Barbara Katz Rothman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Barbara Katz Rothman
|
|
|---|---|
| Born | 1948 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn College, City University of New York New York University |
| Awards | Mentoring Awards (Sociologists for Women in Society, Eastern Sociological Society) Lee Founders Award (Society for the Study of Social Problems) Midwifing the Movement Award (Midwives Alliance of North America) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions | City University of New York |
Barbara Katz Rothman (born 1948) is a professor of sociology and women's studies. She teaches at the City University of New York (CUNY). Her work looks at how society, medicine, and families connect. She studies topics like childbirth, new medical technologies, and how people think about health and family.
About Barbara Katz Rothman
Barbara Katz Rothman was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1948. She went to Brooklyn College for her first two degrees. Later, she earned her Ph.D. in sociology from New York University in 1979. That same year, she began teaching at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
She was one of the first experts to seriously study childbirth from a social point of view. This led to her first book, In Labor. She then looked at new tests done during pregnancy, like genetic testing. Her book The Tentative Pregnancy explored how these tests affected pregnant women.
In 1987, she joined other important women's rights leaders. They wrote a special legal document for the "Baby M" case. This case was about a woman who carried a baby for another couple (called surrogacy). Rothman and her group argued that paying women for surrogacy could be unfair. They felt it might treat women like a product.
The "Baby M" case helped inspire her book, Recreating Motherhood. This book, published in 1989, looked at how society and technology shape what it means to be a mother. She talked about the legal rights of birth mothers and caregivers. She also suggested changes to how we think about having and raising children. In 1991, she won the Jessie Bernard Award for this book.
Barbara Katz Rothman has also held many important leadership roles. She was president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1993. She also led the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) in 1998. She has received several awards for her work and for mentoring other scholars. These include the Lee Founders Award and the Mentoring Award. In 1995, she was a Fulbright Professor in the Netherlands. She was also president of the Eastern Sociological Society in 2016.
Books by Barbara Katz Rothman
Barbara Katz Rothman has written many books. They often explore how society, science, and family life are connected. Here are some of her important works:
| Year | Title | Co-Author | Publisher | What the book is about |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | In Labor | Norton | This book looked at childbirth from a new social perspective. It helped create the idea of the "Midwifery Model" of birth. | |
| 1986 | The Tentative Pregnancy | Viking | This was the first book to study how women felt about prenatal tests during pregnancy. | |
| 1989 | Recreating Motherhood | Norton | This book explored how society and technology shape what it means to be a mother. It won an award in 1991. | |
| 1992 | Centuries of Solace: Expressions of Maternal Grief in Popular Literature | Co-author Wendy Simonds | Temple University Press | This book looked at how mothers have expressed sadness over losing a child throughout history. |
| 1993 | The Encyclopedia of Childbearing | Oryx Press and Holt Publishers | This book was a helpful guide about all aspects of having children. It was named an Outstanding Reference Book. | |
| 2001 | The Book of Life | Beacon | This book discussed the social and ethical questions around the Human Genome Project. It explored ideas about race, health, and genetic testing. | |
| 2005 | Weaving a Family: Untangling Race and Adoption | Beacon | This book explored the topics of race and adoption, possibly drawing from her own experiences. | |
| 2008 | Bioethical Issues, Sociological Perspectives | Editor with Elizabeth Armstrong and Rebecca Tiger | Elsevier | This book looked at ethical questions in biology and medicine from a social point of view. |
| 2010 | Race in an Era of Change: A Reader | Heather Dalmage | Oxford University Press | This book is a collection of writings about race in a changing world. |
| 2012 | Brave New World of Reproduction: Texts on Pregnancy, Birth and Genetic Diagnosis | Mabuse-Verlag, Germany | This book is a collection of her writings translated into German. It covers pregnancy, birth, and genetic diagnosis. | |
| 2016 | A Bun in the Oven: How the Food and Birth Movements Resist Industrialization | New York University Press | This book compares how the food movement and the birth movement have pushed back against big industrial ways of doing things. | |
| 2021 | The Biomedical Empire: Lessons Learned from the Covid-19 Pandemic | Stanford University Press | This book explores what we learned about medicine and society from the COVID-19 pandemic. |
