Feminist Thought A More

Comprehensive Introduction Rosemarie

Putnam Tong
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/feminist-thought-a-more-comprehensive-introduction-
rosemarie-putnam-tong/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Deleuze and Film A Feminist Introduction 1st Edition

Teresa Rizzo

https://textbookfull.com/product/deleuze-and-film-a-feminist-
introduction-1st-edition-teresa-rizzo/

Introduction to Materials for Advanced Energy Systems

Colin Tong

https://textbookfull.com/product/introduction-to-materials-for-
advanced-energy-systems-colin-tong/

Indo-Caribbean Feminist Thought: Genealogies, Theories,

Enactments 1st Edition Gabrielle Jamela Hosein

https://textbookfull.com/product/indo-caribbean-feminist-thought-
genealogies-theories-enactments-1st-edition-gabrielle-jamela-
hosein/

Forensic Anthropology: A Comprehensive Introduction,

Second Edition Natalie R. Langley

https://textbookfull.com/product/forensic-anthropology-a-
comprehensive-introduction-second-edition-natalie-r-langley/
Abstract Algebra A Comprehensive Introduction 1st
Edition John W. Lawrence

https://textbookfull.com/product/abstract-algebra-a-
comprehensive-introduction-1st-edition-john-w-lawrence/

Feminist History of Philosophy The Recovery and

Evaluation of Women s Philosophical Thought Eileen
O’Neill

https://textbookfull.com/product/feminist-history-of-philosophy-
the-recovery-and-evaluation-of-women-s-philosophical-thought-
eileen-oneill/

Beijing Comrades A Novel 2nd Edition Tong Bei

https://textbookfull.com/product/beijing-comrades-a-novel-2nd-
edition-tong-bei/

Engineering Your Future: A Comprehensive Introduction

to Engineering William C. Oakes

https://textbookfull.com/product/engineering-your-future-a-
comprehensive-introduction-to-engineering-william-c-oakes/

Skepticism in Philosophy A Comprehensive Historical

Introduction 1st Edition Henrik Lagerlund

https://textbookfull.com/product/skepticism-in-philosophy-a-
comprehensive-historical-introduction-1st-edition-henrik-
lagerlund/
FEMINIST THOUGHT
 FIFTH EDITION

FEMINIST THOUGHT
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE
INTRODUCTION

Rosemarie Tong
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
and

Tina Fernandes Botts

California State University, Fresno
First published 2018 by Westview Press

Fifth Edition: July 2017

Published 2018 by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tong, Rosemarie, author. | Botts, Tina Fernandes, author.

Title: Feminist thought : a more comprehensive introduction / Rosemarie Tong,
University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and Tina Fernandes Botts,
California State University, Fresno.
Description: Fifth edition. | Boulder, CO : Westview Press, [2017] | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016058505| ISBN 9780813349954 (pbk.) | ISBN
9780813350707 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminist theory.
Classification: LCC HQ1206 .T65 2017 | DDC 305.4201—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058505

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-4995-4 (pbk)

LSC-C

Print book interior design by Trish Wilkinson

 Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction
The Diversity of Feminist Thinking

1 Liberal Feminism
Conceptual Roots
Before the “First Wave”: Equal Education
“First Wave” Liberal Feminism: Equal Liberty and the Suffrage
“Second Wave” Liberal Feminism: Equal Rights
Toward “Third-Wave” Liberal Feminism: Sameness Versus
Difference and Egalitarianism
“Third-Wave” Liberal Feminism: Intersectionality
Critiques of Liberal Feminism
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

2 Radical Feminism
Radical-Libertarian Feminism in General
Radical-Cultural Feminism in General
Controversies Between Radical-Libertarian and Radical-Cultural
Feminists
Critiques of Radical Feminism
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion
3 Marxist and Socialist Feminisms
Some Traditional Marxist Concepts and Theories
Classical Marxist Feminism: General Reflections
Contemporary Socialist Feminism: General Reflections
Contemporary Women’s Labor Issues
Critiques of Marxist and Socialist Feminisms
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

4 Women-of-Color Feminism(s) in the United States

Women-of-Color Feminism(s) and the “First Wave”
Women-of-Color Feminism(s) and the “Second Wave”
Women-of-Color Feminism(s) and the “Third Wave”
Distinct Women-of-Color Feminism(s)
Critiques of Women-of-Color Feminism(s) in the United States
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

5 Women-of-Color Feminism(s) on the World Stage:

Global, Postcolonial, and Transnational Feminisms
Global Feminism in General
Postcolonial Feminism in General
Transnational Feminism in General
Critiques of Global, Postcolonial, and Transnational Feminisms
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

6 Psychoanalytic Feminism
Classical Psychoanalytic Thought: Focus on Sigmund Freud
Anglo-American Critiques and Appropriations of Freud: Focus on
Dorothy Dinnerstein, Nancy Chodorow, and Juliet Mitchell
Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thought: Focus on Jacques Lacan
 Critique of Jacques Lacan
“French” Psychoanalytic Feminism: Focus on Luce Irigaray and
Julia Kristeva
Critiques of Freudian, Lacanian, and Psychoanalytic Feminist
Thought
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

7 Care-Focused Feminism
The Roots of Care-Focused Feminism
Critiques of Care-Focused Feminism
The Roots of Maternal Ethics
Critiques of Maternal Ethics
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

8 Ecofeminism
Some Roots of Ecofeminism
Early Conceptions of Ecofeminism
Women, Nature, and Culture: Some Tensions
Nature Ecofeminism
Spiritual Ecofeminism
Transformative Ecofeminism
Global Ecofeminism
Vegetarian Ecofeminism
Environmental Ecofeminism
Critiques of Ecofeminism
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

9 Existentialist, Poststructural, and Postmodern

Feminisms
 Existentialism: Focus on Jean-Paul Sartre
Existentialist Feminism: Focus on Simone de Beauvoir
Critiques of Existentialist Feminism
Poststructuralism: Focus on Michel Foucault
Poststructural Feminism: Focus on Judith Butler
Critiques of Poststructural Feminism
Postmodernism: Focus on Jacques Derrida
Postmodern Feminism: Focus on Hélène Cixous
Critiques of Postmodern Feminism
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

10 Third-Wave and Queer Feminisms

Third-Wave Feminism
Critiques of Third-Wave Feminism
Feminist Queer Theory
Critiques of Feminist Queer Theory
Conclusion
Questions for Discussion

