Childbirth in a Technocratic Age: The Documentation of Women’s Ex ...

Preface

—Gloria Steinem

I recently watched a television sitcom that unfolded in the following way: Giving birth for the first time, the lead character labors without incident at work, supported by other women, before her husband whisks her away to the hospital in a limousine. Another man, a physician she has never met, enters the hospital room, announces that he is in charge, and refuses her request to see her regular female obstetrician. The lead character labors miserably in her hospital bed awhile before her husband convinces her—against her wishes to go medication free—to accept an epidural; the audience then sees the lead in anesthetically induced bliss. When the physician reenters the scene, the lead pushes as ordered, but to no avail: The physician proclaims that the baby’s head is “too big” and that cesarean delivery is “not a choice,” and he leaves to prepare for surgery. The lead’s husband assures her that surgery is necessary because the doctor