Medicalization Of Female Body In Contemporary China

Childbirth is a natural process. Starting from labor pain to placenta shed, women adapt to the force of nature for taking the baby to the world. Although it is only few hours or days, the contents of childbirth are rich.At the beginning of the foundation of New China, rural women followed the traditional form of delivery, which the old midwife (jiu chan po) played an important role in it. But new regime considered fertility problem as a serious social and political issue. Maternal and children health were paid more attentions than ever before. Subsequently, the training of midwives was carried out all over the country. In the 1960s to 1979s, these new midwives made great contribution to Chinese women. In the middle of 90s, the government dissolved the midwives’team and promoted the comprehensive hospital delivery. Today it is impossible to find a young woman who gave birth at home in N village.Childbirth is a vital topic not only for women, but also for family, for society, even for the whole country. However, most research on childbirth appeared in medical journals. I collected materials from field and try to explore the medicalization process of women body through the behavior of childbirth.Based on my research, the nation forced women to change the place of giving birth from family space to modern medicine space for completing the modernization of its control on people. Maternal body is’given’to the strange doctors. Anxiety translates into the obedience to authority and women lose their rights to handle their bodies. In the influence of consumerism, women spend a lot of money and time to pursuit’beautiful and modern body’, even in the context of childbirth. Chinese women are caught in a ’beauty’of bondage.