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index
 Preface
The two of us have enjoyed working together on the fifth edition of
Feminist Thought—even though one of us was in Charlotte, North
Carolina, retired as an emeritus professor of philosophy, and the
other was an assistant professor of philosophy at California State
University, Fresno. Committed to making the fifth edition of the book
the best yet, we expanded it from seven to ten chapters. Although
Chapter 1 on liberal feminism, Chapter 3 on Marxist and socialist
feminisms, Chapter 8 on ecofeminism, and Chapter 9 on
existentialist, poststructural, and postmodern feminisms remain
somewhat the same, we added better critiques and more recent
data. We have recast Chapter 2 on radical feminism to better
accommodate some of our most recent ideas about sexuality and
particularly reproduction. In addition, we now have two chapters on
women-of-color feminism. One focuses on women of color in the
United States and the other on women of color worldwide (global,
postcolonial, and transnational). We have also split Chapter 6 on
psychoanalytic and care-focused feminism into two chapters:
Chapter 6 on psychoanalytic feminism and Chapter 7 on care-
focused feminism. Finally, we have added Chapter 10 on third-wave
feminism and feminist queer theory and significantly updated and
reconfigured our bibliography.
This fifth edition of Feminist Thought contains several substantial
changes in addition to many cosmetic ones. We believe that nothing
currently on the market is more inclusive of the rich diversity and
intersectionality of feminist thought.
 Acknowledgments
As usual we have relied on the help of many people to bring this
book to market. First, we wish to acknowledge each other as
responsive, responsible, and self-critical coauthors. Second, we want
to thank everyone at Westview Press who cheerfully and skillfully
aided us. In particular, we want to thank our editors, Elizabeth
Hansen and Nikki Ioakimedes; our publisher, Cathleen Esposito; and
our editorial director, Grace Fujimoto. In addition, we give special
thanks to our project editor, Michael Clark, for shepherding our
project through the production process, and our copyeditor, Jennifer
Kelland, for polishing our manuscript. Their help unified and
improved our two distinct styles. Finally, we wish to thank our
patient and conscientious typist, Pamela Eudy, who kept track of our
many draftings and redraftings. We cannot overemphasize her
dedication to the fifth edition.
 Introduction
The Diversity of Feminist Thinking
While working on the fifth edition of Feminist Thought, we have
become increasingly convinced that feminist thought resists
categorization into tidy schools. “Interdisciplinary,” “intersectional,”
and “interlocking” are the kinds of adjectives that best describe
feminist thinking. There is an exhilaration in the way we feminists
move from one idea to the next, revising our thoughts in midstream.
Yet, despite the very real challenges that accompany trying to
categorize the thought of an incredibly diverse and large array of
feminist thinkers, feminist thought is old enough to have a history
complete with a set of labels: liberal, radical, Marxist/socialist,
women-of-color, global, postcolonial, transnational, psychoanalytic,
care-focused, ecofeminist, existentialist, poststructural, postmodern,
third-wave, and queer. To be sure, this list of labels is incomplete
and contestable. It probably does not capture the full range of
feminism’s intellectual and political commitments to women and
society in general. Yet feminist thought’s traditional labels remain
serviceable. They signal to the public that feminism is not a
monolithic ideology and that all feminists do not think alike. The
labels also help mark the number of different approaches,
perspectives, frameworks, and standpoints that a variety of feminists
have used to shape both their explanations for women’s oppression
and their proposed solutions for its elimination.
Because so much of mainstream feminist theory reacts against
traditional liberal feminism, liberalism is as good a place as any to
begin a survey of feminist thought. This perspective received its
classic formulation in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman,1 John Stuart Mill’s “The Subjection of Women,”2
and the nineteenth-century women’s suffrage movement. Its main
thrust, an emphasis still felt in such groups as the National
Organization for Women (NOW), is that female subordination is
rooted in a set of customary and legal constraints that block
women’s entrance to and success in the public sphere. To the extent
that society holds the false belief that women are, by nature, less
intellectually and physically capable than men, it tends to
discriminate against women in the academy, the forum, and the
marketplace. As liberal feminists see it, this discrimination against
women is unfair. Women should have as much chance to succeed in
the public realm as men do. Gender justice, insist liberal feminists,
requires us, first, to make the rules of the game fair and, second, to
ensure that none of the runners in the race for society’s goods and
services are systematically disadvantaged.
But is the liberal feminist program robust enough to undo women’s
oppression? Radical feminists think not. They claim that power,
dominance, hierarchy, and competition characterize the patriarchal
system. It cannot be reformed but only ripped out, root and branch.
Radical feminists insist that it is not enough for us to overturn
patriarchy’s legal and political structures on the way to women’s
liberation; we must also thoroughly transform its social and cultural
institutions (especially the family and organized religion).
As in the past, we remain impressed by the diverse modalities of
thinking that count as radical feminist thought. Although all radical
feminists focus on sex, gender, and reproduction as the loci for the
development of feminist thought,3 some stress the pleasures of sex
(be it heterosexual, lesbian, or autoerotic) and view as unalloyed
blessings for women not only the old reproduction-controlling
technologies but also the new reproductionassisting technologies. In
contrast, other radical feminists emphasize the dangers of sex,
especially heterosexual sex, and regard as harmful to women the
new reproduction-assisting technologies and, in a different way, the
old reproduction-controlling technologies. As in the previous edition
of Feminist Thought, we sort this varied array of radical feminist
thinkers into two groups: radical-libertarian and radical-cultural
feminists.4
 With respect to issues related to sexuality, radical-libertarian
feminists argue that no specific kind of sexual experience should be
prescribed as the best.5 Every woman should be encouraged to
experiment sexually with herself, with other women, and with men.
Although heterosexuality can be dangerous for women within a
patriarchal society, women must nonetheless feel free to follow their
own desires, even if that means embracing men.
Radical-cultural feminists disagree. They stress that through
pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, rape, and woman
battering,6 through foot binding, suttee, purdah, clitoridectomy,
witch burning, and gynecology,7 men have controlled women’s
sexuality for male pleasure. Thus, to become liberated, women must
escape the confines of heterosexuality and create a distinct female
sexuality through celibacy, autoeroticism, or lesbianism.8 Only alone,
or with other women, can women discover the true pleasure of sex.
Radical feminist thought is as diverse on issues related to
reproduction as it is on matters related to sexuality. Radical-
libertarian feminists claim biological motherhood drains women
physically and psychologically.9 Women should be free, they say, to
use the old reproduction-controlling technologies and the new
reproduction-assisting technologies on their own terms—to prevent
or terminate unwanted pregnancies or, alternatively, to have children
when they want them (pre- or postmenopausally), how they want
them (from their own womb or that of another woman), and with
whom they want them (a man, a woman, or alone). Some radical-
libertarian feminists go further than this, however. They look forward
to the day when ectogenesis (extracorporeal gestation in an artificial
uterus) entirely replaces the natural process of pregnancy.
In contrast to radical-libertarian feminists, radical-cultural feminists
claim biological motherhood is the ultimate source of women’s
power.10 Women, in their view, determine whether the human
species continues—whether there is life or no life. Women must
guard and celebrate this life-giving power, for in its absence, men
will have even less respect and use for women than they do now.11
 Unconvinced by the liberal and radical feminist agendas for
women’s liberation, Marxist and socialist feminists claim it is
impossible for anyone, especially women, to achieve true freedom in
a class-based society, where the wealth produced by the powerless
many ends up in the hands of the powerful few. With Friedrich
Engels,12 Marxist and socialist feminists insist that women’s
oppression originated with the introduction of private property, an
institution that obliterated whatever equality of community humans
had previously enjoyed. Private ownership of the means of
production by relatively few persons, originally all male, inaugurated
a class system whose contemporary manifestations are corporate
capitalism and imperialism. Reflection on this state of affairs
suggests that capitalism itself, not just the larger social rules that
privilege men over women, is the cause of women’s oppression. If all
women—rather than just the exceptional ones—are ever to be
liberated, a socialist system in which the means of production belong
to everyone must replace the capitalist system. No longer
economically dependent on men, women will be just as free as men
are.
Socialist feminists agree with Marxist feminists that capitalism is
the source of women’s oppression and with radical feminists that
patriarchy is the origin. Therefore, the way to end women’s
oppression, in socialist feminists’ estimation, is to kill the two-headed
beast of capitalist patriarchy or patriarchal capitalism (take your
pick). Motivated by this goal, socialist feminists seek to develop
theories that explain the relationship between capitalism and
patriarchy.
During the first stage of theory development, socialist feminists
offered several so-called two-system explanations of women’s
oppression. These two-system theories included those forwarded by
Juliet Mitchell and Alison Jaggar. In Woman’s Estate, Mitchell claimed
that women’s condition is determined not only by the structures of
production (as Marxist feminists think) but also by the structures of
reproduction and sexuality (as radical feminists believe) and the
socialization of children (as liberal feminists argue).13 She stressed
that women’s status and function in all these structures must change
if women are to achieve full liberation. Still, Mitchell ultimately gave
the edge to capitalism over patriarchy as women’s worst enemy.
Like Mitchell, Alison Jaggar attempted to achieve a synthesis
between Marxist and radical feminist thought. Acknowledging that all
feminist perspectives recognize the conflicting demands made on
women as wives, mothers, daughters, lovers, and workers,14 Jaggar
insisted that socialist feminism is unique because of its concerted
effort to interrelate the myriad forms of women’s oppression. She
used the unifying concept of alienation to explain how, under
capitalism, everything (work, sex, play) and everyone (fellow
workers, family members, and friends) that could engender women’s
integration as persons becomes instead a cause of their
disintegration. Together with Mitchell, Jaggar insisted there are only
complex explanations for women’s subordination. Yet, in contrast to
Mitchell, she named patriarchy rather than capitalism as the worst
evil visited on women.
After Mitchell and Jaggar, another group of socialist feminists
aimed to develop new explanations of women’s oppression that
pinpointed neither capitalism nor patriarchy alone as the primary
source of women’s limited well-being and freedom. Iris Marion
Young15 and Heidi Hartmann16 constructed explanations for women’s
oppression that viewed capitalism and patriarchy as interacting to
the point of full symbiosis. To a greater or lesser extent, these
