The Women's Studies Program invites you to attend a panel discussion exploring the intertwined persecutions of witches and midwives.  Debby Geis (English) will address the issue from the perspective of The Crucible, and Alicia Suarez (Sociology), along with guests Mary Helen Ayres and Jane Dawkins (both midwives), will discuss the current reality of midwifery.  Please join us in the Daseke Boardroom (lunch is provided!) for what promises to be an eye-opening conversation.  An RSVP to Misti Scott (mscott@depauw.edu) by Friday, Nov. 2 would be appreciated.  --- Anne 

WITCHES AND MIDWIVES
(Women’s Studies Lunch Panel, Nov. 6, 2012)

MRS. PUTNAM:  I knew it! Goody Osburn were midwife to me three times. I begged you, Thomas, did I not? I begged him not to call Osburn because I feared her. My babies always shriveled in her hands!
HALE: Take courage, you must give us all their names.
                                                           --Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)

Miller’s dramatic rendering of the 1692 Salem witch trials, while often discussed as an allegory about the McCarthy hearings, also provides some insight into the long-held fascination with, and suspicion of, those said to be witches. In the Puritan era, sometimes the accused were women of color or women in marginalized social positions. And frequently, because midwives were in competition with doctors and held powerful information about household intimacies, herbs, and healing, they were scapegoated and accused of practicing witchcraft. Placing midwives in liminal social positions and bestowing legal sanctions upon them is nothing new, nor has the practice subsided as much as some might believe. On this panel, Debby Geis (English) will discuss witchcraft in the context of other literary/theatrical feminist responses; Alicia Suarez (Sociology) will discuss her current research on midwives who work in “prohibition” states and two local midwives, Mary Helen Ayres and Jane Dawkins, will speak about their experiences working in a state where their profession is criminalized.