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

Talk: Splashing in New Waters: Beyond Second Wave Feminism

The first-ever joint conference of the Midwives Alliance of North America, the Canadian Association of Midwives and the American College of Nurse Midwives took place in Niagara Falls in November 2011.  I was present at the first-ever MANA conference (still have the t shirt!) and have been at most of the ones since.  It is one of the great honors and joys of my life that I was invited to do a plenary presentation at this meeting.   Talks are flexible, things come up, and I never could or would give a written-out version of a talk.  But here's the gist of what I had to say. 


click here to read the talk