To think This Is Going To Hurt is awful to women?

[justanoldhack]

Watching the show and can't help but shake a really uncomfortable feeling that its writer just...really doesn't like women.

I get that doctors are super overstretched, so tired, giving the job everything at the expense of their personal lives. I also get that it's a 'comedy' and not real, although it is based on his true life experiences.

But the way the women are portrayed as silly, a nuisance, stupid, battleaxes, or simply a vessel that 'covers his pubes in blood'... feels so off. These are women at one of the most vulnerable moments in their lives, but they're just props, the butt of the jokes. I can't shake the feeling that Adam Kay really, really doesn't like women. Definitely does not respect them.

Thanks goodness, I guess, that he's not longer practicing medicine. And not surprised either to learn that when he was younger he wrote 'comedy' songs about babies with Down's Syndrome and women from the North.

[quote Thymeout]@DrSbaitso

Why would someone as careful with her words as Margaret Atwood choose 'preacher'?
How would you interpret what she said?

[/quote]
She's so careful with her words that she didn't say any of the ones you've put into her mouth, and she had an ongoing discussion by email with the interviewer, after the interviewer, off the record. It was in relation to the trans rights/women's rights issue. Even Margaret Atwood doesn't want to go on the record with her full thoughts on that one.

The paragraph you've quoted and stamped your projections on was part of a wider context and people should read the whole interview if they want to know. In essence, though, she was saying that if someone writes a story that appears to be giving a message you don't like, that's not a reason to demonise the author. She used the word "preacher" because she was making a point about placing morals, perhaps with religious fervour, on that kind of thing.

That is a thousand miles away from deciding that she thinks there is an overbearing anti-misogynist movement that could be described as a cult. All the key words there are yours.

@Thymeout

But the post-natal care was super-deluxe by today's standards. I was shocked by the way my dd and ddil were treated - or rather not treated. Just left to get on with looking after the baby when what they needed was good food and a good night's sleep.

It was. A week in hospital, your baby looked after at night so you could sleep, lots of deep salt baths and men admitted only at visiting times. It was so supportive and there was a real spirit of comradeship. Today’s new mums would cry if they knew what a great experience we had.

I was in the national flagship hospital for midwifery at Woolwich. Now closed. I think my dd and ddil are fed up with hearing about the jugs of foaming hot milk that arrived twice a day for hot chocolate. The nurses even encouraged us to go out for dinner with our partners on the last evening, while they acted as babysitters.

I haven't read whole thread but so glad to see some of the comments.
As a doctor I have never understood the "love" for Adam kay.
His attitudes in the book horrified me, as did his behaviour. Basically amongst doctor friend we all agreed he really wasn't a very good doctor, and turned that into he was the victim of the NHS.
We all worked long hours under huge stress we didn't all behave like him.. Nor did we quit and write a whingy book under the guise of comedy

@Theredjellybean

I haven't read whole thread but so glad to see some of the comments. As a doctor I have never understood the "love" for Adam kay. His attitudes in the book horrified me, as did his behaviour. Basically amongst doctor friend we all agreed he really wasn't a very good doctor, and turned that into he was the victim of the NHS. We all worked long hours under huge stress we didn't all behave like him.. Nor did we quit and write a whingy book under the guise of comedy

I have several friends who are doctors and they all loved it.

@DrSbaitso
Of course they weren't MA's words. It was a precis, aka 'in your own words'. MA's words were in quotation marks and relevant to the bile spewed on this and the other threads in relation to Adam Kay.

The fact that quite a few of his critics haver never read the book and have watched little more than the trailers for the series, and boast about it, informed only by social media group-think, puts them firmly in cult territory imo.

Ok, I've come back to say IABU.

I've now finished the series and it isn't awful to women. It's actually pretty touching, and nuanced and thought provoking. I would recommend it.

I still think the maternity system in this country is broken, but I don't think the point of the series was to dissuade me from that. I think, actually, it didn't good job of showing the humanity in what is sometimes very inhumane system.

I still think AK is an arse, but he's made a good bit of television here.

Fair play to you. Very few posters ever admit a change of heart.
Glad you saw all of it. I felt the same by the end.
It also helped me get over never having done midwifery, which was a regret of mine - as I realise I could never have hacked it...I had to look away from every bit of blood Every. Single. Time

I just finished the series and thought it was very good. It was touching and the Adam character had a lot of depth and nuance to him. I thought it was more a stark reflection on the state of the NHS. I thought the scene where its life and death, the NHS is still the best, was very moving. Definitely my own personal experience.

If you think this is bad, watch Bodies on bbc. Written by Jed Mercurio

It makes this look like call the midwife

Yep, fair play for coming back to admit a change of heart!

I just can’t get past that first episode wherein he was so neglectful…turning his back on the woman needing forceps delivery just showed utter contempt and then to blame the tear on the poor student was disgraceful (also a woman- funny that, bet he wouldn’t dare have to a men)
Despicable and inexcusable and there can be no redemption of that to me no matter how good the following episodes. So glad he’s out of the NHS- Good riddance!

If you watch the rest of the series... you might be better placed to judge what you're seeing. If you read the full thread you might also find out a bit more.

I just watched the first episode. I thought it might be very hard to watch. I had a serious injury due to negligence when giving birth, for which I went through a difficult, long-drawn and distressing legal process to obtain compensation for, which in no way compensates for the losses experienced as a result. The first episode shows so clearly the issue with staffing, with long shifts, with training, how life-changing mistakes can so easily be made. I thought it was brilliant for showing the horror of this and the danger. I just wish something could change as a result. I haven't been back to a maternity ward but it seems that the NHS is more and more chipped away at. I felt there was a lot of humanity in that episode. I look forward to watching more.