Kreis on Regulating Reproduction in Redeemer Georgia

Anthony Michael Kreis, Georgia State University College of Law, has posted Sex and Control in Redeemer Georgia, which is forthcoming in the Georgia State University Law Review:

This essay explores the interplay of history, law, and morality behind the first abortion law in Georgia. Examining the philosophical underpinnings of liberty and equality as articulated in Georgia's constitutional history through time, the essay highlights the moral contradictions inherent in the legal frameworks of Reconstruction Georgia. The origin of Georgia's 1876 abortion law contains multitudes-rooted in race-based contestations for political power, the sociological evolution of medical practice, and evolving attitudes on individual rights. At times, white elites used abortion to attack Yankee culture and stir up racist fears about moral contagion associated with Radical Republicans. To this end, when read against political time, the campaign to regulate motherhood and criminalize reproductive choice was not simply grounded in morality claims about protecting fetal life-a significant theme in the mid-nineteenth century campaign against abortion nationally-but also about enforcing other race and sex crimes and controlling the freedperson labor force in an era of political uncertainty and constitutional upheaval. Abortion surfaced as a political issue in Georgia at a time and in a manner that makes it inextricably linked to the politics of Reconstruction and Redemption.

--Dan Ernst

Chase Lecture and Symposium on the 19th Amendment

ICYMI: the presentations at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution’s Seventh Annual Salmon P. Chase Distinguished Lecture and Faculty Colloquium have been published in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 20:1 (Winter 2022) as the symposium, "Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment."  The centerpiece is Martha S. Jones's Chase lecture, "Thick Women and the Thin."  The other papers were “The Politics of Constitutional Memory” by Reva B. Siegel; “Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, and the Nineteenth Amendment” by Ellen D. Katz; “Gender, Voting Rights, and the Nineteenth Amendment” by Paula A. Monopoli; and “Revisiting Justice George Sutherland, the Nineteenth Amendment, and Equal Rights for Women” by David E. Bernstein.  In his contribution, Professor Bernstein notes that Justice Sutherland's wife, Rosamond Lee Sutherland, was “a strong public supporter of women's suffrage” and ventures that she “may have influenced her husband’s perspective regarding women’s rights.”

--Dan Ernst

Bachiochi, "The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision"

Notre Dame Press has published The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, by Erika Bachiochi (Ethics and Public Policy Center / Abigail Adams Institute). A description from the Press:

In The Rights of Women, Erika Bachiochi explores the development of feminist thought in the United States. Inspired by the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Bachiochi presents the intellectual history of a lost vision of women’s rights, seamlessly weaving philosophical insight, biographical portraits, and constitutional law to showcase the once predominant view that our rights properly rest upon our concrete responsibilities to God, self, family, and community.

Bachiochi proposes a philosophical and legal framework for rights that builds on the communitarian tradition of feminist thought as seen in the work of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Drawing on the insight of prominent figures such as Sarah Grimké, Frances Willard, Florence Kelley, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Mary Ann Glendon, this book is unique in its treatment of the moral roots of women’s rights in America and its critique of the movement’s current trajectory. The Rights of Women provides a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern political insight that locates the family’s vital work at the very center of personal and political self-government. Bachiochi demonstrates that when rights are properly understood as a civil and political apparatus born of the natural duties we owe to one another, they make more visible our personal responsibilities and more viable our common life together.

This smart and sophisticated application of Wollstonecraft’s thought will serve as a guide for how we might better value the culturally essential work of the home and thereby promote authentic personal and political freedom. The Rights of Women will interest students and scholars of political theory, gender and women’s studies, constitutional law, and all readers interested in women’s rights.

