Happy International Day of the Midwife!

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

Happy International Day of the Midwife! The word "midwife" is gender neutral. It says nothing about the gender of the midwife. It comes from the Middle English "mid", meaning "with" and "wif" meaning woman - so the word "midwife" describes the person being *with* the "wife".

[vagina_museum@masto.ai]

Nevertheless, in the 18th century attempts were made to gender the term "midwife". The phrase "man-midwife" entered the vocabulary of physicians to describe male doctors who had recently got interested in attending births.

Then, physician John Maubray decided he didn't like that so coined his own term, the catchy "Andro-boethogynist" (man who helps women). Suffice to say, he did not make "Andro-boethogynist" happen.

[alex@godforsaken.website]

@vagina_museum one whom is amidst wives

[emmaf_77@piaille.fr]

@vagina_museum #feminism

[gladtherescake@todon.nl]

@vagina_museum Gender neutral towards the person who helps the birth sure, not gender neutral towards the birthing person in that case though! May be worth looking at it critically through that lense, even if we could teach everyone that midwife is gender neutral towards the title holders, that might still be uncomfortable to non "wif" birthing people.

[erik_haugaard@oslo.town]

@GLaDTheresCake @vagina_museum In Norwegian and Danish, the word for midwife translates into «earth-mother». In Norse, however, the equivalent term translates to «near (the) wife».

[floppyplopper@todon.nl]

@alex @vagina_museum
you would have me believe this wife is distinctly mid?

[adub@beige.party]

@vagina_museum i still think it's an unnecessarily gendered term. because some trans men and some nonbinary people give birth too, not just cis women. so a seahorse dad delivering would be assisted by a midhusband? 🤨

[adub@beige.party]

@vagina_museum "perinatal practitioner" maybe? ("doula" doesn't have the same meaning, they aren't medically trained)

[jerrej@mastodon.social]

@vagina_museum

From Middle English midwif, corresponding to mid (“with”) + wif (“woman, wife, female”). It appears not to be entirely clear whether the original understanding was “with-woman” in the sense of “attending/assisting woman”, or “they who are with the woman” (namely the mother).

midwife - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Wiktionary (en.wiktionary.org)

[jerrej@mastodon.social]

@vagina_museum
Adding to that, in those times you would not normally accept a man to assist in your childbirth. Exactly nobody did that in middle English times. So bye bye to your attempt at revisionist etymology. But let's please carry on with the celebration.

[leeloo@c.im]

@vagina_museum
So, the person being with the wife and the man-person being with the wife.

Person and man-person.

(And then it occurred to me that we actually have the term man-person in Danish ("mandsperson"). I do not recall an equivalent term for a woman-person).

[ehproque@neopaquita.es]

@vagina_museum like "manwhohasitall" would have said: "gentleman midwife"

[holgerschurig@social.tchncs.de]

@vagina_museum

Honestly, if it stems from "wif" for wife, then "midwife" is *NOT* gender neutral.

In Germany, we call the female "Hebamme", since the german version of "wife", "Weib" is except in Swabian only used in a derogatory context.

And our "Hebamme" is also not gender neutral. So the few *) male ones get an extra attribute. They are either called "Männliche Hebamme" (male widwife) or "Entbindungspfleger" (childbirth nurse?).

*) There are only about 22 male wid"wifes" in Germany. Compare this to 24000 female ones. Got the numbers from an article dated January 2025. No idea of a whole year changed much.