thinkers addressed the question of whether capitalism could survive
the death of patriarchy, or vice versa. Although the nuances of their
theories were difficult to grasp, Young and Hartmann—like their
predecessors Mitchell and Jaggar—pushed feminists to address
issues related to women’s unpaid, underpaid, or disvalued work.
We need to point out that for all their insights into women’s
condition(s), pre-1980s feminists, especially in the Anglo-American
world, were almost entirely white, bourgeois, heterosexual, and
oriented toward events in the Western, now so-called Northern,
world. In this fifth edition of Feminist Thought, we try to devote
adequate attention to the ways in which women of color, working-
class women, lesbian women, and, most recently, transwomen in the
United States and elsewhere have shaped a variety of feminisms that
have helped women everywhere become freer and more equal to
men in their rights and responsibilities. Owing to the addition of Tina
Fernandes Botts (a woman-of-color feminist) as an author of this
text, we believe that we have better articulated some of the
concerns, issues, and ideas of women of color in this edition.
Specifically, in this edition, we have enhanced Chapters 4 and 5 to
reflect the contemporary centrality of women-of-color feminisms in
feminist thought and to highlight the concept of intersectionality. In
Chapter 4, we focus on women of color in the United States,
specifically Black/African American, Latin American/Latina/Chicana,
Asian American, and Indigenous women. Although there certainly
exist many more varieties of women of color in the United States,
we use our representative units of analysis to provide a sampling of
the unique experiences of oppression of each of these groups of
women and to highlight their distinct vantage points. At the same
time, we understand that these different groups of women share the
common experience of having been racialized (assigned a nonwhite
race) inside the history and ongoing presence of racial hierarchy in
the culture of the United States. At least in this sense, the
experiences of oppression and patriarchy of women of color in the
United States differ importantly from those of nonracialized (white)
women, and we think it is important to continue to interrogate this
state of affairs for as long as it continues.
Moving from the United States to the world stage, in Chapter 5 we
discuss global, postcolonial, and transnational feminism, all of which
we understand as related but distinct approaches to worldwide
feminist concerns. As we observe a continuum beginning with global
feminism and moving into postcolonial and then transnational
feminism, the ideological vantage point shifts from emphasis on such
notions as universal human rights and women’s rights (global
feminism), to the situated needs of different groups of women of
color in developing countries (postcolonial feminism), to fullblown
critiques of the possibility of women from different countries
coalescing to address problems of mutual concern (transnational
feminism).17
To the degree that most of the feminists considered up to this
point focus on the macrocosm (patriarchy, capitalism, nationalism) in
their respective explanations of women’s oppression, psychoanalytic
and care-focused feminists analyze the microcosm of the individual.
They claim the roots of women’s oppression are embedded deeply in
the female psyche. Initially, psychoanalytic feminists focused on
Sigmund Freud’s work, looking within it for a better understanding of
sexuality’s role in the oppression of women. According to Freud, in
the so-called pre-Oedipal stage, all infants are symbiotically attached
to their mothers, whom they perceive as omnipotent. The mother-
infant relationship is an ambivalent one, however: sometimes
mothers give too much (their presence is overwhelming), whereas
other times they give too little (their absence disappoints).18
The pre-Oedipal stage ends with resolution of the so-called
Oedipus complex, the process by which the boy gives up his first
love object, the mother, to escape (symbolic) castration at the hands
of the father. According to some psychoanalytic feminists, the
Oedipus complex is the root of male rule, or patriarchy, and nothing
more than the product of men’s i magination—a psychic trap that
everyone, especially women, should try to escape. Other
psychoanalytic feminists object that unless we are prepared for
reentry into a chaotic state of nature, we must accept some version
of the Oedipus complex as the experience that integrates the
individual into society. In accepting some version of the Oedipus
complex, Sherry Ortner noted, we need not accept the Freudian
version, which labels the qualities of authority, autonomy, and
universalism as male and those of love, dependence, and
particularism as female.19 These labels, meant to privilege the male
over the female, are not essential to the Oedipus complex. Rather,
they are simply the consequences of a child’s actual experience with
men and women. As Ortner saw it, dual parenting (as recommended
also by Dorothy Dinnerstein and Nancy Chodorow) and dual
participation in the workforce would change the gender valences of
the Oedipus complex.20 Authority, autonomy, and universalism would
no longer be the exclusive property of men; love, dependence, and
particularism would no longer be the exclusive property of women,
an insight shared by even Lacanian-rooted21 psychoanalytic feminists
Julia Kristeva22 and Luce Irigaray.23
The fourth edition of Feminist Thought discussed such thinkers as
Carol Gilligan24 and Nel Noddings25 in the chapter on psychoanalytic
feminism. We have now decided it is more appropriate to devote a
separate chapter to care-focused feminism. Unlike psychoanalytic
feminists, care-focused feminists do not emphasize boys’ and girls’
psychosexual development. Instead, they stress boys’ and girls’
psychomoral development. And also unlike psychoanalytic feminists,
care-focused feminists are not necessarily burdened by some of the
more sexist features of (traditional) psychoanalytic theory.
Also distinguishing care-focused feminists from psychoanalytic
feminists is (obviously) their focus on the nature and practice of
care. More than any other group of feminist thinkers, care-focused
feminists investigate why, to a greater or lesser degree, women are
usually associated with emotions and the body and men with reason
and the mind. On a related note, care-focused feminists seek to
understand why women as a group are usually linked with
interdependence, community, and connection, whereas men as a
group are usually linked with independence, selfhood, and
autonomy. These thinkers offer a variety of explanations for why
societies divide realities into things feminine and things masculine.
But whatever their explanation for men’s and women’s differing
gender identities and behaviors, care-focused feminists regard
women’s hypothetically greater capacities for care as a human
strength, so much so that they privilege an ethics of care over the
reigning ethics of justice in the Western world. In addition, care-
focused feminists provide insightful explanations for why women as
a group disproportionately shoulder the burden of care in virtually all
societies and why men as a group do not routinely engage in caring
practices. Finally, care-focused feminists provide plans and policies
for reducing women’s burden of care so that they have as much time
and energy as men to develop themselves as full persons.26
Related to care-focused feminism, ecofeminism offers a
particularly demanding conception of the self’s relationship to the
other. According to ecofeminism, we human beings are connected
not only to one another but also to the nonhuman world: animal and
even vegetative. Thus, ecofeminism entails the view that we do not
sufficiently acknowledge our responsibilities to the nonhuman, albeit
living, world. As a result, we do things like deplete the world’s
natural resources, pollute the environment, and stockpile arms
centers with tools of mass destruction. In so doing, we delude
ourselves that we are controlling nature and enhancing ourselves,
when, as ecofeminist Ynestra King observed, nature is already
rebelling.27 Ecofeminists insist that the only way not to destroy
ourselves is to strengthen our relationships with the nonhuman
world.28
In this fifth edition of Feminist Thought, we continue to treat
existentialist feminism together with poststructural and postmodern
feminism. Looking into women’s psyches more deeply even than
psychoanalytic and carefocused feminists, Simone de Beauvoir
provided an ontologicalexistential explanation for women’s
oppression. In The Second Sex, a key theoretical text of twentieth-
century feminism,29 she argued that women are oppressed by virtue
of their otherness from men. Woman is the other because she is not-
man. While man is the free, self-determining being who defines the
meaning of his existence, woman is the other, the object whose
meaning is determined for her. To become a self, a subject, woman
must, like man, transcend the definitions, labels, and essences
limiting her existence. She must make herself be whomever she
wants to be.
Poststructural and postmodern feminists turn de Beauvoir’s
understanding of otherness on its head. Woman is still the other;
however, rather than interpreting this condition as something to
reject, poststructural and postmodern feminists embrace it. They
claim woman’s otherness enables individual women to stand back
and criticize the norms, values, and practices that the dominant male
culture (patriarchy) seeks to impose on everyone, particularly those
who live on its periphery. Thus, otherness, for all its associations
with being excluded, shunned, unwanted, abandoned, and
marginalized, has its advantages. It is a way of existing that allows
for change and difference. Women are not unitary selves, essences
to be defined and then ossified. On the contrary, women are free
spirits, capable of “performing” their own way of being gendered, as
Judith Butler, among others, has said.30
In Chapter 10 we discuss third-wave and queer feminisms. Third-
wave feminists understand themselves as responding to the
concerns of as many different kinds of women as possible. In other
words, they strive to include the plurality of available feminist
vantage points. They desire to shape a new kind of feminism that is
not so much interested in getting women to want what they should
want as in responding to what women of all varieties say they do
want. Third-wave feminists describe the context in which they
practice feminism as one of “lived messiness.” Rebecca Walker
speculates, for example, that third-wave feminists are not as
judgmental as their second-wave feminist predecessors. She stresses
that because “the lines between Us and Them are often blurred,”
third-wave feminists seek to create identities that “accommodate
ambiguity” and “multiple positionalities.”31
Queer feminism offers a rich and dynamic way of questioning
gender and sexuality. Queer feminists put particular pressure on how
our society tries to fit everyone into a male/female binary and also
on the ways people self-identify as men, women, both, or neither.
The future of queer feminism promises to raise new aspects of the
already contested concept of woman. According to queer feminism,
for example, transmen and transwomen help everyone better
appreciate how gender appears in increasingly diverse societies.
Although reconciling the pressures for diversity and difference with
those for integration and commonality poses a major challenge,
contemporary feminists seem up to the task. Each year, we better
understand the reasons why women worldwide continue to be the
“second sex” and how to change this state of affairs. In this fifth
edition of Feminist Thought, we have tried to discuss the strengths
and weaknesses of each of the feminist perspectives presented here.
In so doing, we have aimed to respect what each feminist
perspective has contributed to the shaping of feminist thought. At
the end of this book, readers looking for one winning view will be
disappointed. Although all feminist perspectives cannot be equally
correct, there is no need here for a definitive final say. Instead there
is always room for growth, improvement, reconsideration, and
expansion for true feminist thinkers. This breathing space helps keep
us from falling into the authoritarian trap of having to know it all.
 1