Advance praise:

"Bachiochi adds an important new voice to the conversation criticizing the nation’s turn to revering market profit and the freedom to be left alone above all else. Feminists may not agree with all of her critique of contemporary feminism, but they would do well to engage with her powerful argument that conceptualizing the movement’s goal as sex equality in the workplace is too narrow." —Maxine Eichner

“Rights cannot flourish alone. They need to be embedded in a thicker moral context that gives voice to the goods that they should serve, the social duties that govern their exercise, and the virtues that enable respect for them. In this book, Erika Bachiochi recovers a tradition of thought about women’s rights that fully recognizes this and, with Mary Wollstonecraft at one end and Mary Ann Glendon at the other, offers an important, salutary correction, not only to libertarian feminism in particular but also to contemporary rights-talk in general.” —Nigel Biggar,

More information is available here. You can listen to an interview with the author here, at New Books Network.

-- Karen Tani

DeWolf, "Gendered Citizenship The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920–1963"

The University of Nebraska Press has released Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920–1963, by Rebecca DeWolf. A description from the Press:

By engaging deeply with American legal and political history as well as the increasingly rich material on gender history, Gendered Citizenship illuminates the ideological contours of the original struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) from 1920 to 1963. As the first comprehensive, full-length history of that struggle, this study grapples not only with the battle over women’s constitutional status but also with the more than forty-year mission to articulate the boundaries of what it means to be an American citizen.

Through an examination of an array of primary source materials, Gendered Citizenship contends that the original ERA conflict is best understood as the terrain that allowed Americans to reconceptualize citizenship to correspond with women’s changing status after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Finally, Rebecca DeWolf considers the struggle over the ERA in a new light: focusing not on the familiar theme of why the ERA failed to gain enactment, but on how the debates transcended traditional liberal versus conservative disputes in early to mid-twentieth-century America. The conflict, DeWolf reveals, ultimately became the defining narrative for the changing nature of American citizenship in the era.

Advance praise:

“Like the sun peeking through the clouds, Rebecca DeWolf’s groundbreaking book clears the fog that has long surrounded the Equal Rights Amendment. . . . Anyone who wants to understand why the ERA is not yet law would be well advised to read this book.”—Johanna Neuman

“Rebecca DeWolf has brought us a meticulously researched and vividly detailed account of the original ERA conflict that provides readers with rich context to trace how the arguments against gender equality of nearly a century ago continue to shape our cultural attitudes about the role and duties of women in the domestic sphere today.”—Betsy Fischer Martin

More information is available here.

-- Karen Tani

Weekend Roundup

• "Federal Trials and Great Debates in U.S. History: Judicial Independence is part of the [Federal Judicial Center and American Bar Association's] joint programming promoting the teaching and public understanding of judicial history. This series discusses the history of judicial independence and examines three key cases: Marbury v. Madison (1803), Ex parte McCardle (1869), and City of Boerne v. Flores (1997).
  

• 
   In Citadels of Pride: Sexual Assault, Accountability, and Reconciliation (W.W. Norton), Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, argues that “three areas of employment—the federal judiciary, performing arts, and college sports—created ‘sweet spots’ for abuse by elevating and protecting powerful men.” In addition to case studies, the book provides an account of “the applicable legal history, including criminal legal reforms at the state level and the impact of Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”  (More.)
  

• Now available: The Impeachments of Donald Trump: An Introduction to Constitutional Interpretation (West Academic), by Victoria F. Nourse, Georgetown Law.
  

• Congratulations, Virginia Torrie (Manitoba).  RIP, Stephen L Wasby (University of Albany-SUNY).

• From the Washington Post's "Made by History" section: Anya Jabour (University of Montana), "Claims of protecting sex workers have long been used to punish them"; Ehren Foley (University of South Carolina Press), "The historical preservation law that obscures history"; and Robin Feldman on our "broken" patent system.

• ICYMI: Ashton Merck on Richard Nixon, Robert H. Dick, and the Federal Tea-Tasting Commission (Contingent).  HLS faculty who testified before the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court (Harvard Law Today).
  

Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

Nadal, "Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System​"

Lexington Books has published Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System​ (2020), by Kevin L. Nadal (John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Graduate Center at the City University of New York). A description from the Press:

Throughout US history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of lynching, burning, or murdering of LGBTQ people have been documented for centuries. Prior to the 1970s, LGBTQ people were deemed as having psychological disorders and subsequently subject to electroshock therapy and other ineffective and cruel treatments. LGBTQ people have historically been arrested or imprisoned for crimes like sodomy, cross-dressing, and gathering in public spaces. And while there have been many strides to advocate for LGBTQ rights in contemporary times, there are still many ways that the criminal justice system works against LGBTQ and their lives, liberties, and freedoms.

Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System examines the state of LGBTQ people within the criminal justice system. Intertwining legal cases, academic research, and popular media, Nadal reviews a wide range of issues—ranging from historical heterosexist and transphobic legislation to police brutality to the prison industrial complex to family law. Grounded in Queer Theory and intersectional lenses, each chapter provides recommendations for queering and disrupting the justice system. This book serves as both an academic resource and a call to action for readers who are interested in advocating for LGBTQ rights.

Advance praise:

"Queering Law and Order is the most comprehensive review of the justice system and its effects on LGBTQ communities to date. It is informative, insightful, and thought-provoking, mixing stories and data to help bring to life the many instances that the criminal justice system has failed sexual minorities. Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal is able to show again and again how sexual minorities have suffered at the hands of an unjust criminal justice system. He does an outstanding job of weaving together a cohesive narrative that articulates what many of us suspected—we need to be more skeptical and critical of our justice system." — Roddrick Colvin

More information is available here. H/t: New Books Network.

-- Karen Tani

Bradley and Rowland on women's access to law in England

 Kate Bradley (University of Kent) and Sophie Rowland (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) have published "A poor woman's lawyer? Feminism, the labour movement, and working-class women's access to the law in England, 1890-1935," Women's History Review (17 Aug. 2020). Here's the abstract: 

Women were excluded from both branches of the legal profession before the Sex Discrimination (Removal) Act 1919. Whilst campaigning for women's entry to the law was also part of wider efforts to make the law more accessible. Before and after the 1919 Act, middle-class women were able to offer legal support to working-class women, through feminist and trade unionist networks and the professions that were open to them—factory inspection and social work. By examining key women’s organisations between the 1890s and 1930s, we trace the development of work to both educate women and girls on their legal rights and to directly tackle problems and breaches of the law. We argue that, by looking at the legal activism of women in the factory inspectorate, social work, trade union and women's organisations, fresh insight into the development and ‘mainstreaming’ of working-class claims on citizenship in the early twentieth century can be found.

Further information is available here.

--Mitra Sharafi 

Marino on feminism as international human rights movement

 Katherine M. Marino (UCLA) published Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement with the University of North Carolina Press in 2019.

From the publisher: 

This book chronicles the dawn of the global movement for women's rights in the first decades of the twentieth century. The founding mothers of this movement were not based primarily in the United States, however, or in Europe. Instead, Katherine M. Marino introduces readers to a cast of remarkable Latin American and Caribbean women whose deep friendships and intense rivalries forged global feminism out of an era of imperialism, racism, and fascism. Six dynamic activists form the heart of this story: from Brazil, Bertha Lutz; from Cuba, Ofelia Domíngez Navarro; from Uruguay, Paulina Luisi; from Panama, Clara González; from Chile, Marta Vergara; and from the United States, Doris Stevens. This Pan-American network drove a transnational movement that advocated women’s suffrage, equal pay for equal work, maternity rights, and broader self-determination. Their painstaking efforts led to the enshrinement of women's rights in the United Nations Charter and the development of a framework for international human rights. But their work also revealed deep divides, with Latin American activists overcoming U.S. presumptions to feminist superiority. As Marino shows, these early fractures continue to influence divisions among today’s activists along class, racial, and national lines.

Marino's multinational and multilingual research yields a new narrative for the creation of global feminism. The leading women introduced here were forerunners in understanding the power relations at the heart of international affairs. Their drive to enshrine fundamental rights for women, children, and all people of the world stands as a testament to what can be accomplished when global thinking meets local action.

