investigation of the co-creation of gender and technology Each of the ten chapters in Women, Gender, and Technology explores a different aspect of how gender and technology work--and are at work--in particular domains, including film narratives, reproductive technologies, information technology, and the profession of engineering. The volume's contributors include representatives of over half a dozen different disciplines, and each provides a novel perspective on the foundational idea that gender and technology co-create one another. Together, their articles provide a window on to the rich and complex issues that arise in the attempt to understand the relationship between these profoundly intertwined notions.
In Replacement Parts, internationally recognized bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan and coeditors James J. McCartney and Daniel P. Reid assemble seminal writings from medicine, philosophy, economics, and religion that address the ethical challenges raised by organ transplantation. Caplan's new lead essay explains the shortfalls of present policies. From there, book sections take an interdisciplinary approach to fundamental issues like the determination of death and the dead donor rule; the divisive case of using anencephalic infants as organ donors; the sale of cadaveric or live organs; possible strategies for increasing the number of available organs, including market solutions and the idea of presumed consent; and questions surrounding transplant tourism and "gaming the system" by using the media to gain access to organs. Timely and balanced, Replacement Parts is a first-of-its-kind collection aimed at surgeons, physicians, nurses, and other professionals involved in this essential lifesaving activity that is often fraught with ethical controversy.
This book traces the history of formative, enduring concepts, foundational in the development of the health disciplines. It explores existing literature, and subsequent contested applications. Feminist legacies are discussed with a clear message that early sociological and anthropological theories and debates remain valuable to scholars today. Chapters cover historical events and cultural practices from the standpoint of ‘difference’; formulate theories about the emergence of social issues and problems and discuss health and illness in light of cultural values and practices, social conditions, embodiment and emotions. This collection will be of great value to scholars of biomedicine, health and gender.
The neurosciences are more than a collection of scientific practices - they offer up various ways of thinking about mind, body and society. This title casts light on the place, role and impact of neuroscience. It reflects on the insights the neurosciences have to offer sociology.
The crowded bed is a metaphor for the ghosts each partner brings to a relationship. This guide synthesizes the principles of couple and family therapy, empowering the reader to help couples achieve the intimacy they long for. Included is a case study and guidelines for working with various populations. While written primarily for students, this book is aimed also at others who are experiencing the strain of a crowded bed.
Facing the polar forces of an epidemic of Cesarean sections and epidurals and home-like labor rooms, American birth is in transition. Caught between the most extreme medicalization -- best seen in a Cesarean section rate of nearly 30 percent -- and a rhetoric of women's "choices" and "the natural," women and their midwives, doulas, obstetricians, and nurses labor on. Laboring On offers the voices of all of these practitioners, all women trying to help women, as they struggle with this increasingly split vision of birth. Updating Barbara Katz Rothman's now-classic In Labor, the first feminist sociological analysis of birth in the United States, Laboring On gives a comprehensive picture of the ever-changing American birth practices and often conflicting visions of birth practitioners. The authors deftly weave compelling accounts of birth work, by midwives, doulas, obstetricians, and nurses, into the larger sociohistorical context of health care practices and activism and offer provocative arguments about the current state of affairs and the future of birth in America.
Deals with the topic of health inequalities and health disparities. This volume includes an introductory look at the issue of health care inequalities and disparities, racial and ethnic inequalities and disparities, issues related to substance abuse, and mental health and related concerns. It also looks at issues of vulnerable women.
These writings have evolved properly over living many years on the planet and enjoying observations of my fellow man. It's about learning how to flow within the rhythm of all “LIFE FORMS” and laughing about silly things incredulous human beings do. It’s about loving the human race, and living everywhere on the planet at one time; it’s about you! Note: There is no intention on my part to be cogent as these writings have come about from a knowing heart! Upon using the words man and he, I am referring to the Homo Sapien species which include both male/female gender as we know it at the time of these writings.
Auteurism expanded With acclaimed films like Sink or Swim and The Odds of Recovery, Su Friedrich’s body of work stands at the forefront of avant-garde and Queer cinema. Barbara Mennel examines the career of an experimental auteur whose merger of technical innovation and political critique connects with both cinephiles and activists. Friedrich’s integration of cinematic experimentation with lesbian advocacy serves as a beginning rather than an end point of analysis. With that in mind, Mennel provides an essential overview of the filmmaker’s oeuvre while highlighting the defining characteristics of her artistic and political signature. She also situates Friedrich within the cultural, political, and historical contexts that both shape the films and are shaped by them. Finally, Mennel expands our notion of auteurism to include directors who engage in collaborative and creative processes rooted in communities.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.