Liberal Feminism

Liberal feminism originated during the “first wave” of feminist

activity, roughly from the mid-nineteenth century through the 1950s;
came into full flower in the so-called “second wave” of feminist
activity, roughly from the 1960s through the 1980s; and began to
transform and restructure itself at the start of the so-called “third
wave” of feminist activity, approximately from the 1990s to the
present. The first wave of liberal feminism centered on women’s
suffrage; the second wave concentrated on gender equity and equal
opportunity for women; and the third wave shifted focus to
egalitarian concerns, equality of outcome, and intersectionality
theory.

Conceptual Roots
In Feminist Politics and Human Nature,1 Alison Jaggar observed that
liberal political thought generally locates our uniqueness as human
beings in our capacity for rationality. The belief that reason
distinguishes us from other animals is, however, relatively
uninformative, so liberals have attempted to define the concept in
various ways, stressing either its moral or its prudential aspects. A
definition of reason as the ability to comprehend the rational
principles of morality stresses the value of individual autonomy. In
contrast, defining reason as the ability to determine the best means
to achieve some desired end emphasizes the value of self-
fulfillment.2
 Whether liberals define reason largely in moral or prudential
terms, they nevertheless concur that a just society allows individuals
to exercise their autonomy and to pursue their conceptions of the
good life. Liberals justify the Western system of individual rights as
constituting a framework within which each person can choose a
particular set of goods, provided one does not deprive others of
theirs. Such a priority defends religious freedom, for example, not on
the grounds that it will increase the general welfare or that a godly
life is inherently worthier than a godless one but simply on the
assumption that people have a right to practice or not practice their
own brand of spirituality. The same holds for all rights liberals
generally identify as fundamental.
The idea that the right takes priority over the good complicates
the construction of a just society. For if it is true, as most liberals
claim, that resources are limited and each individual, even when
restrained by altruism, has an interest in securing as many available
resources as possible, then creating political, economic, and social
institutions that maximize the individual’s freedom without
jeopardizing the community’s welfare poses a challenge.
When it comes to state interventions in the private sphere (family
or home), most liberals agree that the less the state intrudes into
our bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, recreation rooms, and
nurseries, the better.3 The thinking is that all people need a place
where, among family and friends, they can shed their public
personae and be themselves. When it comes to state intervention in
the public sphere (civil or political society),4 however, a difference of
opinion emerges between classical liberals on the one hand and
egalitarian liberals on the other.5
Classical liberals think the state should limit its intrusions or
interventions to protecting civil liberties or fundamental rights (e.g.,
property and voting rights; freedom of speech, religion, and
association). They also think that the state should let individuals
earn as much as they want within the free market. Classical liberals
believe we achieve the ideal of equality through equality of
opportunity. In contrast, egalitarian liberals believe the state should
focus on minimizing economic disparities as well as protecting civil
liberties. As they see it, differences based on initial advantage,
talent, and sheer luck influence individual participation in the
market. At times, these differences are so great as to constitute
liabilities, and in the absence of offsetting adjustments, some
individuals cannot earn their fair share of what the market has to
offer. On this view, egalitarian liberals call for state intervention in
the economy, for instance, by providing legal services, school loans,
food stamps, low-cost housing, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security,
and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The idea is to
prevent the market from inhibiting access to basic social goods for
those at a disadvantage through no fault of their own. For
egalitarian liberals, therefore, we achieve the ideal of equality
through equality of outcome.
Most contemporary liberal feminists favor egalitarian over classical
liberalism. In fact, when feminist Susan Wendell described
contemporary liberal feminist thought, she stressed its
“commit[ment] to major economic reorganization and considerable
redistribution of wealth.”6 Very few, if any, contemporary liberal
feminists favor the elimination of state-funded safety nets for
society’s most vulnerable members, for example.
Because it would be impossible to discuss all liberal feminist
movements and organizations in a single book, we focus here on a
representative set of classical and egalitarian liberal feminists. More
specifically, we present Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Harriet
Taylor, the women’s suffragists in the United States, Betty Friedan,
and the members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) as
examples of classical liberal feminists. In contrast, we present
Martha Nussbaum and Elizabeth Anderson as egalitarian liberal
feminists. We aim to accurately characterize the overall goal of
liberal feminism, which, like Nussbaum, we view as the creation of
“a just and compassionate society.”7
Before the “First Wave”: Equal Education

Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1799) wrote at a time when the
economic and social position of bourgeois (upper- and middle-class)
European women was in decline. Up until the eighteenth century,
women as well as men had done productive work (work that
generated income to support a family). But then the forces of
industrial capitalism began to draw labor out of the private home
and into the public workplace. This industrialization moved slowly
and unevenly, having the greatest impact on working-class white
women who needed to work outside the home to survive. In
contrast, bourgeois white women had little incentive to work outside
the home or, if they had servants, even inside it. They relied on their
well-to-do husbands or fathers to support them. African American
women were generally already in the workforce, laboring as slaves.8
In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,9 Mary Wollstonecraft
compared women of privilege to members of “the feathered race,”
birds confined to cages with nothing to do but preen and “stalk with
mock majesty from perch to perch.”10 Bourgeois white ladies were,
in Wollstonecraft’s estimation, kept women who sacrificed health,
liberty, and virtue for whatever prestige, pleasure, and power their
husbands (or fathers or other male relations) could provide. As she
saw it, these women, not allowed to exercise outdoors lest their skin
tan, lacked healthy bodies. Not permitted to make their own
decisions, they lacked liberty. Discouraged from developing their
powers of reason, they lacked virtue.
Although Wollstonecraft did not talk about socially constructed
gender roles per se, she denied that women are, by nature, more
pleasure seeking and pleasure giving than men. She reasoned that if
confined to the same cages as women, men would develop the same
kind of “female” characteristics.11 Denied the chance to develop their
rational powers, to become moral persons with concerns, causes,
and commitments beyond personal pleasure, men would, like
women, become overly “emotional,” a term Wollstonecraft
associated with hypersensitivity, extreme narcissism, and excessive
self-indulgence.
Accordingly, Wollstonecraft abhorred philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s Emile.12 In this classic of educational philosophy
targeting the literate bourgeoisie, Rousseau portrayed the
development of rationality as the most important educational goal
for boys but not for girls. He was committed to sexual dimorphism,
the view that rational man is the perfect complement for emotional
woman, and vice versa.13 As he saw it, men should be educated in
such virtues as courage, temperance, justice, and fortitude, whereas
women should be educated in patience, docility, good humor, and
flexibility. Thus, Rousseau’s ideal male student, Emile, studies the
humanities and the social and natural sciences, whereas Rousseau’s
ideal female student, Sophie, dabbles in music, art, fiction, and
poetry while refining her homemaking skills. Rousseau hoped
sharpening Emile’s mental capacities and limiting Sophie’s would
make of Emile a self-governing citizen and a dutiful head of family
and of Sophie an understanding, responsive wife and a caring, loving
mother.
Wollstonecraft agreed with Rousseau’s projections for Emile but
not with those for Sophie. Drawing on her familiarity with bourgeois
white women, she predicted that, fed a steady diet of “novels,
music, poetry, and gallantry,” Sophie would become a detriment
rather than a complement to her husband, a creature of poor
sensibility rather than good sense.14 Her hormones surging, her
passions erupting, her emotions churning, Sophie would show no
practical sense in performing her wifely and, especially, her motherly
duties.
Wollstonecraft’s cure for Sophie was to provide her, like Emile,
with the kind of education that permits people to develop their
rational and moral capacities, their full human potential. At times,
Wollstonecraft constructed her argument in favor of educational
parity in utilitarian terms. She claimed that unlike emotional and
dependent women, who routinely shirked their domestic duties and
indulged their carnal desires, rational and independent women
tended to be “observant daughters,” “affectionate sisters,” “faithful
wives,” and “reasonable mothers.”15 The truly educated woman
would be a major contributor to society’s welfare. Wollstonecraft’s
line of reasoning in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is
remarkably similar to that of eighteenth-century philosopher
Immanuel Kant in Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals—
namely, that unless people act autonomously, they act as less than
fully human persons.16 Wollstonecraft insisted that women as well as
men deserve an equal chance to develop into autonomous agents.
Repeatedly, and somewhat problematically, Wollstonecraft
celebrated reason, usually at the expense of emotion. As Jane
Roland Martin said, “In making her case for the rights of women . . .
[Wollstonecraft] presents us with an ideal of female education that
gives pride of place to traits traditionally associated with males at
the expense of others traditionally associated with females.”17
Wollstonecraft never questioned the value of traditional male traits.
On the contrary, she simply assumed that they were good and
traditional female traits were rationally and morally deficient.
Throughout the pages of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
Wollstonecraft urged women to become autonomous decision
makers. But beyond insisting that the path to autonomy passes
through the academy, she provided women with little concrete
guidance.18 Although Wollstonecraft toyed with the idea that
women’s autonomy might depend on their economic and political
independence from men, in the end she decided welleducated
women did not need to be economically self-sufficient or politically
active to be autonomous. In fact, she dismissed the women’s
suffrage movement as a waste of time because she saw the whole
system of legal representation as merely a “convenient handle for
despotism.”19
Despite the limitations of her analysis, Wollstonecraft presented a
vision of a woman strong in mind and body, a person who is not a
slave to her passions, her husband, or her children. For
Wollstonecraft, the ideal woman is less interested in self-indulgence
than in exercising self-control.20 To liberate herself from the
oppressive roles of emotional cripple, petty shrew, and narcissistic
sex object, a woman must obey the commands of reason and
discharge her wifely and motherly duties faithfully.
Wollstonecraft most wanted personhood for women. She claimed
that a woman should not be reduced to the “toy of man, his rattle,”
which “must jingle in his ears whenever, dismissing reason, he
chooses to be amused.”21 In other words, a woman is not a mere
instrument of a man’s pleasure or happiness. Rather, she is, as Kant
would say, an end in herself, a rational agent whose dignity consists
in having the capacity for self-determination.22

“First Wave” Liberal Feminism: Equal Liberty

and the Suffrage

Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill

Writing approximately one hundred years later, Harriet Taylor and
John Stuart Mill joined Wollstonecraft in celebrating rationality. But
they conceived of it not only morally, as autonomous decision
making, but also prudentially, as calculative reason, or the use of the
mind to achieve goals. Unlike Wollstonecraft, Taylor and Mill claimed
that permitting individuals to pursue their own preferences
maximized liberty, provided the individuals did not hinder, obstruct,
or harm others in the process. Taylor and Mill also departed from
Wollstonecraft in insisting that to achieve equality between the
sexes, society must provide women with the same political rights
and economic opportunities (as well as the same education) enjoyed
by men.
Taylor and Mill authored, either separately or together, several
essays on equality between women and men. Scholars generally
agree that the two coauthored “Early Essays on Marriage and
Divorce” (1832), that Taylor wrote “Enfranchisement of Women”
(1851), and that Mill wrote “The Subjection of Women” (1869). The
question of these works’ authorship is significant because Taylor’s
and Mill’s views sometimes diverged.23 For example, Harriet Taylor
accepted the traditional view that maternal ties were stronger than
paternal ones. She also assumed that in the event of divorce,
mothers would bear the responsibility of rearing any children to
adulthood—and thus cautioned women to have few. In contrast, Mill
urged couples to marry late, have children late, and live in extended
families or commune-like situations so as to minimize divorce’s
disrupting effects on children’s lives.24
Although Taylor, unlike Mill, did not contest traditional assumptions
about male and female child-rearing roles, she did challenge those
about women’s supposed preference for marriage and motherhood
over a career or occupation. Mill contended that even after being
fully educated and enfranchised, most women would choose to
remain in the private realm, where they would serve primarily to
“adorn and beautify” rather than to “support” life.25 In contrast, in
“Enfranchisement of Women,” Taylor argued that women needed to
do more than read books and cast ballots; they also needed to
partner with men “in the labors and gains, risks and remunerations
of productive industry.”26 Thus, Taylor predicted that if society gave
women a bona fide choice between either devoting their lives “to
one animal function and its consequence”27 (childbearing and child
rearing) or writing great books, discovering new worlds, and building
mighty empires, many women would happily leave domestic life
behind.
Whereas the foregoing passages from “Enfranchisement” suggest
Taylor thought a woman had to choose between housewifery and
mothering on the one hand and working outside the home on the
other, other passages indicate she believed a woman had a third
option: namely, adding a career or occupation to her domestic and
maternal roles and responsibilities. In fact, Taylor claimed a married
woman could not be her husband’s true equal unless she had the
confidence and sense of entitlement that come from contributing
“materially to the support of the family.”28 Decidedly unimpressed by
Mill’s 1832 argument that women’s economic equality would depress
the economy and subsequently lower wages, Taylor wrote, “Even if
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Take of—Carbonate of Magnesia,
Milk of sulphur, of each, three drachms;