 Praise for the book:

“In this valuable contribution to the historiography of social movements in the Americas, Marino chronicles the impact of the women’s movement of leaders from six countries--Uruguay, Brazil, Panama, Cuba, the US, and Chile--in the interwar years . . . Marino successfully demonstrates that this was a vital period in Pan-American relations.”--Choice Reviews

“A brilliant and ambitious new account of the origins of global feminism . . . . Feminism for the Americas reconstructs a radical, transnational, and influential movement for women’s equality and social justice.”--International Feminist Journal of Politics

“The best book on Western Hemispheric feminism in at least two decades. . . . A necessary starting point for anyone contemplating research on inter-American feminism. . . . Marino has given us a masterpiece.”--Hispanic American Historical Review

The book has also won several book prizes, including the Ida Blom-Karen Offen Prize (International Federation for Research in Women's History), the 2020 Luciano Tomassini Book Award (Latin American Studies Association), and the 2020 Barbara "Penny" Kanner Award (Western Association of Women Historians).

Further information is available here. 

--Mitra Sharafi

Weekend Roundup

• The Organization of American Historians has cancelled its annual meeting. But you can still skim the excellent program that the organizers put together. Margot Canaday (Princeton University) and Craig Steven Wilder (MIT) co-chaired the program committee. AND, if you were scheduled to present, check out this invitation (via Twitter) from The Docket (the online companion to the Law & History Review): "We’re sad about all that awesome #legalhistory scholarship that was going to be at #OAH20 and we’d like to be of service. The Docket will publish abstracts, full papers, etc. for any law, policy, or politics related OAH panel!" 

• Two recent op-eds by Felicia Kornbluh (University of Vermont): "Will the Court Ignore Past Rulings in Its Zeal to Demolish Abortion Rights?" (American Prospect) and "The abortion issue is back in the Supreme Court. What would my mother, and Jewish feminists of her generation, think?" (Forward).

• From Process, the blog of the Organization of American Historians, Greg Ablavsky (Stanford Law) writes about his recent Journal of American History article “Species of Sovereignty: Native Nationhood, the United States, and International Law, 1783–1795.

• For those who have moved to online teaching, Twitter is filled with good resources right now. For example, Aimi Hamraie (Vanderbilt University) tweeted out an excellent guide to "accessible teaching in the time of COVID-19," tapping into some hard-won wisdom from "disabled culture and community." 

• Law and History Review and Cambridge Core have posted two new articles: “Precocious Girls”: Age of Consent, Class and Family in Late Nineteenth-Century England, by Laura Lammasniemi, and Vernacularizing Justice: Age of Consent and a Legal History of the British Empire, by Ishita Pande. 

• Reuel E. Schiller has published “Regulation and the Collapse of the New Deal Order, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market,” in Beyond the New Deal Order: U.S. Politics from the Great Depression to the Great Recession, ed. Gerstle, Lichtenstein, and O’Connor (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).

• From the Washington Post's "Made by History" section: Elisa Minoff (Center for the Study of Social Policy) on why "work requirements are catastrophic in a pandemic"; Brendan Shanahan (Yale University), "Counting everyone — citizens and non-citizens — in the 2020 census is crucial"; Ariela Gross (University of Southern California) and Alejandro de la Fuente (Harvard University), "The history of slavery remains with us today"; and more.

• The Library of Congress may be closed to the public, but we believe its “crowdsourcing initiative By the People” continues.  The newest campaign to enlist the public’s help in making "digital collection items more searchable and accessible online is Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents includes thousands of pages of historical documents in Spanish, Latin and Catalan."

• Jayanth K. Krishnan, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, has posted "Lawyers for the Undocumented: Addressing a Split Circuit Dilemma for Asylum-Seekers," which is forthcoming in the Ohio State Law Journal.  A section treats the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), a federal statute adopted in 1980.

