The medical field would like you to believe that it is all about healing and doing good for patients; however, even as far back as the European Witch Hunts in the 1500 and 1600s, it was at least partially about the money.  One of the ways that women supported themselves during this time period was to work as healers (Federici, 2018), which for the purposes of this discussion will include midwives.  At the time of the witch hunts in Europe, the Catholic church controlled medical education and only trained male professionals.  Successful female midwives and healers threatened the income of male doctors which meant that they were often targeted by the Catholic church and male doctors and called witches to put them out of business.  Not only did this strategy work in the short term, it also led to a distrust of independent healers and midwives who had not been to medical school  (Climo, 2019).

Midwives and healers were also targeted because they had knowledge of herbs used to relieve pain, including the pain of childbirth.  The Catholic Church believed that women should suffer the pain of childbirth because Eve was responsible for mankind being banished from Eden, so anyone who was audacious enough to ease a woman’s pain was disobeying the will of God (Climo, 2019).  Midwives and healers were not only able to ease pain, they also had deep insight into the female reproductive system and knew which herbs could bring about an abortion (Dine, 2013).  As the Catholic Church and the patriarchy had determined that women were little more than breeders whose ability to procreate could and should be channeled as an economic force (Federici, 2018, p. 28), it makes sense that anyone who was able to give a woman a right to choose whether or not to have a child would be viewed as a threat.

What happened to women healers is similar to what happened to women who cared for the dead up until the 1800s.  Once men realized that something could be monetized, they immediately worked to push women out.

References

Climo, L. (2019, December 18). A Note from the Collections: Midwives and Healers in the European Witch Trials. Retrieved from International Museum of Surgical Science: https://imss.org/2019/12/18/a-note-from-the-collections-midwives-and-healers-in-the-european-witch-trials/

Dine, R. (2013, August 8). Scarlet Letters: Getting the History of Abortion and Contraception Right. Retrieved from American Progress: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/scarlet-letters-getting-the-history-of-abortion-and-contraception-right/

Federici, S. (2018). Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women. Oakland: PM Press.