Mix.—To make nine powders. One to be taken early every, or every other
morning, mixed in half a teaspoonful of new milk.
315. Remember, in these cases, it is necessary to keep the motions
in a softened state, as hard lumps of stool would, in passing, give
intense pain.
316. If the confection of senna and the other remedies do not act
sufficiently, it may be well to give, once or twice a week, a
teaspoonful or a dessertspoonful of castor oil.
317. In piles, if they are not much inflamed, and provided there be
constipation, a pint of tepid water, administered early every morning
as an enema, will be found serviceable. Care and gentleness ought, of
course, to be observed in introducing the enema pipe (but which only
requires ordinary care), in order not to press unduly on the
surrounding piles.
318. The patient ought to lie down frequently in the day. She will
derive great comfort from sitting either on an air-cushion or on a
water-cushion about half filled with water, placed on the chair; for
sometimes she is unable to sit on an ordinary seat.
319. In piles, the patient ought to live on a plain, nourishing,
simple diet, but should avoid all stimulants; any food or beverage
that will inflame the blood will likewise inflame the piles.
320. Piles in pregnancy are frequently troublesome, and
sometimes resist all treatment until the patient is confined, when
they generally get well of themselves; but still the remedies
recommended above will usually afford great relief, even if they do
not effect a cure.
321. Swollen legs from enlarged veins (varicose veins).—The veins
are frequently much enlarged and distended, causing the legs to be
greatly swollen and very painful, preventing the patient from taking
proper walking exercise. Swollen legs are owing to the pressure of the
womb upon the blood-vessels above. Women who have had large
families are more liable to varicose veins than others. If a lady marry
late in life, or if she be very heavy in her pregnancy—carrying the
child low down—she is more likely to have the veins to distend.
 322. The best plan will be for her to wear an elastic silk stocking,[65]
which ought to be made on purpose for her, in order that it may
properly fit the leg and foot. It will draw on like a common stocking.
She ought to wear a gauze stocking next the skin, and the elastic
stocking over it, as the gauze stocking can then, from time to time, be
washed, as can likewise the foot and leg. Moreover, the gauze
stocking will be more comfortable next the skin than the elastic
stocking.
323. If the varicose veins should be very painful, she had better
apply to a medical man, as it may be necessary, in such a case, to
have them enveloped in mild plasters, and then rolled.
324. If the feet and legs be cold as well as swollen, a domette[66]
bandage, two inches and a half wide and eight yards long, nicely
applied to each leg, from the toes to the knee, will be found a great
comfort. One great advantage that domette has over calico is that it
will keep in its place for days, while calico will be loose in an hour or
two.
325. Stretching of the skin of the belly is frequently, especially in a
first pregnancy, distressing, from the soreness it causes. The best
remedy is to rub the bowels, every night and morning, with warm
camphorated oil, and to apply a broad flannel belt, which should be
put on moderately but comfortably tight. The belt ought to be
secured in its situation by means of properly adjusted tapes.
326. If the skin of the belly, from the violent stretching, be
cracked, the patient had better dress the part affected, every night
and morning, with equal parts of simple cerate and of lard—lard
without salt—well mixed together, spread on lint; which ought to be
kept in its place by means of a broad bandage, similar to the one used
in confinements, and which is described in a subsequent paragraph
(Bandage after Confinements).
321. Pendulous belly.—A lady sometimes, from being at these
times unusually large, suffers severely; so much so, that she cannot,
without experiencing great inconvenience, move about. This, where a
patient is stout, and where she has had a large family of children, is
more likely to occur, and especially if she has neglected proper
bandaging after her previous confinements.
 328. She ought in such a case to procure, from a surgical-
instrument-maker, an elastic abdominal belt, made purposely for
pendulous bellies, which will, without unduly pressing on the belly,
be a support. It is a good plan to have the belt made either to lace
behind or with straps and buckles, in order to accommodate the belly
to its gradually increasing size.
329. If the patient be delicate, and if she has a languid circulation,
she ought, instead of the elastic belt, to apply a broad flannel belly-
band, which should go twice around the bowels, and must be put on
moderately and comfortably tight.
330. The patient, before the approach of labor, ought to take
particular care to have the bowels gently opened, as during that time
a costive state of them greatly increases her sufferings, and lengthens
the period of her labor. I say a gentle action is all that is necessary; a
violent one would do more harm than good.
331. Toothache is a frequent complaint of pregnancy; and I wish to
caution my gentle reader not to have, during the time she is enceinte,
a tooth extracted; miscarriage or premature labor has frequently
followed the extraction of a tooth.
332. If the tooth be decayed, the hollow ought to be filled with
cotton wool, soaked either in oil of cloves, or in equal parts of oil of
cloves and of chloroform, and which should be frequently renewed;
or with what I have found an excellent remedy, a little alum dissolved
in chloroform.[67] A bit of cotton wool placed in the ear of the affected
side will oftentimes relieve the toothache arising from a decayed
tooth. This simple remedy ought always to be tried before resorting
to more active treatment. If the above remedies do not relieve, soak a
small ball of cotton wool in chloroform, and insert it inside the ear,
and let it remain there until the pain be relieved; let it be from time
to time renewed. I have frequently found in toothache the above plan
most efficacious, and to afford relief when other means have failed.
333. Creasote (spirits of tar) is sometimes applied, but of all
remedies it is the worst for the purpose. I have known it, when thus
used, severely injure and decay the whole of the remaining teeth: one
case in particular I remember, of a gentleman who, by the frequent
use of creasote, for the relief of toothache, lost the whole of his teeth!
 334. If the teeth be not decayed, especially if the stomach be
disordered, let an aperient be taken. The state of the bowels ought
always to be attended to, as toothache is frequently relieved, and
when the tooth is not decayed, cured by a dose of opening medicine.
Let the sides of the face be well fomented with hot chamomile and
poppy-head tea, and let a piece of crumb of bread (but not crumbed
bread) be soaked for five minutes in boiling milk, and be frequently
placed inside the mouth, between the cheek and gum; and let a large
hot bread poultice be applied at bedtime to the outside of the face.
335. If the above does not have the desired effect, a piece of brown
paper, the size of the palm of the hand, soaked in brandy, and then
well peppered with black pepper, should be applied outside the
cheek, over the part affected, and kept on for several hours. It ought
from time to time to be renewed. This simple and old-fashioned
remedy will sometimes afford great relief. It is in these cases
preferable to a mustard poultice, as it is less painful, and neither
blisters nor injures the skin.
336. If the pepper plaster does not afford relief, a ginger plaster
should be tried:
Take of—Powdered Ginger,
Flour, of each one tablespoonful;
Water, a sufficient quantity:

To be well mixed together, adding the water drop by drop (stirring it the while)
until it be of the consistence of paste. Let it be applied at bedtime, on linen
rag, outside the cheek, and let it remain on all night, or until the pain be
relieved.
337. If the tooth be not decayed, and if the pain of the face be more
of a neuralgic (tic-douloureux) character, the following pills will
frequently afford great relief:
Take of—Sulphate of Quinine, twenty-four grains;
Powdered Extract of Liquorice, six grains;
Treacle, a sufficient quantity:

To make twelve pills. One to be taken three times a day.

