Reproductive Wrongs

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 Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women, by Sarah Ruden

I've really liked what I've read of Sarah Ruden in the past, so I was looking forward to this book!  Ruden is a classicist/historian/translator, and also a Quaker, and she often focuses on the intersection of Christianity and classicist discipline -- territory few have dared to tread.

This work is a survey of 'bad ideas about women,' especially about child-bearing, through Western history, studied through seven texts:

  • Poetry of Ovid
  • Timothy and Titus 
  • St. Augustine
  • Malleus Maleficarum
  • Dickens, especially "The Chimes"
  • Eugenics texts!
  • Gianna 

Super-interesting, quite depressing and rage-inducing, but enlightening. Best chapter was definitely the one on witch-hunting and the Malleus Maleficarum. 

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