Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
436329937
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
O'Gorek, Elizabeth Kathleen.
Title
Cutting it out : social, medical and professional change and the history of the decline of infant circumcision in Canada, 1945-1996.
Degree
M.A. -- University of Waterloo, 2006
Publisher
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, [2007]
Description
2 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
From 1950 to 1996, the use of infant circumcision in Canada declined from over 50% to less than 17% of infant males. This thesis draws upon newspapers, popular magazines and childrearing literature as well as medical journals and texts to tie the historical decline in use of the operation with changes in attitudes towards sexuality, children, medical professionals and individual autonomy. It argues that the decline in use of this medical procedure was not due to any one of these factors, but that Canadians became disinclined towards circumcision because of a conflation of social and medical reasons. It attempts both to note the simultaneous co-existence of widely differing justifications for the procedure while blurring the distinction between the social and the medical. While drawing attention to the role of changing perspectives in a broader sense, it also illustrates the importance of the role of the individual, emphasizing the significance of the cultural and personal experiences of physicians in their attitudes towards infant circumcision.
ISBN
9780494237557
0494237554