Witches, midwives, and nurses

What Hacker News says

1. rexpopMar 2022
   If you liked Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed,"[0] you might like a few of her unrelated books as well. I highly recommend her "Dancing in the Streets,"[1] a 5,000 year history of the deadening of European culture (at Europeans' own hands, no less) that pairs nicely with Graeber's "Debt: The First 5,000"[2], a book of similar pacing, as well as a much shorter book on the gendered professionalization/demolition of the medical practice in the medieval era titled "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses" or "W.M.N."[3]

   Her "Bait and Switch,"[4] however, about the white-collar unemployment industry I found dull and unenlightening.

   0. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1869.Nickel_and_Dimed

   1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24452.Dancing_in_the_Str...

   2. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt

   3. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24453.Witches_Midwives_a...

   4. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24450.Bait_and_Switch

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2. rexpopApr 2019
   Thank you for this gracious response. I recognize that the term's colloquial use is far broader than I implied. Frankly, I think it's a gross mischaracterization of events, and erases real history to use it that way.

   As for the "systemic" nature of historic witch-hunts, fruitful research efforts would uncover "Malleus Maleficarum", the textbook for engaging in witch-hunting. I believe the continent-wide application of a uniform methodology—especially when funded by the preeminent institutional authority—qualifies as systematic.

   Sections of "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses" by Dierdre English and Barbara Ehrenreich explain its historical use. Their research reveals with-hunts to have been a far cry from "murdering anybody you don't like."

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3. rexpopJan 2019
   From reading books like "Yes Means Yes!", "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses", or "The Will to Change".

   From observing mainstream and right-wing media's treatment of sexual predators—especially the narrative of concern for their reputations, academic careers, etc.

   From sitting in on violent men's groups, and realizing that the roots of their violence are common to all supposedly "non-violent" men. It's plain to see that the man who throws his cousin down a staircase, or kicks open his girlfriend's door to make demands of her does so for the same reasons that old men shout at waitresses, call female politicians "whore, "bitch", and "cow", roofie drinks, wear uniforms, hire secretaries, don't hire women engineers, and generally do the complex and pervasive work to substantiate sexist collective ontologies as a "society" of "rape culture."

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4. JBReeferOct 2018
   This doesn't sound relevant to carbon fixation:

   "Witches, Midwives, & Nurses, first published by the Feminist Press in 1973, is an essential book about the corruption of the medical establishment and its historic roots in witch hunters. In this new edition, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English have written an entirely new chapter that delves into the current fascination with and controversies about witches, exposing our fears and fantasies. They build on their classic exposé on the demonization of women healers and the political and economic monopolization of medicine. This quick history brings us up-to-date, exploring today's changing attitudes toward childbirth, alternative medicine, and modern-day witches."

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