ABSTRACT
Some of my feminist students have a story they tell about contemporary medicine and its control of women's reproductive experiences. A long time ago, they write, women gave birth and breastfed in the company of other women. The experience was empowering and joyous. Then men took over, and women were drugged through labor and delivery, and consequently were often unable to breastfeed their children. The experience was no longer empowering or joyous; instead, women experience their most profound disempowerment and loss of agency through these events.
