Key Points
Research has shown that women were increasingly being taken seriously as healers and as bearers of wisdom about womens bodies and health..
But despite this, men were preferred while women faced restrictions...
While women were largely responsible for childbirth advice within informal networks (as womens naked bodies and anatomy were frequently obscured from mens eyes), they did not have access to the medical texts that men did...
The other responds: I too have often been distressed because I am unable to carry a conceived child.. While medieval women did not have the authority or status of trained medical professionals, some, especially in the upper classes, put together recipes for health and wellbeing..
I see these informal networks, whether operating discreetly in real life or in messaging groups such as Whatsapp, as a form of resistance a safer, supportive and more egalitarian space than institutionalised medical spaces, where womens conditions and ailments can be ignored or dismissed...
