But why should the midwives be ignorant? and why (in the great movement that there is now to make women into medical men) should not this branch, midwifery, which they will find no one to contest against them—not at least in the estimation of the patients—be the first ambition of cultivated women? Is there any rational doubt that, suppose there were a man and a woman, both equally versed in midwifery art and science, the woman would be the one sent for by all lying-in women?
There is a better thing than making women into medical men, and that is making them into medical women.
Surely it is the first object to enable women, by the most thorough training, practical and scientific, to practise that branch of the art of medicine which all are agreed should be theirs, not ‘like men’—for nearly all the best men are agreed how deficient are the practical training and opportunities of medical students, especially in midwifery, which deficiency yet does not prevent them from obtaining diploma, license, all they want, in order to practise—not ‘like men’ then, but like women, like women who wish to be real physician accoucheuses; that is, to attend and to be consulted in all deliveries, abnormal as well as normal, in diseases of women and children, as the best accoucheurs attend and are consulted.
Sensible women say, ‘But the only means to obtain a scientific education is to enter men’s classes.’
Is that the case?
Is the student’s scientific and practical education all that could be wished?
Could there not be given (and is there not given, in some Continental schools?) a far more thorough and complete scientific education, as well as practical, where there are none but women, in a midwifery school, without all this struggle and contest, which raises questions so disagreeable and ridiculous that a woman of delicate feeling shuns the indelicacy of the contest—not the indelicacy of the occupation?
The parody, the qui pro quo, is a curious one.
The indelicacy of a man attending a woman in her lying-in is by necessity overlooked.
The indelicacy of a woman attending with men in medical classes is made much of.