Whitney Wood PhD
Canada Research Chair in the Historical Dimensions of Women's Health
Dr. Whitney Wood is Canada Research Chair in the Historical Dimensions of Women's Health at Vancouver Island University. A historian of gender, health, and the body in 19th and 20th century Canada, Wood's research focuses on cultural and medical representations of obstetric and gynecological pain. She is currently working on two projects: Changing Childbirth in Postwar Canada, 1945-2000, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development Grant, and is principal investigator of a new multi-year collaborative study, Pelvic Health and Public Health in Twentieth Century Canada, funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Project Grant. Wood's recent articles have explored the history of childbirth technologies and maternal evacuation (forthcoming, Bulletin of the History of Medicine), pelvic examinations and feminist health activism (Canadian Historical Review), and obstetric violence in postwar Canada (Social History of Medicine).