000			02137cam a2200265 a 4500
008			050309s2005 nyu b 001 0 eng
020			_a9781400078004
060			_aHM 340.
100	1		_aEhrenreich, Barbara
245	1	0	_aFor her own good : _btwo centuries of the experts' advice to women
250			_a2nd ed.
260			_aNew York : _bAnchor Books, _c2005.
300			_axx, 410 p. ; _c22 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [363]-388) and index.
520			_aFrom the bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed and a former editor in chief Mother Jones, this women's history classic brilliantly uncovers the constraints imposed on women in the name of science. Since the nineteenth century, professionals have been invoking scientific expertise to prescribe what women should do for their own good. Among the experts' diagnoses and remedies: menstruation was an illness requiring seclusion; pregnancy, a disabling condition; and higher education, a threat to long-term health of the uterus. From clitoridectomies to tame women's behavior in the nineteenth century to the censure of a generation of mothers as castrators in the 1950s, doctors have not hesitated to intervene in women's sexual, emotional, and maternal lives. Even domesticity, the most popular prescription for a safe environment for women, spawned legions of "scientific" experts. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English has never lost faith in science itself, but insist that we hold those who interpret it to higher standards. Women are entering the medical and scientific professions in greater numbers but as recent research shows, experts continue to use pseudoscience to tell women how to live. For Her Own Good provides today's readers with an indispensable dose of informed skepticism.
650		0	_aWomen's health services
650		0	_aMedical ethics
650		0	_aDiscrimination
650		0	_aFeminism _96163
650		0	_aSex role
700	1		_aEnglish, Deirdre
906			_a7 _bcbc _corigcop _d2 _encip _f20 _gy-gencatlg
942			_n0
999			_c43046 _d43046