• ICYMI: An exhibit at the Lombard Historical Society on “the first woman to ever vote in an Illinois municipal election, an attorney named Ellen Martin.”  Patti Smith’s blurb of Ralph Nader’s cookbook: “A wonderful blend of consumer protection and consumer pleasure.” H/t: JLG

• And if you can face it: Duke University Press has put together this Navigating the Threat of Pandemics collection--free to read online until June 1 (books) and Oct.1 (articles). LHB readers may appreciate this one especially.

Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers. 

Women's Enfranchisement: Beyond the 19th Amendment

[We share the following announcement about an upcoming conference on women's enfranchisement at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder. The conference is in honor of the centennial of the 19th Amendment's ratification, and has a significant emphasis on legal history.]

The University of Colorado Law School’s Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law, directed by Professor Suzette Malveaux, will host its 2020 Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. Conference on Constitutional Law on Friday, April 3, 2020, on the topic:  “Women’s Enfranchisement: Beyond the 19th Amendment.”  This year's conference will feature three exciting panels of diverse scholars and lawyers with a Keynote Address by Reva Siegel. 

2020 marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment, formally extending suffrage to some, but not all, women. This conference will use the centennial to take stock of how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in terms of formal political enfranchisement, as well as the social and economic empowerment of women more broadly. 

6 general CLE credits have been approved for this free conference, and breakfast and lunch will be served to attendees. Register by March 30.

Location: Wittemyer Courtroom | Wolf Law Building (2450 Kittredge Loop Dr, Boulder, CO 80305)

Time: Friday, April 3, 2020 |8:30 am-5:00 pm

Speakers include: 
• Keynote: Reva Siegel (Yale Law)  
• Panelists: 

Historical Perspectives
• Carolyn Ramsey (Colorado Law)
• Susan Schulten (University of Denver, Dept. of History)
• Julie Suk (CUNY, Graduate Center)
• Mary Ziegler (Florida State Law)

Barriers to Political Representation
• Ming Chen (Colorado Law)
• Atiba Ellis (Marquette Law)
• Justin Levitt (Loyola Law)
• Bertrall Ross (Berkeley Law)
• Dara Strolovitch (Princeton University, Gender & Sexuality Studies)

Lived Equality:  Beyond Formal Political Rights 
• Chinyere Ezie (Center for Constitutional Rights)
• Diana Flynn (Lambda Legal)
• Cary Franklin (University of Texas Law)
• Aya Gruber (Colorado Law)
• Scott Skinner-Thompson (Colorado Law)

Further information is available here.

--Mitra Sharafi

Roth on reproductive lives in Brazil

Cassia Roth (University of Georgia) has published A Miscarriage of Justice: Women's Reproductive Lives and the Law in Early Twentieth-Century Brazil with Stanford University Press. From the publisher: 

A Miscarriage of Justice examines women's reproductive health in relation to legal and medical policy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After the abolition of slavery in 1888 and the onset of republicanism in 1889, women's reproductive capabilities—their ability to conceive and raise future citizens and laborers—became critical to the expansion of the new Brazilian state. Analyzing court cases, law, medical writings, and health data, Cassia Roth argues that the state's approach to women's health in the early twentieth century focused on criminalizing fertility control without improving services or outcomes for women. Ultimately, the increasingly interventionist state fostered a culture of condemnation around poor women's reproduction that extended beyond elite discourses into the popular imagination.

By tracing how legal thought and medical knowledge became cemented into law and clinical practice, how obstetricians, public health officials, and legal practitioners approached fertility control, and how women experienced and negotiated their reproductive lives, A Miscarriage of Justice provides a new way of interpreting the intertwined histories of gender, race, reproduction, and the state—and shows how these questions continue to reverberate in debates over reproductive rights and women's health in Brazil today.

