Birth as an American Rite of Passage » (2nd Edition)

Robbie Davis-Floyd is Senior Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin and is coeditor of Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (California, 1997).

"I can say without hesitation that in the 36 years I have been helping childbearing women, there is only a handful of books that have had a great cultural impact. This is one of them."—Roberta M. Scaer, Editor of Genesis

Library Journal

Davis-Floyd has written a brilliant feminist analysis of childbirth rites of passage in American culture. These rites, she argues, take away women's power over their bodies, naturally designed to bring life into the world, and for no physiological reason give it to the medical system. She believes that society, intimidated by women's ability to give birth, has designed obstetrical rituals that are far more complex than natural childbirth itself in order to deliver what is from nature into culture. ``In this way,'' she writes, ``society symbolically demonstrates ownership of its product.'' This beautiful book, full of insightful interviews with women on a range of birth experiences and with an extensive bibliography, is a wonderful addition to the growing literature on the anthropology of the body and the theoretical debates over mind/body and nature/culture dichotomies. Essential for all anthropology and women's studies collections and medical school libraries and highly recommended for public libraries.-- Patricia Sarles, Mt. Sinai Medical Ctr. Lib., New York