About this site

Welcome to my site. My friends and I created this to share some of my work and - more importantly - to invite an exchange of ideas.


I've been a sociologist for a long time. and ventured into a number of different fields over the years: birth and midwifery (which I still think of as my home base); the new genetics and reproductive technologies; medical sociology; bioethics; issues in disability; adoption; race; and now food studies too. Some of you might know my work in one of these areas, others in a different area. What would be really interesting would be to have people talk, with each other and with me, across areas. I've tried, with some success over the years, to talk to midwives about genetics; to encourage people who do new reproductive technologies to think about home birth; to have bioethicists pay more attention to what medical sociology can offer; to get people in Food Studies thinking where midwifery issues overlap with their concerns. These are invariably the most fun and stimulating conversations I've ever been a part of. Connecting people, connecting ideas, weaving the webs that pull us together - nothing could make me happier. So this site, a gift from my friends, is my place to do this kind of weaving.


We've grouped my work by area - but please, if you're here because you have gotten anything useful out of my work in one area, do poke around for a minute in another. Bring your insights and wisdom and experience to a new place, a new issue. Let's see what we can weave together.


- Barbara Katz Rothman

Women, Birth, Food

New York University Press, the publishers of BUN IN THE OVEN, asked me to write something in honor of Women's History Month --
Women’s History – Rethinking Birth and Food.
It’s Women’s History Month!  Let’s celebrate!  Honor the first woman tenured at Harvard! First woman to win the Nobel prize! First woman astronaut! First woman whose art hangs in MOMA! First woman surgeon! First woman subway car driver! First woman chef! First woman architect! First woman Obstetrician! First woman….
Or wait a sec.  Are we celebrating the first woman to DO something, or the first woman to be recognized and acknowledged for doing it?  There surely were women artists before MOMA cared, women designing their homes, writing books, making dinner, catching babies… And wait another sec here – how did so many things that women do, across time and space,  like catching babies and making dinner, get turned into award-winning accomplishments when men did them, and quiet back-room work when women do them?
Click here to see more.
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