Male midwife facing 29 charges of misconduct,

I feel i want to add my anecdote. Even though in a discussion like this individual experiences can be easily poo poo'd and can't match up to the strength of actual statistics.

The head of practice at our GPs was a gynecologist. I don't know the technicalities of speculums but when he'd finished a smear test he would hit the handle to 'unwind it' or whatever, and walk away leaving it spinning/closing.

I always found that really disrespectful. He wasn't very gentle at all in fact. I hated smear tests with him.

We could easily stop men from becoming mid wives. It wouldn't even take new legislation. Just a different decision based on current legislation

And transmen are women, They don't need male healthcare. Not even for their faux male appendages. Ask me how I know and I will tell you, in some detail, on the wheres and whyfors of remedial work on a transman's penis pump. All undertaken without recourse to any male healthcare. Though obviously that particular transman wasn't going to give birth - mainly because being female was what he had transitionedout of! It wouldn't be at all conducive to his mental health!

There is no way to mitigate against potential abuse by a male HCP unless cctv, chaperones and being able to request a female HCP is normalised.
I get an eye roll from admin when I ask for a chaperone (that is for my daughter’s appointments) and I tell the doctor and chaperones that I was sexually assaulted by a consultant in their hospital. Then I get sighs and more eye rolls if my daughter cries.
It’s a shit system

@Blue4YOU no absolutely not I agree, I just wondered if it had an impact on how they were perceived by the women.

I’m sorry that happened to you.

And of course- sexual assault is not “caused” by sexual desire. Desire or attraction may help single out a target for a predator but do are caring people m, confident people etc etc.

@GrealishHairband
I’m not disagreeing with you - but thought I’d say again I was sexually assaulted by a purportedly gay paediatric consultant- he wasn’t examine me, or meant to be anywhere near anything like that.
Even “obviously camp” does not mean sexual assault can’t be perpetrated by men.
Or asexual men - as in the case of Dr Hamid

Bigotry is saying that no men should be allowed to work in maternity or gynaecological care because they, by virtue of being men, must be sexual predators.

No. There is 1. a higher risk so it's understandable women have reservations and 2. women's reasons for setting those personal boundaries are theirs to make and nobody should be tossing around words like 'bigotry' when we're discussing women's consent.

yeah, i noticed the ''yelling''.

at least we're not actually 'hysterical' yet

Several posters have said that men should not be allowed to be midwives, along with yelling that any man who is interested in midwifery must be a potential rapist because otherwise why would he want to touch or look at fannies etc.

'yelling'

I also think it's wider than maternity or gynaecological care there are lots of departments in hospital women can feel/be vunerable (- though I'm not convinced male MW are a great thing).

Not all male midwives are sensitive to the needs of women who want female only environment.

Chris Butt (a practising midwife) threw a hissy fit when he requested to attend a female only breastfeeding session of the NCT and was directed to an alternative group that wasn’t female only ie. One where male partners could also attend. The NCT is a private organisation that is not part of the NHS and women pay to attend for additional support. The only difference between the group he asked to attend and the other is that the one he wanted to attend was for women who had requested a woman only group . He didn't go to the other group so can’t have been that interested in learning about how to support breastfeeding.

www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9971617.male-midwife-hits-out-at-breastfeeding-group-ban/

I got annoyed at him and said these men aren't going through years of training just to see undressed women - that's the opposite of opportunistic

Years of training is exactly what abusers do. It's their cover. They get the professional/respect/good guy/pillar of the community facade that allows them abuse without scrutiny because people like you think they must be wonderful/dedicated/saintly. Most abusers are charm personified to those they are not abusing. If they weren't, they wouldn't get a foot in the door in the first place. Not to mention that even abusers need to make a living somehow, so why not work in a field that allows them to exercise their real interests during their day job. This naivety is part of the continued myth that abuse does not occur within the middle class and professional class. It happens, it's just covered in a veneer of respectability.