338. The teeth, in pregnancy, are very apt to decay: I have known
several patients, each of whom has lost a tooth with every child!
 339. Morning sickness.—It is said to be “morning,” as in these
cases, unless the stomach be disordered, it seldom occurs during any
other part of the day. Morning sickness may be distinguished from
the sickness of a disordered stomach by the former occurring only
early in the morning, on the first sitting up in bed, the patient during
the remainder of the day feeling quite free from sickness, and
generally being able to eat and relish her food as though nothing
ailed her.
340. Morning sickness begins with a sensation of nausea early in
the morning, and as soon as she rises from bed she feels sick and
retches; and sometimes, but not always, vomits a little sour, watery,
glairy fluid; and occasionally, if she has eaten heartily at supper the
night previously, the contents of the stomach are ejected. She then
feels all right again, and is usually ready for her breakfast, which she
eats with her usual relish. Many ladies have better appetites during
pregnancy than at any other period of their lives.
341. The sickness of a disordered stomach unaccompanied with
pregnancy may be distinguished from morning sickness by the
former continuing during the whole day, by the appetite remaining
bad after the morning has passed, by a disagreeable taste in the
mouth, and by the tongue being generally furred. Moreover, in such
a case there is usually much flatulence. The patient not only feels but
looks bilious.
342. If the stomach be disordered during pregnancy, there will, of
course, be a complication of the symptoms, and the morning
sickness may become both day and night sickness. Proper means
ought then to be employed to rectify the disordered stomach, and the
patient will soon have only the morning sickness to contend against;
which latter, after she has quickened, will generally leave of its own
accord.
343. Morning sickness is frequently a distressing, although not a
dangerous complaint. It is only distressing while it lasts, for after the
stomach is unloaded, the appetite generally returns, and the patient
usually feels, until the next morning, quite well again, when she has
to go through the same process as before.
344. It occurs both in the early and in the latter months of
pregnancy; more especially during the former, up to the period of
quickening, at which time it usually ceases. Morning sickness is
frequently the first harbinger of pregnancy, and is looked upon by
many ladies who have had children as a sure and certain sign.
Morning sickness does not always occur in pregnancy; some women,
at such times, are neither sick nor sorry.
345. A good way to relieve it is by taking, before rising in the
morning, a cup of strong coffee. If this should not have the desired
effect, she ought to try an effervescing draught:
Take of—Bicarbonate of Potash, one drachm and a half;
Water, eight ounces:

Two Tablespoonfuls of this mixture to be taken with one of lemon-juice every

hour, while effervescing, until relief be obtained.
346. A glass of champagne, taken the overnight, I have sometimes
found to be the best remedy, and, if it has the desired effect, it
certainly is the most agreeable.
347. I have known, too, cider, where other things have failed, to
succeed in abating morning sickness.
348. Sometimes, until the whole contents of the stomach be
brought up, she does not obtain relief from her sickness. She had
better, when such is the case, drink plentifully of warm water, in
order to encourage free vomiting. Such a plan, of course, is only
advisable when the morning sickness is obstinate, and when the
treatment recommended above has failed to afford relief.
349. The morning sickness, during the early months, is caused by
sympathy between the stomach and the womb; and during the latter
months by pressure of the upper part of the womb against the
stomach. As we cannot remove the sympathy and the pressure, we
cannot always relieve the sickness; the patient, therefore, is
sometimes obliged to bear with the annoyance.
350. The bowels ought to be kept gently opened, either by a
Seidlitz powder taken early in the morning, or by one or two
compound rhubarb pills at bedtime, or by the following mixture:
Take of—Carbonate of Magnesia, two drachms;
Sulphate of Magnesia, one ounce;
Peppermint water, seven ounces:
 A wineglassful of this mixture to be taken early in the morning, occasionally,
first shaking the bottle.
351. Great attention ought in such a case to be paid to the diet; it
should be moderate in quantity, and simple in quality. Rich dishes,
highly-seasoned soups and melted butter must be avoided. Hearty
meat suppers ought not on any account to be allowed. There is
nothing better, if anything be taken at night, than either a teacupful
of nicely-made and well-boiled oatmeal gruel, or of arrow-root, or of
Arabica Revalenta. Any of the above may be made either with water,
or with new milk, or with cream and water.
352. It is an old saying, and, I believe as a rule, a true one, “that
sick pregnancies are safe,” more especially if the sickness leaves,
which it generally does, after she has quickened. The above remarks,
of course, do not include obstinate, inveterate vomiting, occasionally
occurring in the latter period of pregnancy, and which not only takes
place in the morning, but during the whole of the day and of the
night, and for weeks together, sometimes bringing a patient to the
brink of the grave. Such a case, fortunately, is extremely rare.
Another old and generally true saying is, “that females who have sick
pregnancies seldom miscarry.”
353. Means to harden the nipples.—A mother, especially with her
first child, sometimes suffers severely from sore nipples. Such
suffering may frequently be prevented, if for six weeks or two months
before her confinement, she were to bathe her nipples, every night
and morning, for five minutes each time, either with eau de Cologne,
or with brandy and water, equal parts of each. The better plan will be
to have the brandy and water in a small bottle ready for use, and
putting a little each time into a teacup, using it fresh and fresh. A soft
piece of fine old linen rag should be used for the purpose of bathing.
All pressure ought to be taken from the nipples; if the stays,
therefore, unduly press them, either let them be enlarged or let them
be entirely removed. The nipples themselves ought to be covered
with a soft linen rag, as the friction of a flannel vest would be apt to
irritate them. Let me recommend every pregnant lady, more
especially in her first pregnancy, to adopt either the one or the other
of the above plans to harden the nipples; it might avert much misery,
as sore nipples are painful and distressing; and prevention at all
times is better than cure.
 354. The breasts are, at times, during pregnancy, much swollen
and very painful; and, now and then, they cause the patient great
uneasiness, as she fancies that she is going to have either some
dreadful tumor or a gathering of the bosom. There need, in such a
case, be no apprehension. The swelling and the pain are the
consequences of the pregnancy, and will in due time subside without
any unpleasant result. The fact is, great changes are taking place in
the breasts; they are developing themselves, and are preparing for
the important functions they will have to perform the moment the
labor is completed.
355. Treatment.—She cannot do better than, every night and
morning, to well rub them with equal parts of eau de Cologne and of
olive oil, and to wear a piece of new flannel over them; taking care to
cover the nipples with soft linen, as the friction of the flannel may
irritate them. The liniment encourages a little milky fluid to ooze out
of the nipple, which will afford relief.
356. If stays be worn, the patient should wear them slack, in order
to allow the bosoms plenty of room to develop themselves. The bones
of the stays ought all to be removed, or serious consequences might
ensue.
357. Bowel complaints, during pregnancy, are not unfrequent. A
dose either of rhubarb and magnesia, or of castor oil, are the best
remedies, and are generally, in the way of medicine, all that is
necessary.
358. The diet at such times ought to be simple, small in quantity,
and nourishing. Farinaceous food, such as rice, tapioca, sago, Du
Barry’s Arabica Revalenta, and arrow-root, are particularly
beneficial. Green vegetables and fruits, especially stone fruits and
uncooked fruits, ought to be avoided.
359. The surface of the body—the bowels and feet particularly—
ought to be kept warm. If a lady suffer habitually from relaxation of
the bowels, let her, by all means, wear a flannel vest next the skin.
360. The bladder.—The patient during pregnancy is liable to
various affections of the bladder. There is sometimes a sluggishness
of that organ, and she has little or no inclination to make water.
There is, at another time, a great irritability of the bladder, and she
is constantly wanting to pass urine; while, in a third case, more
especially toward the latter period of the time, she can scarcely hold
her water at all,—the slightest bodily exertion, such as walking,
stooping, coughing, sneezing, etc., causing it to come away
involuntarily; and even in some cases, where she is perfectly still, it
dribbles away without her having any power to prevent its doing so.
361. A sluggish state of the bladder is best remedied by gentle
exercise, and by the patient attempting, whether she want or not, to
make water at least every four hours.
362. Irritability of the bladder.—The patient ought, during the
day, to drink freely of the following beverage:
Take of—Best Gum Arabic, one ounce;
Pearl Barley, one ounce;
Water, one pint and a half:

Boil for a quarter of an hour, then strain, and sweeten either with sugar candy or
lump sugar.
363. The bowels ought to be gently opened with small doses of
castor oil. The patient must abstain from beer, wine, or spirits, and
should live on a mild, bland, nourishing diet.
364. Where the patient cannot hold her water there is not a great
deal to be done, as the pregnant womb by pressing on the bladder
prevents much present relief. The comfort is, as soon as the labor is
over, it will cure itself. She ought frequently in the day to lie down
either on a horse-hair mattress or on a couch. She should drink but a
moderate quantity of liquid, and if she has a cough (for a cough
greatly increases this inability to hold the water), she ought to take
the following mixture:
Take of—Compound Tincture of Camphor, half an ounce;
Compound Spirits of Lavender, half a drachm;
Oxymel of Squills, six drachms;
Water, six ounces and a half:

Two tablespoonfuls of this mixture to be taken three times a day.

365. Fainting.—A delicate woman, when she is enceinte, is apt
either to feel faint or to actually faint away. When it is considered the
enormous changes that, during pregnancy, take place, and the great
pressure there is upon the nerves and the blood-vessels, it is not at
all surprising that she should do so. There is one consolation, that
although fainting at such times is disagreeable, it is not at all
dangerous, unless the patient be really laboring under a disease of
the heart.
366. Treatment.—If the patient feel faint, she ought immediately
to lie down flat upon her back, without a pillow under her head; that
is to say, her head should be on a level with her body. The stays and
any tight articles of dress—if she has been foolish enough to wear
either tight stays or tight clothes—ought to be loosened; the windows
should be thrown wide open; water ought to be sprinkled on her face;
and sal-volatile—a teaspoonful in a wineglassful of water, or a glass
of wine ought to be administered. Smelling-salts must be applied to
the nostrils. The attendants—there should only be one or two present
—should not crowd around her, as she ought to have plenty of room
to breathe.
367. She must, in the intervals, live on a good, light, generous diet.
She should keep early hours, and ought to sleep in a well-ventilated
apartment. The following strengthening medicine will be found
serviceable:
Take of—Sulphate of Quinine, twelve grains;
Diluted Sulphuric Acid, half a drachm;
Syrup of Orange-peel, half an ounce;
Water, seven ounces and a half:

Two tablespoonfuls of the mixture to be taken three times a day.

