Women

Birth Day: A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth by Mark Sloan. Ballantine Books (2009)  APGAR Score The author is a pediatrician who specializes in taking care of newborn babies who have problems after childbirth. He evaluates newborns with the APGAR scores developed by Virginia Apgar. It evaluate babies for 5 qualities:  Muscle tone Pulse Reflex irritability Skin color Breathing effort Blood Flow There is is an interesting descriptio

Cut: FGM in Britain Today by Hibo Wardere, Simon & Schuster UK, 2016.

Gaddafi's Harem: The Story of a Young Woman and the Abuses of Power in Libya by Annick Cojean, Grove Press, 2013.

Call the Midwife: “A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times” by Jennifer Worth, Penguin Books, 2012 Nonnatus House The author worked in the 1950s in London for a community of Roman Catholic nuns at Nonnatus House. She goes into a fair amount of detail describing childbirth and its problems. Topics biracial babies breech delivery complications from illegal abortions eclampsia macerated fetus placenta previa ricketts from Vitamin D deficiency stillbirths syphilis Victorian workho

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler, Penguin Books, 2007.  Changes in American Society During the early twentieth century, the unwed mother usually kept her baby after birth. Maternity homes helped girls find work as domestics so that they could support their child. After World War II there was a change in philosophy. The church charity volunteers were replaced by professio

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution  by Jonathan Eig, W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.  Birth Control This is a book on the development of birth control pills. Before birth control pills, contraception was often promoted by the rhythm method, which was promoted by Leo J. Latz, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago.  Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology: It was founded in 1944 by scientists Gregory Pincus and Hudson Ho

The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom  by Phyllis Chesler, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.  Chesler describes how the feminist movement has become corrupted by other agendas, and how it has ostracized traditional femists, who focus on women's rights. Embracing Other Agendas Chesler believes that mainstream American feminists have in large part abandoned their main goal of protecting women from misogyny in order to embrace other agendas:  Multicultu

In Honor of Fadime: Murder and Shame  by Unni Wikan, University Of Chicago Press, 2008.  This book describes an honor killing that took place in Sweden to a young woman in a Kurdish immigrant family. The male members of her family were motivated by a shaming code. This is a detailed look at an honor killing in Sweden. The woman who was killed was a member of a family of Kurdish immigrants. While it was a Muslim family, the religion of Islam appears to have played only a small

The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War  by George L. Hicks, W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.  Slave Labor The Japanese employed millions of slave laborers during their attempted conquest of Asia. The men worked in the mines, and built roads and bridges for the Japanese army. The women worked as prostitutes to service the Japanese army. Several tens of thousands of women were enslaved as prostitutes for the Japanese army during W

Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men  by Lundy Bancroft, Berkley, 2003.  Friends and co-workers of abusive men are often reluctant to b believe the wife, because the abuser behaves normally around them. Except for people who are mentally ill, abusers abuse not for emotional reasons, such as losing their temper, but rather because their thoughts and beliefs are wrong. Victims of abuse are at risk of being gaslighted. Keep a written journal of you

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters  by Abigail Shrier, Regency Publishing, 2021.  Psychic Contagion The transgender and gender dysphoria fad is an example of psychic contagion. Earlier examples include lobotomies, multiple personality disorder, recovered-memory therapy and anorexia nervosa. This doesn’t mean that these disorders don’t exist, but only that they are much less common than their advocates assert.

Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women , by Christina Hoff Sommers Touchstone (1994).  Traditional Feminists The author talks about two kinds of feminists, which she calls “equity feminists” and “gender feminists”. Equity feminists are the traditional activists who achieved women’s suffrage, ownership and inheritance of property, equality before the law with respect to divorce and child custody, and abortion rights. Gender Feminists Gender feminists are what we wo

The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century by Louise Perry, Polity Books, 2022.

Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa  by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, Harrington Park Press, 1989.  This book describes a cultural practice of the cutting of the female genitalia that is widespread in Africa. The practice predates Islam, but it is more common among Muslims than among Christians. About a hundred million African women have undergone genital cutting. There are several forms of cutting: cutting off the clitoral hood (prepuce), cutt