2026-05-05 13:05 UTC
Replies (7)
-
@vagina_museum@masto.ai 2026-05-05 13:09
Nevertheless, in the 18th century attempts were made to gender the term "midwife". The phrase "man-midwife" entered the vocabulary of physicians to describe male doctors who had recently got interested in attending births. Then, physician John Maubray decided he didn't like that so coined his own term, the catchy "Andro-boethogynist" (man who helps women). Suffice to say, he did not make "Andro-boethogynist" happen.
-
@alex@godforsaken.website 2026-05-05 13:11
@vagina_museum one whom is amidst wives
-
@GLaDTheresCake@todon.nl 2026-05-05 13:17
@vagina_museum Gender neutral towards the person who helps the birth sure, not gender neutral towards the birthing person in that case though! May be worth looking at it critically through that lense, even if we could teach everyone that midwife is gender neutral towards the title holders, that might still be uncomfortable to non "wif" birthing people.
-
@adub@beige.party 2026-05-05 14:06
@vagina_museum i still think it's an unnecessarily gendered term. because some trans men and some nonbinary people give birth too, not just cis women. so a seahorse dad delivering would be assisted by a midhusband? 🤨
-
@adub@beige.party 2026-05-05 14:09
@vagina_museum "perinatal practitioner" maybe? ("doula" doesn't have the same meaning, they aren't medically trained)
-
@jerrej@mastodon.social 2026-05-05 15:13
@vagina_museum From Middle English midwif, corresponding to mid (“with”) + wif (“woman, wife, female”). It appears not to be entirely clear whether the original understanding was “with-woman” in the sense of “attending/assisting woman”, or “they who are with the woman” (namely the mother). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/midwife
-
@HolgerSchurig@social.tchncs.de 2026-05-05 18:23
@vagina_museum Honestly, if it stems from "wif" for wife, then "midwife" is *NOT* gender neutral. In Germany, we call the female "Hebamme", since the german version of "wife", "Weib" is except in Swabian only used in a derogatory context. And our "Hebamme" is also not gender neutral. So the few *) male ones get an extra attribute. They are either called "Männliche Hebamme" (male widwife) or "Entbindungspfleger" (childbirth nurse?). *) There are only about 22 male wid"wifes" in Germany. Compare this to 24000 female ones. Got the numbers from an article dated January 2025. No idea of a whole year changed much.