Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions

Krieger, Laurie

doi:10.1525/ae.1997.24.1.251

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Since the mind-body dichotomy continues to underpin the cultures of both medicine and academia, ritual healing does not simply repair a diseased body part or a disturbed mind but seeks the restoration of their social relationships to a person and their appropriate place within their cosmology. In one of the earliest works on non-Western women's struggles with infertility, Inhorn (1994) documents how-since their intended targets are different-biomedical and traditional ethnomedical techniques can and have been made complementary in the quest for fertility among poor women in urban Egypt (see also Bharadwaj 2016). Within a similar ecology of medical pluralism, my husband and I relied on scientific treatments even as we could not entirely discount ritual interventions.…”

Section: Conc Lusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heartbreaking anthropology hurts: Studying fertility rituals while struggling with infertility

Indira¹

2023

Anthropology and Humanism

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Summary Ethnography involves using the self as the mechanism to try to understand others and their life worlds. How is knowledge and knowledge production affected by the apparatus of knowing, the ethnographer experiencing cataclysms in their personal life? In this article, I grapple with the fraught dilemmas of doing fieldwork on mother goddesses and ritual cults premised on the cultivation of fertility while experiencing infertility and undergoing assisted reproductive treatments (ART). My recovery from pregnancy losses and fertility failures was compromised by my research on fertility, which continuously resurrected my trauma. Juxtaposing research on ritual technologies with personal experience of biomedical treatments—different means to overcome the limits of nature to bring about reproductive success—I foreground the ceding of human control and agency demanded by both therapies. My ethnographic writing similarly loosened to admit emotions, ambivalences, and absences that I had normally excluded or edited out. Even as it provokes theoretical insights, to keep probing ongoing personal trauma has become unbearable. To salve heartbreak and to salvage some control has warranted rebuilding a few of the enclosures keeping the personal away from the professional.

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Section: Conc Lusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heartbreaking anthropology hurts: Studying fertility rituals while struggling with infertility

Indira¹

2023

Anthropology and Humanism

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“…In this perspective, non‐Western cultural contexts reveal alternative framings of the phenomenon of menopause. For example, the anthropological literature highlights how some African tribes perceive menopause as a period of increased spirituality (Shostak, 1981) and how the traditional Egyptian culture recognizes menopause as a period of enhanced wisdom (Inhorn, 1994). The end of menstruation also tends to be a more welcome experience in China and Japan than it is in the West.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The dialectic of (menopause) zest: Breaking the mold of organizational irrelevance

Quental

Gaviria

Bucchia

2023

Gender Work & Organization

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Drawing from women's testimonials in The Guardian and from contributions of feminist writers, Virginia Woolf, Julia Kristeva, and Margaret Mead, we start a conversation on the positive and energizing aspects of menopause in the workplace. We propose a social interpretation of menopause that challenges a pervasive perspective of medical decline: A theorization of “the dialectic of zest,” as inspired by the writings of Margaret Mead. By problematizing the experiences of women going through this transition in the workplace, we reveal how well‐intentioned awareness campaigns can lead to further stigmatization. We thus encourage organizations to not only favor an approach of “education for all” but also extend their social imaginaries beyond medicalized perspectives and coping views. Organizations can then embrace the potential of “zest,” a positive side of menopause that remains largely unknown. We argue that organizations, inspired by a holistic view of menopause in the workplace, can creatively support the professional progressions and ambitions of not only women but also all employees.

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“…The qābila furthermore fulfilled other functions within the female socio-sanitary system. She was responsible for performing ear piercings, providing assistance during wedding ceremonies, contributing to female circumcision procedures, coordinating the celebration of subu on the seventh day after a baby's birth [82], as well as managing other female health conditions (refer to Table 6). Table 6.…”

Section: Induce Menstruationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the midwife's interventions in the physical-biological domain, the qābila recommended superstitious treatments such as attending another woman's delivery and sitting or passing over the placenta [82].…”

Section: Imperforate Anusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Art of Childbirth of the Midwives of Al-Andalus: Social Assessment and Legal Implication of Health Assistance in the Cultural Diversity of the 10th–14th Centuries

Espina-Jerez,

Aguiar-Frías,

Siles-González

et al. 2023

Healthcare

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(1) Background: The role of Al-Andalus’s women were the result of Arabization and Islamization in Spain. The 10th to the 14th centuries were a time of significant cultural diversity in the region. Female physicians and midwives were important for providing care to women. Despite existing studies, there is still a lack of focused research on the professionalization of these trades, including their requirements, intervention areas, and treatments. (2) Methods: To address this gap, we conducted a scoping review using the dialectical structural model of care (DSMC). Primary medical and legislative sources were used. (3) Results: two kinds of midwife, or qābila, were discovered, along with a woman physician, or ṭabība, who also acted as a midwife. These professions underwent diverse training and fulfilled duties as obstetricians and pediatricians. Midwives were esteemed members of society and were the sole female professionals who needed qualified training. Their performance in the courts was exemplary. Tools for facilitating childbirth and interventions related to female health were discovered in the study. (4) Conclusions: The patriarchal societies suffer from significant inequality in terms of academic training, knowledge transmission, and healthcare provision. Midwives functioned in segregated domestic and legal spaces and were responsible for providing public care to communities from the 10th to 14th centuries.

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Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions

Abstract: Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions. MARCIA C. INHORN. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. xxvii + 441 pp., photographs, tables, appendixes, glossary, notes, references, index.

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Heartbreaking anthropology hurts: Studying fertility rituals while struggling with infertility

Heartbreaking anthropology hurts: Studying fertility rituals while struggling with infertility

The dialectic of (menopause) zest: Breaking the mold of organizational irrelevance

The Art of Childbirth of the Midwives of Al-Andalus: Social Assessment and Legal Implication of Health Assistance in the Cultural Diversity of the 10th–14th Centuries

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