 Such writers exhibited a grotesque fascination with female sexuality, reflecting an understanding of women as hypersexual, excessive, weak, and inferior beings, valuable solely in terms of usefulness to men.The introduction to the 1999 publication of "The Midwives Book" states, "For all the parallels between "The Midwives Book" and its male equivalents, then, the differences in detail result in a fundamental shift in the way sexuality and gender are conceptualized.