If she be delicate, a change either to the country, or, if the railway
journey be not very long, to the coast, will be desirable.
368. A nervous patient during this period is subject to palpitation
of the heart. This palpitation, provided it occur only during
pregnancy, is not dangerous; it need therefore cause no alarm. It is
occasioned by the pressure of the pregnant womb upon the large
blood-vessels, which induces a temporary derangement of the heart’s
action. This palpitation is generally worse at night, when the patient
is lying down. There is, at these times, from the position, greater
pressure on the blood-vessels. Moreover, when she is lying down, the
midriff, in consequence of the increased size of the belly, is pressed
upward, and hence the heart has not its accustomed room to work in,
and palpitation is in consequence the result.
 369. The best remedies will be either half a teaspoonful of
compound spirits of lavender or a teaspoonful of sal-volatile in a
wineglassful of camphor julep,[68] or a combination of lavender and
of sal-volatile:
Take of—Compound Spirits of Lavender, one drachm;
Sal-Volatile, eleven drachms:

Mix.—A teaspoonful of the drops to be taken occasionally in a wineglassful of

water.
370. These medicines ought to lie on a table by the bedside of the
patient, in order that they may, if necessary, be administered at once.
Brandy is in these cases sometimes given, but it is a dangerous
remedy to administer every time there is palpitation; while the
lavender and the sal-volatile are perfectly safe medicines, and can
never do the slightest harm.
371. Mental emotion, fatigue, late hours, and close rooms ought to
be guarded against. Gentle out-door exercise, and cheerful but not
boisterous company are desirable.
372. Cramps of the legs and of the thighs during the latter period,
and especially at night, are apt to attend pregnancy, and are caused
by the womb pressing upon the nerves which extend to the lower
extremities. Treatment.—Tightly tie a handkerchief folded like a
neckerchief round the limb a little above the part affected, and let it
remain on for a few minutes. Friction by means of the hand either
with opodeldoc or with laudanum (taking care not to drink it by
mistake) will also give relief. Cramp sometimes attacks either the
bowels or the back of a pregnant woman; when such is the case, let a
bag of hot salt, or a hot-water bag,[69] or a tin stomach warmer filled
with hot water and covered with flannel, or a stone bottle containing
hot water, wrapped in flannel, be applied over the part affected; and
let either a stone bottle of hot water or a hot brick, which should be
incased in flannel, be placed to the soles of the feet. If the cramp of
the bowels, of the back, or of the thighs be very severe, the following
mixture will be serviceable:
Take of—Compound Tincture of Camphor, one ounce;
Dill Water, five ounces:
 A wineglassful of this mixture to be taken at bedtime occasionally, and to be
repeated, if necessary, in four hours.
373. “The whites,” during pregnancy, especially during the latter
months, and particularly if the lady has had many children, are
frequently troublesome, and are, in a measure, owing to the pressure
of the womb on the parts below causing irritation. The best way,
therefore, to obviate such pressure, is for the patient to lie down a
great part of each day either on a bed or on a sofa.
374. She ought to retire early to rest; she should sleep on a horse-
hair mattress and in a well-ventilated apartment, and she must not
overload her bed with clothes. A thick, heavy quilt at these times, and
indeed at all times, is particularly objectionable; the perspiration
cannot pass readily through it as through blankets, and thus she is
weakened. She ought to live on plain, wholesome, nourishing food;
but she must abstain from beer and wine and spirits. The bowels
ought to be gently opened by means of a Seidlitz powder, which
should occasionally be taken early in the morning.
375. The best application will be, to bathe the parts with warm
fuller’s earth and water, in the proportion of a handful of powdered
fuller’s earth to half a wash-hand-basinful of warm water; and the
internal parts ought, night and morning, to be bathed with it. If the
fuller’s earth should not have the desired effect, an alum injection[70]
ought, every night and morning, by means of an india-rubber vaginal
syringe,[71] to be syringed up the parts; or fifteen drops of solution of
diacetate of lead should be added to a quarter of a pint of lukewarm
water, and be used in a similar manner as the alum injection.
376. Cleanliness, in these cases, cannot be too strongly urged.
Indeed, every woman, either married or single, ought, unless special
circumstances forbid, to use either the bidet or a sitz-bath. If she has
not the “whites,” or if she has them only slightly, cold, quite cold
water is preferable to tepid. I should advise, then, every lady, both
married and single, whether she has the “whites” or not, a regular
sitz-bath[72] every morning (except during her “poorly times”)—that
is to say, I should recommend her to sit every morning in the water
(in cold water) for a few seconds, or while she can count a hundred;
throwing the while either a small blanket or shawl over her
shoulders, but having no other clothing on except slippers on her
feet. She should, for the first few mornings, make the water
lukewarm; but the sooner she can use it cold—quite cold—the more
good it will do her.
377. If the above plan were more generally followed, women of all
classes and ages would derive immense benefit from its adoption,
and many serious diseases would be warded off. Besides, the use of
the sitz-bath, after a time, would be a great comfort and enjoyment.
378. Where a lady suffers severely from the “whites,” she ought to
visit the coast. There is nothing in such cases that generally affords
so much relief as the bracing effects of sea-air. Of course, if she be
pregnant, she ought not to bathe in the sea, but should, every night
and morning, bathe the external parts with sea water.
379. When the patient has been much weakened by the “whites,”
she will derive benefit from a quinine mixture[73]—a dose of which
ought to be taken twice or three times a day.
380. Irritation and itching of the external parts.—This is a most
troublesome affection, and may occur at any time, but more
especially during the latter period of the pregnancy; and as it is a
subject that a lady is too delicate and too sensitive to consult a
medical man about, I think it well to lay down a few rules for her
relief. The misery it entails, if not relieved, is almost past endurance.
381. Well, then, in the first place, let her diet be simple and
nourishing; let her avoid stimulants of all kinds. In the next place,
and this is a most important item of treatment, let her use a tepid
salt and water sitz-bath.[74]
382. The way to prepare the bath is to put a large handful of table
salt into the sitz-bath, then to add cold water to the depth of three or
four inches, and sufficient hot water to make the water tepid or
lukewarm. The patient must sit in the bath; her slippered feet being,
of course, out of the water, and on the ground, and either a woolen
shawl or a small blanket being thrown over her shoulders: which
shawl or blanket ought to be the only covering she has on the while.
She should remain only for a few seconds, or while she can count, in
the winter, fifty, or the summer, a hundred, in the bath. Patients
generally derive great comfort and benefit from these salt and water
sitz-baths.
383. If the itching, during the daytime, continue, the following
lotion ought to be used:
 Take of—Solution of Diacetate of Lead, one drachm;
Rectified Spirits of Wine, one drachm;
Distilled Water, one pint:

To make a lotion. The parts affected to be bathed three or four times a day with
the lotion. Or the parts may be bathed two or three times a day with equal
parts of vinegar and water.
384. The external parts, and the passage to the womb (the vagina),
in these cases, are not only irritable and itching, but are sometimes
hot and inflamed, and are covered either with small pimples, or
with a whitish exudation of the nature of aphtha (thrush), somewhat
similar to the thrush on the mouth of an infant; then the addition of
glycerin to the lotion is a great improvement, and usually gives
immense relief. Either of the following is a good lotion for the
purpose:
Take of—Biborate of Soda, eight drachms;
Glycerin five ounces;
Distilled Water, ten ounces:

To make a lotion. The part affected to be bathed every four hours with the lotion,
first shaking the bottle.
Or,
Take of—Solution of Diacetate of Lead,
Rectified Spirits of Wine, of each, one drachm;
Glycerin, five ounces;
Rose Water, ten ounces and a half:

To make a lotion. To be used in the same manner as the preceding one.

MISCARRIAGE.