Praise for the book:

 "Roth's remarkably wide-ranging research offers a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the science, law, politics, and lived experiences surrounding women's reproduction in Rio de Janeiro in the first half of the twentieth century. Deeply contextualized in the social, economic, and cultural history of post-abolition Brazil, A Miscarriage of Justice interrogates the dialogue between local and global histories of medical and legal sciences while maintaining focus on individual women whose reproductive lives were increasingly pathologized and criminalized. This remarkable book is sure to become required reading in the fields of Latin American and gender history." - Sueann Caulfield

"With straightforward elegance, Roth conveys the harsh realities of women's reproductive experiences in Brazil in a time of great social transformation. Fully accounting for the historical, political, and cultural complexities of their interactions with the larger community and the state, the author documents both change over time and the continuity of women's legal—and even existential—disenfranchisement through varying political regimes." - Julia E. Rodriguez

"In A Miscarriage of Justice, Cassia Roth provides an innovative and unique history of reproduction in Brazil, weaving together medical and legal directives on childbirth, abortion, and infanticide alongside the intimate, embodied experiences of gendered 'crimes' and social inequalities in Rio de Janeiro. Taking a broad view of reproductive health that explores motherhood, infanticide, and abortion simultaneously, Roth argues that the surveillance and criminalization of women's reproductive practices and of their racialized bodies were critical anchors of Brazilian state-building, especially during the complex years of the authoritarian Estado Novo. This is a deeply researched, sophisticated, and insightful study with significant implications for understanding reproductive justice issues even in contemporary politics." - Okezi T. Otovo

Further information is available here.

--Mitra Sharafi

Freidenfelds on miscarriage in America

Lara Friedenfelds (independent scholar) has published The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America with Oxford University Press. The book includes a chapter on abortion (ch.6) that will be of special interest to legal historians. From the publisher:

When a couple plans for a child today, every moment seems precious and unique. Home pregnancy tests promise good news just days after conception, and prospective parents can track the progress of their pregnancy day by day with apps that deliver a stream of embryonic portraits. On-line due date calculators trigger a direct-marketing barrage of baby-name lists and diaper coupons. Ultrasounds as early as eight weeks offer a first photo for the baby book.

Yet, all too often, even the best-strategized childbearing plans go awry. About twenty percent of confirmed pregnancies miscarry, mostly in the first months of gestation. Statistically, early pregnancy losses are a normal part of childbearing for healthy women. Drawing on sources ranging from advice books and corporate marketing plans to diary entries and blog posts, Lara Freidenfelds offers a deep perspective on how this common and natural phenomenon has been experienced. As she shows, historically, miscarriages were generally taken in stride so long as a woman eventually had the children she desired.

This has changed in recent decades, and an early pregnancy loss is often heartbreaking and can be as devastating to couples as losing a child. Freidenfelds traces how innovations in scientific medicine, consumer culture, cultural attitudes toward women and families, and fundamental convictions about human agency have reshaped the childbearing landscape. While the benefits of an increased emphasis on parental affection, careful pregnancy planning, attentive medical care, and specialized baby gear are real, they have also created unrealistic and potentially damaging expectations about a couple's ability to control reproduction and achieve perfect experiences.

The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy provides a reassuring perspective on early pregnancy loss and suggests ways for miscarriage to more effectively be acknowledged by women, their families, their healthcare providers, and the maternity care industry.

Praise for the book: 

"This lively and informative book is simultaneously an exploration of contemporary 'mommy blogs' and a deeply researched history of childbirth in America. By focusing on the history of miscarriage, it casts new light on almost every aspect of our modern reproductive system, from technological innovations like sonograms to the semantics of abortion debates. It is an innovative and powerful contribution to history and to present-day discourse on childbearing." -- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

"Bravo! Freidenfelds has delivered a formidable and gripping account of pregnancy loss in America. She weaves the voices of women today and generations past with keen historical and scientific insights. The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy shines a much-needed light on miscarriage, a subject that has, until now, been hidden from both casual conversations and scholarly scrutiny." -- Randi Hutter Epstein

