Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

German hospital beds for giving birth are at a 45 degree angle, which to me looked like a good compromise between "the mother can safely take a nap when she is tired" and "gravity will help you". Also, they have these thingys to put your legs up, so the overall posture is pretty close to squatting. (But with a back rest to prevent you from falling over if you're sleepy.) And modern German hospitals also have a bathtub with handrails to hang from above. And they have chairs with a hole in them. There's like a lot of options to choose from. But the nurses said that, statistically, most women choose the 45-degree-bed anyway. My guess would be because it looks the most comfortable.

Looking more into the history of it, I find the "gendered language" to instead be important factual context. It was also not the author who wrote about the king or other "gendered language" things but instead quotes from a birth center founder and a uni professor.

Also, in the article it says "They can thank a French man named François Mauriceau". The King was a possible influence but not "one pervert king liked watching women give birth, therefore somehow that's why". The article says nothing about "a lying down position helps the doctor".

Mauriceau, who wrote a book "that helped establish obstetrics as science"[0], thought of pregnancy as illness, and that it would be "more convenient for the male physician attending". This is an important tidbit, as the article continues, "(there was already a movement emerging to dispense of midwives and instead have male surgeons present at births)."

The only problem with the "gendered language" is not explaining it further, and probably where the immediate jump to thinking it's "sexism" comes from.

At that time "man-midwives", or people with medical education and the same educational requirements as a surgeon, decided "midwifery" was a great side hustle and created a movement to push traditional midwives out of the birthing process by saying the job required a medical degree, that only men could get. Since men had no idea what the natural process for child birth was, unlike midwives who probably went through it themselves, they decided that having a woman lying down was less work for the people attending. This happened specifically because they were male. The females were pushed out of the birthing process at this time. It went against everything that women had for millennia been doing. It's absolutely important to point that out when trying to give background on why -- all of a sudden -- this natural process was perverted. I don't know how else they could put it other than, it was more convenient (and profitable) for men at the time. And propagated because one guy, who thought of it as an illness, decided he knew better and other doctors decided to listen to him.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Mauriceau

- you shouldn’t have sex with relatives

- you shouldn’t chop your dick off

The emergency room doctors sewed it back on. Not sure what to think about that.

> Mauriceau, who wrote a book "that helped establish obstetrics as science"[0], thought of pregnancy as illness, and that it would be "more convenient for the male physician attending".

You contradict yourself in the very next sentence.