Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the gynecological recipes contained in three Arabic medical compilations from the ninth and tenth centuries CE and asks how they present women patients as engaging with recipe knowledge related to matters of their own sexual health. Through an analysis of the grammatical forms of their key verbs, I argue that such recipes can clarify the involvement of women in their own healthcare and, more broadly, their interaction with codified practical knowledge and techniques in the form of recipe collections. I contend that the extent to which women received, enacted, and conveyed gynecological recipe knowledge depended in large part on their class and socioeconomic situation. Whereas more privileged women seem to have a role largely limited to applying remedies prepared by a physician or pharmacist, non-elite women are depicted as both receiving and enacting gynecological recipe knowledge.
Author: Leonie Böttiger
Institution: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Language: English
Topic: History of Medicine Studies
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
OpenAlex ID: W7127116322