"Freidenfelds captures the dramatic transformation of the ideal of pregnancy over the past two hundred years, from a normal, accepted part of a colonial woman's life to the highly monitored, commercialized, and emotional-laden experiences of 21st century women. With sensitivity and care she explores the experience of pregnancy loss, which remains a common yet rarely publicly discussed occurrence." -- Rima D. Apple

"The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy offers far more than a meticulously researched historical perspective on reproductive health and parenting attitudes. It also provides critical insight to the present, with a lesson that much of childbearing and childrearing is out of our control, to expect and accept the ups and downs of life and the inevitable mistakes we will make as parents. Freidenfelds has used facts to illustrate how our perfectionist parenting standards came about, so that we may forgive ourselves our imperfections. This is a message many parents, myself included, need to hear and be reminded of. Freidenfelds' work can help shift the current culture of parenting, and we will all benefit." -- Monique Tello

Further information is available here. 

--Mitra Sharafi

Mitra on Indian Sex Life

Durba Mitra (Harvard) has published Indian Sex Life with Harvard University Press. From the publisher:

During the colonial period in India, European scholars, British officials, and elite Indian intellectuals—philologists, administrators, doctors, ethnologists, sociologists, and social critics—deployed ideas about sexuality to understand modern Indian society. In Indian Sex Life, Durba Mitra shows how deviant female sexuality, particularly the concept of the prostitute, became foundational to this knowledge project and became the primary way to think and write about Indian society.

Bringing together vast archival materials from diverse disciplines, Mitra reveals that deviant female sexuality was critical to debates about social progress and exclusion, caste domination, marriage, widowhood and inheritance, women’s performance, the trafficking of girls, abortion and infanticide, industrial and domestic labor, indentured servitude, and ideologies about the dangers of Muslim sexuality. British authorities and Indian intellectuals used the concept of the prostitute to argue for the dramatic reorganization of modern Indian society around Hindu monogamy. Mitra demonstrates how the intellectual history of modern social thought is based in a dangerous civilizational logic built on the control and erasure of women’s sexuality. This logic continues to hold sway in present-day South Asia and the postcolonial world.

Reframing the prostitute as a concept, Indian Sex Life overturns long-established notions of how to write the history of modern social thought in colonial India, and opens up new approaches for the global history of sexuality.

The book includes two chapters (at least) that will be of special interest to legal historians: Ch.2, "Repetition: Law and the Sociology of Deviant Female Sexuality" and Ch.3, "Circularity: Forensics, Abortion, and the Evidence of Deviant Female Sexuality." 

Praise for the book: 

"Indian Sex Life is a well-theorized, dense, and provocative addition to current historical scholarship in gender, sexuality, and colonial/postcolonial studies of South Asia. Drawing attention to the surplus of representations around female sexual deviance within historical materials, Durba Mitra makes bold, ambitious claims about the concept of the prostitute and its role in the unfolding of methods in the social study of colonial Bengal."—Anjali Arondekar

"The startling, convincing insight in Durba Mitra's superbly researched concept-history of the prostitute is that ideas about deviant female sexuality undergird modern disciplinary knowledge, shaping debates across fields as diverse as jurisprudence, political economy, and philology. This is a valuable contribution to the global history of sexuality, and essential reading for scholars interested in modernity, colonial knowledge, gender, and cultural history."—Prachi Deshpande

"In Indian Sex Life, Durba Mitra writes with the utmost clarity and precision about female sexuality in colonial India, a topic long regarded as messy and opaque. This innovative and beautifully crafted study of the prostitute makes excellent use of feminist and queer theory to trace the construction of deviancy in social scientific thought. There are crucial insights here for scholars across the disciplines."—Laura Doan

"Pathbreaking and original, Indian Sex Life establishes the central place of deviant female sexuality in discussions about Indian society in a range of disciplines. Departing from other studies about prostitution in the subcontinent, this valuable work makes significant contributions to the literature on colonial India and to the voluminous writings on gender and sexuality in South Asia. It will compel global scholars of sexuality to question their existing assumptions."—Douglas E. Haynes

Further information is available here.

--Mitra Sharafi