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For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts' Advice to Women

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Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich, Deirdre English
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$12.95~~
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Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.9

ISBN: 0385126514
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.420973
EAN: 9780385126519
ASIN: 0385126514

Publication Date: June 30, 1989
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Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read - Recycle - Reuse!

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
This dense, well-argued classic underscores the need to take expert advice with a shaker of salt. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English ably show that many experts gleefully hammer recalcitrant souls into a shape acceptable to society, rather than encouraging people to find their own way. The book plunges into 150 years of misbegotten advice to women and questionable insights into feminine nature that have many modern parallels. In the service of better living through science, women have undergone deprivational rest cures that most war rules would disallow, submitted to surgical bludgeoning of ovaries and uterus to quell a list of unladylike behaviors, and humbly followed childcare advice that amounted to abuse. Though slanted by its bent toward worst cases and offenses against only one sex, it offers much to mull over for hopeful seekers of mix-and-bake directions for a better life.

Product Description
A provocative new perspective on female history, the history of American medicine and psychology, and the history of child-rearing unlike any other.

Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Read it! October 7, 2003
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

This book offers insight into our everyday lives - turned and twisted, yet redily accepted without questions. Very detailed and informative, the authors provide us with an objective historic prospective coupled with a passionate rhetoric of disbelief. Read it! Learn from it!

5 out of 5 stars

Couldn't put it down August 19, 2001
26 out of 26 found this review helpful

I am fascinated by For her own good. I had heard of some outrageous treatments prescribed to women in the past, but this book gives a broader view of the social and economic movements of the past 150 years and how they affected women. I had never imagined that science would betray women, becoming an instrument of their subordination! I was revolted by the arrogance and obtusity of some experts as portrayed in this book. As a college student, how could I not be outraged by reading that she [woman] has a head almost too small for intellect but just big enough for love (from a 1849 obstetrics text) ??? p One cannot help wondering, after reading this book, whether women are finally free to shape their own destiny and role in society. It would be great, indeed, to see an updated edition of this excellent book.

3 out of 5 stars

not bad, but for from comprehensive study June 24, 2001
8 out of 40 found this review helpful

This book is interesting since it gives histroical perspective of evolution of certain beleifs about women which are unfortunately still present. However, I was hoping for a book which would go into more detail on different treeatment of women by medical community. It is still too common that for example endometriosis sufferer in extreme pain visits a gyn only to be told that it is all in her head. Episiotomies are still performed without consent even against woman's explicit wishes with no medical justification, which makes it unique medical procedure. Also, some historical facts are oversimplified and book is a bit biased. As a woman and as a scientist, I could not consider this book objective. I do research in male dominated field, and of course I have encountered problems due to being a woman. But nevertheless when I read some (not all) feminist literature I often wonder what do these women want. It seems to me that they are after not equal rights but special treatment.

5 out of 5 stars

After 20 years, I still think about this book. May 14, 2001
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

I read For Her Own Good in college but this book still sticks with me. It's funny, because I haven't gone back to reread it. Yet the historical perspectives it had given me has allowed me to be more thoughtfully critical of the articles I read now and the decisions I make with my own health.pI am surprised with the one reviewer who is so dismissive. I wonder if his is a case of Flat-Earth syndrome or paranoia. Certainly this book has a point of view and is not neutral, but the facts are valid. Misperceptions as to women's health existed in the past, and perceptions are still evolving to best of our collective abilities.pI found this book fun and fabulous. Fun because history can be surprisingly shocking. And fabulous because the viceral reaction I had to it and how it has sharpened my awareness of what is said or believed in the name or science.

1 out of 5 stars

Laughable December 8, 2000
2 out of 142 found this review helpful

Well it would be laughable if it weren't for all the women who will read this book, and accept anything in the book as fact. What utter nonsense.

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