Male midwife facing 29 charges of misconduct,

And for being a pervert!

Oh for God’s sake, we can’t ban people of certain sexes from jobs. That will never end well.
What we can do is put a framework in place to make sure dodgy people don’t get employed in these roles.
I met a guy once who said he always knew he wanted to be a podiatrist and he felt it was his calling. Are you going to accuse him of being a foot fetishist?
Are we going to ban women from performing prostate and anal exams?
Training is the answer here not banning.
Well except for the guy in the Daily Mail link who should have been fired for being crap at his job.

The statistics are shocking.

I have a male midwife at the moment who is very enthusiastic, respectful, asks for consent before anything etc as one would hope would be the bare minimum. He’s also a trained Nurse practitioner. I have no issue with him performing all my check ups but I think I’d still want someone who had some personal insight into the kind of pain that comes with being female if they were to perform a sweep etc.

In the country I’m originally from we don’t really have a midwife system and a LOT of the doctors that deliver babies are men and I cannot imagine the anxiety for any pregnant woman who was a survivor of sexual abuse.

When I was younger, I'd have been one of the "It's fine. He's a professional" brigade.
Now that I'm older and a lot less naive, I believe that midwives should be female only. This is one of the things that EA exemptions should be used for.

Fair enough, don't ban anyone from jobs.

But I always question why the fuck any man entering a caring profession would think "oh yeah, women at their most vulnerable and emotional, involving intimate care! That's the line of work for me!"

Doesn't that show a completely lack of empathy or boundaries from kick off? Its completely self centred.

I had a male midwife who was horrible. I didn’t want a male midwife but I was in a hospital in an area with a lot of Muslim women. The hospital team told me these women couldn’t have him and led me to believe I’d be left without care if I didn’t agree.
He was rude and quite nasty at times. I was traumatised. I voiced concerns at various times but the other midwife’s thought the sun shone from him so I got nowhere. I was left feeling h as though I was awfully sexist but actually I think it was all about him. The female student nurse saved the day.

I also clicked on the thread to see if it was him. I remember his name.

I posted something recently about this. We know the importance of single sex toilets but then women are expected to be ok with a man being involved in childbirth.

The obligation is on a women, maybe in the middle of labour, to be brave enough to say they don’t want a male midwife. Many women are afraid of doing this as they might be seen as implying they think the midwife is up to no good. Surely it should be an opt in thing if we have to have male midwives at all.

@KevinTheKoala there was a report recently that stated women were more likely to die during surgery performed by a man so there may be something in saying let’s have female Drs (actual females, not folk playing dress up) for women and male Drs for men. I certainly wouldn’t have an issue with it.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/04/women-more-likely-die-operation-male-surgeon-study

I’ve always thought that it’s very odd for a male medic to choose to go into obs&gynae as a specialism.

I mean, why do they want a job that on a daily basis involves carrying out the most intimate of medical examinations on women who are, physically, given the position we need to adopt, totally powerless?? Makes one think.

I get the distinct impression this is connected to the phenomenon whereby men are lauded as heroes and thrown parades for performing basic acts of parenting that nobody blinks at when it's a woman doing it

So true. DH has had strangers come up to him and say what a great dad he is - just for perfectly normal interactions with his kids (on a bus or whatever). Like you say, nobody bats an eye at a woman doing the same thing.

Experienced it in childcare too, and primary teaching - a man doing the job is amaaaaazing.

I’m glad I’m done having babies. I never had a male MW, now I think about it though I did have various bits of my first induction done by a male doctor, as a meek 20 year old I did find him far less empathetic and gentle than the female doctors/MWs. I felt like I’d done something wrong because it wasn’t working, he really put a shadow over the whole experience TBH.

[quote TheLoneRager]As an aside it says he was one of only 50 male midwives in 2018.
There was another one struck off last year for a stash of 400 indecent images of children.

So that's 2/50

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9989159/Male-midwife-39-caught-stash-400-indecent-images-children.html[/quote]
Ffs. I'd like to show this to the people who said it was wrong to request female only midwife care.

Anyone for a bet on the number of female midwives done for this type of thing being zero?

But what happens after we stop men doing certain jobs? Do we then stop women doing certain jobs as well? Are you OK with male surgeons/anaesthetists? Or do we need a totally segregated system? Stopping men from perusing a midwifery career is not the solution, a smaller number of males will want to become midwives and therefore obviously we do notice the abusive and sick ones more than we do the good but that doesn't meant that their aren't good male midwives, nor does mean there are not horrific female midwives. There needs to be closer monitoring of not just skills and knowledge but personality and whether or not that person is really suitable to work with vulnerable patients.

Obviously everyone has the right to refuse a male midwife and that should not change - that is absolutely 100% fair and I do think it should be asked before the woman goes into labour so that she isn't put on the spot or feels forced to accept. But I don't think its a good idea to deny people certain jobs because of their sex again.

Male sonographer hurt like all hell and got annoyed and short when I didn't keep sufficiently still when he was hurting me.

I find physiotherapists also show strongly sex based differences in approach and from experience will always see a female one if I can. Less grabbing, pulling, wrenching and impatience involved.

Men could do these jobs as well as women! = True

Because who needs gender stereotypes.

Some women won't be ok with this and will still need female people (with no confusion, discussion or word salad involved, just female people) because it's intimate care = also true. And any male who does not get this should not be doing the job anyway.

Male people will never abuse this access to intimate contact with females and females are silly billies to think they would and to be derogatory and misandrist and Other Words Too for having doubts = Utter Bollocks.

Some males do. Some males will. This is why women need the option of single sex services and for this to mean single sex, to not have to fight about it, and to choose whether they will intentionally take the risk that this particular male may or may not be capable of appropriate behaviour towards a female.

Those poor women

Saying that I had to have an internal scan recently and the male radiographer could not have been anymore respectful , kind and courteous

I've had a couple of male sonographers. Seemed pleasant enough. However they then proceeded to try and scan the table underneath me. I didn't know up til that point that it was possible for an ultrasound to he painful. I had to tell then to stop.

Men need to be aware of their strength. Really conscious of what they are doing..or they will and will continue to merely inflict pain

A friend of mine recently completed her MW degree.
There was a male in her course who exhibited some very concerning traits and made the female students very uncomfortable and concerned. ( won’t say what as don’t want to out my friend)
He was removed from the course eventually.
I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a male MW.

Saying that I had to have an internal scan recently and the male radiographer could not have been anymore respectful , kind and courteous

And if you are one, or know one, I don't care. Your feelings should not override us trying to maintain women's dignity and safety - and if you can't see the generalised risk here, you are part of the problem too.

You know what? I am done being inclusive and kind and understanding.

No male midwives. None. Stay the fuck away from women when they are at their very most vulnerable.

Let's cut this crap out.

You don't have to defend men. As women we're socialised into doing it, so it's easy and almost second nature to do so. But you don't have to.

I believe most women would be more comfortable with a female midwife, so can see no benefit to them to introduce a male midwife.

My mum was a midwife. When I was expecting my first she was horrified to learn she knew the doctor on duty at my last ante-natal who had done a 'sweep' on me (different health authority from where she knew him) as she'd always said he "enjoyed internal examinations too much". I didn't know he'd done a 'sweep' just knew I'd gone home very distressed at the painful, intrusive examination which resulted in me going into labour within hours.

Can you imsginecreading that article of he had delivered your baby? To photograph those women are their most vulnerable is despicable.

Had an excellent male MW when I had DD2. Can understand why some people don’t want one, but that’s absolutely no reason to stop others from doing so. The one I had is well known locally and a number of my friends were v keen to have him.