Agree so hard with @RedToothBrush

makingmiracles Tue 25-Jan-22 22:06:24

Rightly or wrongly, in my opinion men should not be midwives. Whilst doing my midwifery(didn’t end up completing) degree I worked with a male midwife on postnatal ward, everyone seemed to love him but I found out one night in the early hours he was quite a bully and extremely sharp tongued, I was a first yr student, he’d asked my to do bloods at 4am and given how tired I was (I also had 2young kids myself) I said I wasn’t confident in my ability to do it safely. He got extremely annoyed with me and sent me home.

Women are at their most vulnerable time in their lives whilst giving birth and afterwards and personally I do think it should be a job for women only.

That was the 8th post on a 10 page thread.

There were other posts.

Was anyone suggesting a blanket ban on male midwives though?

[quote Brainwave89]@greenmarlin Sorry but that makes no sense. If a woman wishes to have a female midwife she can have one. To go on to conclude that having men as midwives is a danger to women does not have a basis in logic and appears to be simple prejudice. I speak as a woman who has to operate in a largely male environment and where for many years men would argue about how women lacked the skills and natural acumen for the job- using any case where a woman failed to highlight this as a classic example. We cannot have it both ways.[/quote]
No, there are women on this thread who have been told they have to have a male midwife.

And as has been said repeatedly on this and other threads, women are socialised to be nice and to not say I don't want a male midwife. Some have accepted a male midwife and are still troubled by the experience.

The point is that you don't know which ones are abusers. Often it's not the ones you think, or you are made to feel you misunderstood. Abusers are very very skilful at hiding in plain sight.

And of course it's not prejudice, it's a fact - as can be seen in the news story and court case that sparked this thread. I know, I know, not all men, but too many of them, sadly, to pretend that males looking after vulnerable women is not going to have devastating consequences for some women, and that is too many. How is that not logic? He was found guilty FGS.

And yes, I know, female midwives can also be struck off. We're not talking about them.

And your anecdote about the sexist men you worked with only proves that you worked with sexist men. It's got nothing to do with this story.

I had a male midwife for my first son 20 years ago🙂 couldn't fault him . I have had some god awful female midwifes though.
I wouldn't want to see a blanket ban on male midwifes , we have male nurses , gynaecologists and obstetricians a ban wouldn't make sense

It probabilities time.

And I completely support RedToothBrush on the disregard of consent issues and the number of women who don't support or even recognise the notion of consent and autonomy.

But a man becoming a midwife knows there will be women, for whatever reason, who will be uncomfortable with a male administering to them at birth. The NHS being what it is, there will be times when the woman has no choice.
I can't get my head round a man training for a job knowing this but being happy to go ahead.

I've had a lifetime of gynaecological care, my pregnancy was consultant led. Always cared for by men. Most have been fine, one wasn't. My pregnancy consultant was fab, he left the birth to the midwives, but was on hand if needed. I felt that I needed a female midwife and despite knowing him and trusting him (he operated on me when I was pregnant), he was very, very understanding of that.

@SweetPetrichor
And how many of those were for deliberate actions rather than professional failings?
One for stealing a credit card, several for failures leading to death of babies (not abuse or murder), or giving the wrong medication..
Whereas a doctor putting semen in a cup of tea for a patient to drink is a whole other level.
If you want a list of male HCPs struck off for non sexual assaults..
We have doctors struck off for punching a patient in the face, domestic violence, prescribing themselves viagra, lying about qualifications…etc
If you can’t see the difference between assaulting someone and being medically negligent…

Let me put things another way. If a lack of consent, leading to assault is normal this undermines trust between patients and hcps across the board.

Women caught in this systematically might not a) be necessarily aware that they have been sexually abused b) feel that there is no one they can turn to for support or be taken seriously because they lack trust in the NHS across the board.

Thats why culturally, its important to ram home consent and respect for patients so that patients KNOW when the line has been crossed and KNOW their complaint won't just be ignored or dismissed and KNOW that someone cares about their well being.

Abuse within an establishment is enabled by poor cultural attitudes to the people its supposed to serve. People won't speak up, if they feel they will be punished in someway for doing so or because they think things will merely be covered up because they are just a nobody.

Abusers seek out people who are LEAST ABLE and LEAST LIKELY to challenge what is happening. So you have to consider this as part of the issue.