Introduction: Harming the Healers: Wise Women, Witches and Visionaries

This chapter outlines why there is a need for a book that celebrates the contribution of Women in Health Management. It critically re-evaluates the historical roles and representations of women as health providers to consider how their work for the common good has often been reframed as self-interested, substandard and evil. It argues that while women have consistently been central to improving the health of societies; prejudices and patriarchal structures have led to the demonisation of female healing practices, particularly through the association with witchcraft, the fall eve and being less [sic] than men. By recognising the diverse skills, knowledge and innovations of women, this chapter aims to reclaim their significant historical agency and challenge the narratives that have marginalised their vital contributions to care and medicine. It recognises women healers’ struggle for equality, self-determination and agency is challenging precisely because women have been denied a historical account: history being made by men for men from a patriarchal standpoint. This been to the detriment of women specifically and societies more generally. It has meant that different ways of seeing, managing, practising, curing and caring have been marginalised, excluded and lost. It is against this backdrop that we work to correct past omissions and challenge gender-based erasure by bring to light and celebrating the contributions that women have always made to healthcare and its management. This is important because, as the chapters of this book demonstrate, across history and around the global women have a track record of seeing and managing healthcare differently: challenging structures and innovating services in ways that are revolutionary.