罗马帝国的历史广为人知，但有个关键时刻却长期被忽视：正是在古罗马，男性医生首次将目光投向了分娩领域，而这原本是女性助产士的专属领域。

《拥有自己的子宫》一书带领我们追溯西方产科学的萌芽，以女性主义视角讲述了男性医生如何违背悠久的助产传统，开始在生殖领域攫取权威，并强调理论知识而非实践经验。他们的介入在日后助产士的刑事定罪上带来的重大的影响，并让秘密生产这件事笼罩在羞耻感中。

然而，罗马女性群体依然在孕前到产后的旅程中互相扶持，她们凭藉自身的经验和助产士的专业知识，共同前进。作者塔拉·穆尔德重现了古代女性在争取自身身体和健康自主权的过程中，如何生活和抗争的故事。她以生动细腻的笔触，讲述了她们的经历，揭示了我们现代关于生育的冲突其实由来已久。

好評

"A Womb of One's Own is a significant scholarly achievement, but it is also more than that. Tara Mulder is an immersive storyteller who guides us into intimate spaces from an ancient past. She attends to the unique specificity of women's reproductive lives, all while pushing the reader to see the connection between past and present struggles for reproductive autonomy and control. This beautiful book is for anyone who wishes to think deeply about the history of childbirth."―Anna Bonnell Freidin, author of Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome

"It is said that stories are data with a soul. In naming women―and telling their stories―Mulder not only honors the rich and complex experiences of childbearing women in ancient Rome but also reminds us that the history of obstetrics is not confined to the past. It forms the very foundation of the beliefs, narratives, and structures that have long displaced women from our central role in the birthing suite―a legacy that still echoes in many modern obstetric practices. By illuminating where we have come from, Mulder reveals where we stand today, offering a powerful reminder that midwives and birthing women have the wisdom, agency, and resilience to ensure history does not continue to dictate destiny."―Aviva Romm, MD and midwife

"A readable, illuminating, and often deeply moving journey through childbirth. Mulder's book not only works the magic of bringing ancient texts and artefacts alive to piece together the fragments of women's lost histories, it performs the feat of rewriting the history of Rome out of death and into a birth story."―Emily Hauser, bestselling author of Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out of It

"In this sensitive and compassionate study that combines authoritative academic research with extensive vocational experience, Mulder does what no other classicist could have: reconstruct and restore the fundamental experiences of ancient Roman women's lives. This is a paradigm-shifting and ultimately definitive work on ancient Roman pregnancy and childbirth that is replete with contemporary resonances."―Jane Draycott, author of Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome

关于作者

Tara Mulder is Assistant Professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As the daughter of a homebirth midwife, she has assisted in over two dozen births.