International Women’s Day 2024: Women & Healthcare – Medieval Origins & Practices With Dr Joy Hawkins From University of East Anglia

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For International Women’s Day 2024, we are joined by Dr Joy Hawkins, Lecturer in Humanities in the Interdisciplinary Institute for the Humanities at University of East Anglia. Joy will lead an interactive talk on Women and Healthcare – Medieval Origins and Practices.

Large disparities can be found in the proportion of men and women undertaking specific jobs within medicine and healthcare in the twenty-first century.

This talk, specifically for International Women’s Day, will consider the role of women as both healthcare providers and consumers in the late medieval period to examine whether some of the pre-modern beliefs about women and medicine can help us understand the inequalities we see today.

Until very recently, historians have ignored the wide range of medieval female healers, mopping up bodily fluids and providing remedies for every ache, pain and illness. Yet women were the primary carers of their household’s health, midwives delivering babies were always female, and in the medieval hospital, it was female nurses who provided daily care for patients. Surviving documentation shows women successfully operating on the body but they have received very little attention from scholars.

Drawing on illustrations from the medieval period this talk will provide examples of some of the tasks women healers performed and demonstrate the level of skill they achieved.

Lecturer Profile: Dr Joy Hawkins

Our events are designed so that a group of students can take part from a classroom or students and teachers can take part as individuals, either from school or from home. This means that sessions will continue irrespective of possible school closures.

As a live, participative event, this session will not be recorded but slides and other resources will be shared after the event, where available.

Suitable for: Year 10 to 13 students (and equivalent). Student groups as well as students and teachers joining individually are very welcome.

Preparation/Pre-Reading: Students may wish to consider the topic in advance and questions they have. Students can also think about questions about studying at university level.

The IT Setup: The event will be run on Zoom and participants will be able to join using laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. If you are joining as a school group, we recommend connecting with one device and projecting on to a whiteboard. You will be able to interact with the university via a microphone and/or typed comments and questions. Full details will be sent to those who have registered (see below) prior to the event.

Booking a Place: This is free for schools and colleges. If you would like to take part in this event, please register your interest using the link to the registration form below:

Register here