Work

Bodies that Pay the Price: Institutional Ahistoricity and Persistent Gendered Marginality in Indian Medical Education

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Despite obstetric violence inflicted upon marginal female bodies by the Indian medical system being well-documented through the decades, the exploration of the historical production of this attitude has received limited attention. However, the present modes of violences are deeply rooted in a history of culturally-transmitted medicolegal anxiety about unwanted bodies on a shared planet, and their unwanted medicosocial behavior - in particular their reproductive choices. This history of anxiety, unwritten but encoded in multiple implicit and explicit ways, has shaped contemporary medical institutions' perception of reproductive-aged cisgendered Indian women as a source of multifaceted risk-a medicolegal risk to the medical institution, an economic risk to the nation's development, a biosecurity risk to the global stability-that can only be mitigated by clinically intervening in their bodies.

Source: The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine

DOI: 10.59249/ofbw2804

Author: Rimi Nandy

Institution: UNSW Sydney

Language: English

Topic: Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

Subfield: History

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Good health and well-being

Open Access status: diamond

OpenAlex ID: W4415021624