Anarchism and Feminism: The Earliest Practitioners

An early 1970s left feminist interpretation of Malleus Maleficarum is the centerpiece of this essay by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English. It sets the tone for a dark story of the co-optation by men of medicine as practiced by women from the earliest times and the subsequent alienation, persecution, and subjugation of such women with the rise of the male-dominated "medical profession." The tragic irony of this tale is that all the good about that profession came from the independent "wise women" of olde. Originally published by The Feminist Press at CUNY.

I was doing some work around researching anarchism and midwifery and came across this essay. This was the first "book" read when I started out in midwifery. It now lays on my bookshelf surrounded by midwifery, nursing & medical texts.