385. If a premature expulsion of the child occur before the end of

the seventh month, it is called either a miscarriage or an abortion; if
between the seventh month and before the full period of nine
months, a premature labor.
386. There is a proneness for a young wife to miscarry, and woe
betide her, if she once establish the habit! for it, unfortunately, often
becomes a habit. A miscarriage is a serious calamity, and should be
considered in that light; not only to the mother herself, whose
constitution frequent miscarriages might seriously injure, and
eventually ruin; but it might rob the wife of one of her greatest
earthly privileges, the inestimable pleasure and delight of being a
mother!
387. Now, as a miscarriage may generally be prevented, it
behooves a wife to look well into the matter, and to study the subject
thoroughly for herself, in order to guard against her first
miscarriage; for the first miscarriage is the one that frequently leads
to a series. How necessary it is that the above important fact should
be borne in mind! How much misery might be averted; as, then,
means would, by avoiding the usual causes, be taken to ward off such
an awful calamity. I am quite convinced that in the majority of cases,
miscarriages may be prevented.
388. Hence the importance of a popular work of this kind, to point
out dangers, to give judicious advice, that a wife may read, ponder
over, and “inwardly digest,” and that she may see the folly of the
present practices that wives—young wives especially—usually
indulge in, and thus, that she may avoid the rocks they split on,
which make a shipwreck of their most cherished hopes and
treasures.
389. Let it then be thoroughly understood,—first, that a
miscarriage is very weakening—more weakening than a labor; and,
secondly, that if a lady has once miscarried, she is more likely to
miscarry again and again; until, at length, her constitution is broken,
and the chances of her having a child become small indeed!
390. Causes.—A slight cause will frequently occasion the
separation of the child from the mother, and the consequent death
and expulsion of the fœtus; hence the readiness with which a lady
sometimes miscarries. The following are the most common causes of
a young wife miscarrying: Taking long walks; riding on horseback; or
over rough roads in a carriage; a long railway journey; overexerting
herself, and sitting up late at night. Her mind, just after marriage, is
frequently too much excited by large parties, by balls, and concerts.
391. The following are, moreover, frequent causes of a miscarriage:
Falls; all violent emotions of the mind, passion, fright, etc.; fatigue;
overreaching; sudden shocks; taking a wrong step either in
ascending or in descending stairs; falling down stairs; lifting heavy
weights; violent drastic purgatives; calomel; obstinate constipation;
debility of constitution; consumptive habit of body; fashionable
amusements; dancing; late hours; tight lacing; indeed, anything and
everything that injuriously affects either the mind or the body.
392. The old maxim that “prevention is better than cure” is well
exemplified in the case of a miscarriage. Let me, then, appeal
strongly to my fair reader to do all that she can, by avoiding the usual
causes of a miscarriage which I have above enumerated, to prevent
such a catastrophe. A miscarriage is no trifling matter; it is one of the
most grievous accidents that can occur to a wife, and is truly a
catastrophe.
393. Threatening or warning symptoms of a miscarriage.—A
lady about to miscarry usually, for one or two days, experiences a
feeling of lassitude, of debility, of malaise, and depression of spirits;
she feels as though she were going to be taken “poorly;” she
complains of weakness and of uneasiness about the loins, the hips,
the thighs, and the lower part of the belly. This is an important stage
of the case, and one in which a judicious medical man may, almost to
a certainty, be able to stave off a miscarriage.
394. More serious, but still only threatening symptoms of a
miscarriage.—If the above symptoms are allowed to proceed,
unchecked and untended, she will, after a day or two, have a slight
show of blood; this show may soon increase to a flooding, which will
shortly become clotted. Then, perhaps, she begins for the first time
to dread a miscarriage! There may at this time be but little pain, and
the miscarriage might, with judicious treatment, be even now
warded off. At all events, if the miscarriage cannot be prevented, the
ill effects to her constitution may, with care, be palliated, and means
may be used to prevent a future miscarriage.
395. Decided symptoms of a miscarriage.—If the miscarriage be
still proceeding, a new train of symptoms develop themselves; pains
begin to come on, at first slight, irregular, and of a “grinding” nature,
but which soon become more severe, regular, and “bearing down.”
Indeed, the case is now a labor in miniature; it becomes le
commencement de la fin; the patient is sure to miscarry, as the child
is now dead, and separated from its connection with the mother.
396. The most usual time for a lady to miscarry is from the eighth
to the twelfth week. It is not, of course, confined to this period, as
during the whole time of pregnancy there is a chance of a premature
expulsion of the contents of the womb. A miscarriage before the
fourth month is at the time attended with little danger; although, if
neglected, it may forever injure the constitution.
397. There is, in every miscarriage, more or less of flooding, which
is the most important symptom. After the fourth month it is
accompanied with more risk; as the further a lady is advanced in her
pregnancy, the greater is the danger of increased flooding;
notwithstanding, under judicious treatment, there is every chance of
her doing well.
398. A medical man ought in such a case always to be sent for.
There is as much care required in a miscarriage as, or more than, in a
labor.
399. If bearing down, expulsive pains—similar to labor pains—
should accompany the flooding; if the flooding increase, and if large
clots come away; if the breasts become smaller and softer; if there be
coldness, and heaviness, and diminution in the size of the belly; if the
motion of the child (the patient having quickened) cannot be felt; if
there be “the impression of a heavy mass rolling about the uterus
[womb], or the falling of the uterine tumor from side to side in the
abdomen [belly] as the patient changes her position;”[75] and if there
be an unpleasant discharge, she may rest assured that the child is
dead, and that it is separated from all connection with her, and that
the miscarriage must proceed, it being only a question of time. Of
course, in such a case—if she has not already done so—she ought
immediately to send for a medical man. A miscarriage sometimes
begins and ends in a few days—five or six; it at other times continues
a fortnight, and even in some cases three weeks.
400. Treatment.—If a patient has the slightest “show,” she ought
immediately to confine herself either to a sofa or she should keep in
bed. A soft feather bed must be avoided; it both enervates the body
and predisposes to a miscarriage. There is nothing better for her to
sleep on than a horse-hair mattress. She either ought to lie flat upon
her back or should lie upon her side, as it is quite absurd for her
merely to rest her legs and feet, as it is the back and the belly, not the
feet and the legs, that require rest.
401. Let her put herself on a low diet, such as on arrow-root,
tapioca, sago, gruel, chicken-broth, tea, toast and water, and
lemonade; and whatever she does drink ought, during the time of the
miscarriage, to be cold. Grapes, at these times, are cooling and
refreshing.
402. The temperature of the bedroom should be kept cool; and, if
it be summer, the window ought to be thrown open; aperient
medicines must be avoided; and if the flooding be violent, cold water
should be applied externally to the parts.
403. Let me strongly urge upon the patient the vast importance of
preserving any and every substance that might come away, in order
that it may be carefully examined by the medical man.
404. It is utterly impossible for a doctor to declare positively that a
lady has miscarried, and that all has properly come away, if he have
not had an opportunity of examining the substances for himself.
How often has a lady declared to her medical man that she has
miscarried, when she has only parted with clots of blood! Clots
sometimes put on strange appearances, and require a practiced and
professional eye to decide at all times upon what they really are.
405. The same care is required after a miscarriage as after a
labor; indeed, a patient requires to be treated much in the same
manner—that is to say, she ought for a few days to keep her bed, and
should live upon the diet I have recommended after a confinement,
avoiding for the first few days stimulants of all kinds. Many women
date their ill state of health to a neglected miscarriage; it therefore
behooves a lady to guard against such a catastrophe.
406. A patient prone to miscarry, ought, before she become
pregnant again, to use every means to brace and strengthen her
system. The best plan that she can adopt will be TO LEAVE HER
HUSBAND FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, and go to some healthy spot; neither to
a fashionable watering-place nor to a friend’s house, where much
company is kept, but to some quiet country place; if to a healthy
farm-house so much the better.
407. Early hours are quite indispensable. She ought to lie on a
horse-hair mattress, and should have but scant clothing on the bed.
She must sleep in a well-ventilated apartment. Her diet should be
light and nourishing. Gentle exercise ought to be taken, which should
alternate with frequent rest.
 408. Cold ablutions ought every morning to be used, and the body
should be afterward dried with a coarse cloth. If it be winter, let the
water be made tepid and let its temperature be gradually lowered
until it be used quite cold. A shower-bath is, in these cases,
serviceable; it braces and invigorates the system, and is one of the
best tonics that she can use.
409. If she be already pregnant it would not be admissible, as the
shock of the shower-bath would be too great, and may bring on a
miscarriage; but still she ought to continue the cold ablutions.
410. A lady who is prone to miscarry, ought, as soon as she is
pregnant, to lie down a great part of every day; she must keep her
mind calm and unruffled; she should live on a plain diet; she ought
to avoid wine and spirits and beer; she should retire early to rest,
and she must have a separate sleeping apartment. She ought as
much as possible to abstain from taking opening medicine; and if she
be actually obliged to take an aperient—for the bowels must not be
allowed to be constipated—she should select the mildest (such as
either castor oil or lenitive electuary or syrup of senna), and even of
these she ought not to take a larger dose than is absolutely necessary,
as a free action of the bowels is a frequent cause of a miscarriage.
411. The external application of castor oil as a liniment, and as
recommended at page 144, is a good and safe remedy for a patient
prone to miscarry; and if sufficiently active, is far preferable to the
mildest aperient. Another great advantage of the external application
of castor oil is, it does not afterward produce constipation as the
internal administration of castor oil is apt to do. If the external
application of castor oil in the manner advised at page 144 should
not have the desired effect, then an enema—a clyster of warm water,
a pint—ought, in the morning, two or three times a week to be
administered.
412. Gentle walking exercise daily is desirable: long walks and
horseback exercise ought to be sedulously avoided. A trip to the
coast, provided the railway journey be not very long, would be likely
to prevent a miscarriage; although I would not, on any account,
recommend such a patient either to bathe or to sail on the water, as
the shock of the former would be too great, and the motion of the
vessel and the sea-sickness would be likely to bring on what we are
anxious to avoid.
 413. As the usual period for miscarrying approaches (for it
frequently comes on at one particular time), let the patient be more
than usually careful; let her lie down the greatest part of the day; let
her mind be kept calm and unruffled; let all fashionable society and
every exciting amusement be eschewed; let both the sitting and the
sleeping apartments be kept cool and well ventilated; let the bowels
(if they be costive) be opened by an enema (if the external
application of castor oil, as before recommended, be not sufficient);
let the diet be simple and yet be nourishing; let all stimulants, such
as beer, wine, and spirits, be at this time avoided; and if there be the
slightest symptoms of an approaching miscarriage, such as pains in
the loins, in the hips, or in the lower belly, or if there be the slightest
show of blood, let a medical man be instantly sent for, as he may, at
an early period, be able to ward off the threatened mishap.

FALSE LABOR PAINS.

414. A lady, especially in her first pregnancy, is sometimes

troubled with spurious labor pains; these pains usually come on at
night, and are frequently owing to a disordered stomach. They affect
the belly, the back, and the loins; and occasionally they extend down
the hips and the thighs. They attack first one place and then another;
they come on at irregular intervals; at one time they are violent, at
another they are feeble. The pains, instead of being grinding or
bearing down, are more of a colicky nature.
415. Now, as these false pains more frequently occur in a first
pregnancy, and as they are often more violent two or three weeks
toward the completion of the full time, and as they usually come on
either at night or in the night, it behooves both the patient and the
monthly nurse to be cognizant of the fact, in order that they may not
make a false alarm and summon the doctor before he is wanted, and
when he cannot be of the slightest benefit to the patient.
416. It is sometimes stated that a woman has been in labor two or
three weeks before the child was born! Such is not the fact. The case
in question is one probably of false pains ending in true pains.
417. How, then, is the patient to know that the pains are false and
not true labor pains? False labor pains come on three or four weeks