To not be sure if a 17 year old boy can be in the right headspace to train as a midwife?

[Boysclothes]

I know a few male midwives, all older guys who are nurse converted and are all great. No problem with it at all.

However a friends son wants to be in a caring profession and she has asked me to have a chat with him about becoming a midwife, direct entry so training from next September. She knows a bit about it and thinks the autonomy/quicker progression/pay etc makes it more desirable than being a nurse.

So, I'm just musing here as I know the admissions tutors will make the decision they see fit, but I'm not sure if a just turned 18 year old lad could cope with or make sense of midwifery. It's just so very female isn't it? And if he hasn't got much experience of women, it just seems a bit... I dunno.... Inappropriate, possibly?

I'm going to tell him about the realities of the job but what are your thoughts?

And how do you propose that men as a group earn the trust of women as a group, before we as a group start treating them with equality in sensitive matters? Given, of course, that one man cannot and should not be held responsible for the actions of another man - just as one woman cannot and should not be held responsible for that of another?

totally agree seven even here we are told to 'get over it', 'deal with your hang ups', 'accept it' the list goes on... because if you don't, how will you ever earn 'equality'.

I love it when people start coming all morally superior and scolding others, minimising the control they feel they need over their own bodies as archaic, wrong, something they need to get over, etc.

18 is too young, too. IMO. There were people this age around in a unit where my child was being treated and maybe one or two of them was mature enough to be there, the rest of them were too bloody young and inexperienced in life to handle it.

I love it when people start claiming others are being morally superior, when all they are doing is expressing a different viewpoint.

Well, when women and girls are not subject to the level of stuff that they are at the moment, they will start to trust men more.

I can't see that happening though, I don't think men (as a group) are particularly interested in tackling it at a societal level.

Maybe (hopefully) that will change with all the awful stories about institutional abuse / cover ups of abuse / widespread abuse that was ignored, and at the other end of the scale women and girls drawing attention to the everyday abuse that goes on - street harassment and so on.

It isn't the job of women to 'get over their hang ups' and trust men in intimate medical situations because 'not all men are like that.' Enough men are like that for my concerns and feelings to be valid. I don't want a male midwife, I would refuse a male midwife. That is my absolute right.

Women (as a group) don't trust men because men (as a group) at a societal level don't do anything to tackle abuse of women by some men?

And that's why this 18 year old lad shouldn't be a midwife?

Sorry, that post was written after Writer's.

I really don't disagree with most of what you say, Seven.

Of course I don't want to see women traumatised by sexual violence, for example, forced to be tended by male clinicians. That would be hideous.

However, I think the cart does need to go before the horse a bit, in order for progress to be made.

So as a woman, despite familiarity with all relevant norms, I can't operate from a place that dictates that because 'men' treat 'women' badly, that I need to feel differently about a male midwife than a female one.

For me that would be betraying my beliefs about equality.

I want men to work against their sense of 'norms' too, even if those norms are 'instinctive'.

I would refuse any midwife I didn't feel comfortable with, regardless of whether they had a penis or a vagina. That is my right. It wouldn't be because I didn't think men (as a group) or women (as a group) weren't doing enough to engender my trust.

Do some people think the male midwife is getting turned on by delivering a baby or something??

I would be ok with a male midwife, but I would prefer a midwife who had given birth and had the same views on birth as me ( if I could choose). I think male midwifes and most 17yo's ( of either gender) wouldn't be able to empathise and give the sort of emotional support needed.

I've never said he shouldn't be a midwife

I've got no problem with that at all.

I don't like the suggestion made upthread that women should not have a choice.

And I don't like the wider implication that women are being unreasonable in some way by having a preference, there seems to be a gist that OK women can have a choice if they must, but grudgingly.

"Do some people think the male midwife is getting turned on by delivering a baby or something??"

Nooooo

Some women have their own reasons for not wanting men with them in situations where they are unclothed and/or vulnerable and/or the situation is initimate or personal.

What a stupid comment. I mean FGS.

Where are you getting that gist from? I can't see that at all - what people seem to be saying is that whilst there might be an individual preference (and right) for a female midwife, the personality and ability of the midwife should perhaps be more important. It seems a huge leap to claim that the reason for this is lack of trust by women (as a group) because men (as a group) aren't doing enough at a societal level to tackle the minority of men who are abusers.

The stupid idea and hang-ups are collective ones; please don't think I mean they belong to women and are for women to overcome.

For example, the idea that nudity is necessarily sexual; that men and women cannot be friends; that 'men are only ever after one thing'.

Men and women share these beliefs and they hold us back from relating to one another as people.

SirChenjin there are plenty of posts on the thread which talk about that.

Only one poster said that women should not be allowed to choose on the NHS that I can remember.

But a lot of talk of "oh well if they've been seriously abused then I suppose that's understandable". That sort of stuff. Which implies that anyone who hasn't had the most awful trauma, but still has a preference, is being unreasonable.

It's a long long thread so I'm not going to reread it again to find them though.

when i'm in labour I dont' give a shit who's staring up my vagina as long as they know what they're doing!!!!!

It's not about nudity being sexual, in this context.

It's about areas which are "private" and also about vulnerability.

But that's not the gist - that's a small number of individual posters.

If the preference is based on stereotyping and prejudice, that does seem a bit U, tbh.

One is right there SirChenjin, in a serendipitous x-post - so you could ask her.

Which one?

CerealOffender - sorry, but why on earth would you not want a teenage boy anywhere near you as opposed to a teenage girl? My midwife for first child was a man (22 years ago). He was just great. How can any student be expected to learn any profession if they are not given the chance to practise?