A health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during their pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also care for the newborn through to six weeks of age, including assisting the mother with breastfeeding.

In Greeco-Roman areas, some women advanced beyond the profession of midwife (maia) to that of obstetrician (iatros gynaikeios).

In the 18th century, a division between surgeons and midwives arose, as medical men began to assert that their modern scientific processes were better for mothers and infants than the folk-medical midwives.

Was Queen regnant of England and Queen regnant of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Elizabeth became queen at the age of 25.

From the start of Elizabeth's reign, it was expected that she would marry and the question arose whom. She never did, although she received many offers for her hand; the reasons for this are not clear. Historians have speculated that Thomas Seymour had put her off sexual relationships, or that she knew herself to be infertile. She considered several suitors until she was about fifty. Her last courtship was with François, Duke of Anjou, 22 years her junior. Elizabeth had no need of a man's help to govern, and marrying risked a loss of control or of foreign interference in her affairs; as had happened to her sister Mary. On the other hand, marriage offered the chance of an heir.

María de Zayas

Few records of Mary Astell's life have survived. As biographer Ruth Perry explains, "as a woman she had little or no business in the world of commerce, politics, or law. She was born, she died; she owned a small house for some years; she kept a bank account; she helped to open a charity school in Chelsea: these facts the public listings can supply."^[2] Only four of her letters were saved and these because they had been written to important men of the period. Researching the biography, Perry uncovered more letters and manuscript fragments, but she notes that if Astell had not written to wealthy aristocrats who could afford to pass down entire estates, very little of her life would have survived.^[3]

Mary Astell was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 November 1666, to Peter and Mary (Errington) Astell.^[4] Her parents had two other children, William, who died in infancy, and Peter, her younger brother.^[4][5] Her family was upper-middle-class and lived in Newcastle throughout her early childhood. Her father was a conservative royalist Anglican who managed a local coal company.^[1] As a woman, Mary received no formal education, although she did receive informal education from her uncle, an ex-clergyman whose bouts with alcoholism prompted his suspension from the Church of England. Mary's father died when she was twelve,^[1] leaving her without a dowry. With the remainder of the family finances invested in her brother's higher education, Mary and her mother relocated to live with Mary's aunt.

After the death of her mother and aunt in 1688, Mary moved to London. Her location in Chelsea meant that Astell was fortunate enough to become acquainted with a circle of literary and influential women (including Lady Mary Chudleigh, Elizabeth Thomas, Judith Drake, Elizabeth Elstob, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu),^[6] who assisted in the development and publication of her work. She was also in contact with the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, who was known for his charitable works; Sancroft assisted Astell financially and furthermore introduced her to her future publisher.

Astell died in 1731, a few months after a mastectomy to remove a cancerous right breast. In her last days, she refused to see any of her acquaintances and stayed in a room with her coffin, thinking only of God. She is remembered now for her ability to debate freely with both contemporary men and women, and particularly her groundbreaking methods of negotiating the position of women in society by engaging in philosophical debate (Descartes was a particular influence) rather than basing her arguments in historical evidence as had previously been attempted. Descartes' theory of dualism, a separate mind and body, allowed Astell to promote the idea that women as well as men had the ability to reason, and subsequently they should not be treated so poorly: "If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?"^[7]

was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation who is considered the founder of the Presbyterian denomination in Scotland.

In the summer of 1558, Knox published his best known pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. In calling the "regiment" or rule of women "monstrous", he meant that it was "unnatural". The pamphlet has been called a classic of misogyny. Knox states that his purpose was to demonstrate "how abominable before God is the Empire or Rule of a wicked woman, yea, of a traiteresse and bastard".^[53] The women rulers that Knox had in mind were Mary Tudor, the queen of England, and Marie de Guise-Lorraine, the Dowager Queen of Scotland and regent on behalf of her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Knox's prejudices against women were not unusual in his day; however, even he was aware that the pamphlet was dangerously seditious.^[54] He therefore published it anonymously and did not tell Calvin, who denied knowledge of it until a year after its publication, that he had written it. In England, the pamphlet was officially condemned by royal proclamation. The impact of the document was complicated later that year, when Elizabeth Tudor became queen of England. Although Knox had not targeted Elizabeth, he had deeply offended her, and she never forgave him.

Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan was born in 1365 in Venice. She was the daughter of Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano (Thomas de Pizan; named for the family's origins in the town of Pizzano, south east of Bologna), a physician, court astrologer, and Councillor of the Republic of Venice.^[3] Following Christine’s birth, Thomas de Pizan accepted an appointment to the court of Charles V of France, as the king’s astrologer, alchemist, and physician. In this atmosphere, Christine was able to pursue her intellectual interests. She successfully educated herself by immersing herself in languages, in the rediscovered classics and humanism of the early Renaissance, and in Charles V’s royal archive that housed a vast number of manuscripts. Pizan did not assert her intellectual abilities, or establish her authority as a writer until she was widowed at the age of twenty-four

The Book of the City of Ladies Christine de Pizan created a symbolic city in which women are appreciated and defended. Christine, having no female literary tradition to call upon, constructs three allegorical foremothers: Reason, Justice, and Rectitude.

Catherine de' Medici

(23 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was born in Florence, Italy, as Caterina Maria Romula di Lorenzo de' Medici.

Henry allowed Catherine almost no political influence as queen.^[30] Although she sometimes acted as regent during his absences from France, her powers were strictly nominal.^[31] Henry gave the Château of Chenonceau, which Catherine had wanted for herself, to Diane de Poitiers, who took her place at the centre of power, dispensing patronage and accepting favours.

Catherine believed in the humanist ideal of the learned Renaissance prince whose authority depended on letters as well as arms.^[140] She was inspired by the example of her father-in-law, King Francis I of France, who had hosted the leading artists of Europe at his court, and by her Medici ancestors. In an age of civil war and declining respect for the monarchy, she sought to bolster royal prestige through lavish cultural display. Once in control of the royal purse, she launched a programme of artistic patronage that lasted for three decades. During this time, she presided over a distinctive late French Renaissance culture in all branches of the arts.

A coif (pronounced /ˈkɔɪf/) is a close fitting cap that covers the top, back, and sides of the head.

Coifs were worn by all classes in England and Scotland from the Middle Ages to the early seventeenth century (and later as an old-fashioned cap for countrywomen and young children).

Tudor (later Stewart in Scotland) and earlier coifs are usually made of unadorned white linen and tie under the chin. In the Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras, coifs were frequently decorated with blackwork embroidery and lace edging.

Coifs were also worn by an extinct senior grade of English lawyer, the Serjeant-at-Law. A United States law school honor society, the Order of the Coif, is named after this use of the coif. The religious habit of Catholic nuns includes a coif as a headpiece, along with the white cotton cap secured by a bandeau, a white wimple or guimpe of starched linen, cotton, or (today) polyester to cover the cheeks and neck, and is sometimes covered by a thin layer of black crape.

Coifs were worn under gable hoods and hats of all sorts, and alone as indoor headcoverings.

Coifs were also a type of armour, traditionally made of mail, which covered the head (face excluded), neck and shoulders.

In modern days, women of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS are said^{[citation needed]} to have worn this along with their conservative style of dress.

Also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, (March 28, 1515, at Gotarrendura (Ávila), Old Castile, Spain – October 4, 1582, at Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, Spain) was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer. She was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered to be, along with John of the Cross, a founder of the Discalced Carmelites.

(pronounced /ˈsæfoʊ/ in English; Attic Greek Σαπφώ /sapːʰɔː/, Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω [psapːʰɔː]) was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.

Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The word lesbian derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos, while her name is also the origin of the word sapphic; both words were only applied to female homosexuality beginning in the 19th century.^[20][21] The narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate.^[22][23] Whether these poems are meant to be autobiographical is not known, although elements of other parts of Sappho's life do make appearances in her work, and it would be compatible with her style to have these intimate encounters expressed poetically, as well. Her homoerotica should be placed in the seventh century (BC) context. The poems of Alcaeus and later Pindar record similar romantic bonds between the members of a given circle.^[24]