Aya Homei PhD
Homei A (2003) Modernising Midwifery: The history of a female medical profession in Japan, 1868-1933. Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester
Contact Dr Aya Homei, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester
ABSTRACT
This dissertation deals with the process that transformed midwives in Japan between the 1850s and the 1920s, from traditional /kyu-sanba/ into ‘modern’, scientific, /shin-sanba/. The thesis aims to explain why and how this change occurred, map the forms and patterns of the shift, and determine the social forces and the arguments that drove the change. The process, the author argues, was one of ‘modernisation’ and of professionalisation. It was driven by state policies as well as by professional interests, by midwives as well as by medical officers and obstetricians. Commercial considerations and issues of gender identity, too, played central parts. In 1927, with the launch of the independent, all female Japan Midwives Association, the professionalisation of midwives can be seen as in many ways completed. The dissertation ends with the year 1931, when the demands of the war economy led to the implementation of a new set of policies affecting midwives. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the thesis argues that the changes which led to the establishment of what is characterised as a ‘modern’, female, medical profession of midwifery were an expression of a specifically Japanese modernity and were triggered by a course of events that started in 1868, the year in which the Meiji era began, and the new government began to ‘modernise’ Japan. It was part of the attempt of the government to ‘nationalise’ the Japanese people. As part of its ‘modernisation’ scheme, the government officially announced that Japanese medicine would be modelled on Western medicine. Government officials began to regulate midwifery, defining it as a medical profession exclusively for women. Western-trained obstetrician-gynaecologists began to train the first generations of shin-sanba, and the author compares the knowledge on birth and midwifery that they promoted with older notions and practices. Practice, however, was not identical with textbook knowledge, and the thesis follows midwives into the field, in order to understand how the competition with traditional midwives, the interactions with doctors and government officials, and the business relationship with their clients shaped the new midwives. The dissertation compares the professional reality of midwives with that of other working women in early twentieth-century Japan and argues that midwives were especially suited to embody both the nationalist ideal of /ryôsai kenbo/, “good wife, good mother” and the new ideal of a professional woman. The author aims to contribute to the fields of women’s history, the social history of medicine, and the history of modern Japan. > If you wish your email address. This last item is I realise not > acceptable to all. If you do not wish your email to be shown and > enquires come in regarding your work/potential students, I could > simply forward the query to you for you to deal with personally.
For further midwifery theses go to infection control
