Politicizing the body: Women's health and sexism in the American West, 1860-1890

Abstract

This thesis examines the progressiveness of gender roles in the American West, and how those practices of midwifery and gynecology in the West were influenced by those roles changing norms relative to the east. While much of the scholarship on this subject tends to argue that these alternate attitudes created a more open environment around reproductive health, this Thesis complicates and challenges that narrative. While the gender roles in the West were more progressive than they were in the East, sexism was still rampant, particularly in the field of women's health. Taking into account the opinions of male gynecologists on the "correct" ways of diagnosing and caring for childbearing women and their attitudes toward midwives, the overused diagnosis of hysteria, and the attitudes surrounding abortion, I contend that the enhanced gender equality that women experienced in the West did not necessarily influence prevailing social attitudes regarding women's health as much as was originally thought. To support the argument, I draw on newspaper materials from the time that emphasize elements like the criminalization of abortion and sexist diagnoses in order to demonstrate that gender equality in the West with regard to women's health has often been overinflated. By arguing against this type of scholarship, this Thesis reveals that gender equality in the American West has often been misrepresented.