Inspired and Outraged: The Making of a Feminist Physician

A remarkable autobiography of Alice Rothchild’s journey from 1950’s good girl to irreverent, feisty, feminist obstetrician-gynecologist forging her own direction in the contradictory, sexist world of medicine

A remarkable autobiography--written entirely in free verse--of Alice Rothchild’s journey from 1950’s good girl to irreverent, feisty, feminist obstetrician-gynecologist forging her own direction in the contradictory, sexist world of medicine. As a child who came of age in the turbulent 1960s, she was compelled to create a path in the often outrageous, male-dominated medical field, repeatedly finding herself to be a first: accepted into an ob-gyn residency, opening an all-woman practice, working with midwives, challenging the status quo, shaped by her early involvement with Our Bodies Ourselves. Rothchild’s poems are steeped in the often-shocking history of medicine and the conflicted sexual politics of the second half of the twentieth century.

Alice Rothchild is a physician, author, and filmmaker who loves storytelling that pushes boundaries and engages us in unexpected conversations. She practiced ob-gyn for almost 40 years and served as Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Medical School. She received Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston’s Women Doctors Award, was named in Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, had her portrait painted for Robert Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell the Truth project, and was named a Peace Pioneer by the American Jewish Peace Archive.