Public monuments for women who died in childbirth.

[Wiseplumnet]

AIBU to ask that beside the monuments in every village, town and city in this country ( UK) to men who gave their lives defending ( or attacking) in war, there should also be monuments to woman who died giving birth. Just had an argument/ discussion with my brother about women having had it 'easier' through history because they don't have to fight wars.I argued that the historical equivalent to this is are the woman who died ( or were seriously wounded) giving birth to these men.

Are you joking? Actual chalk and cheese.

Dying in childbirth is not the historical equivalent of sacrificing your life to defend your country. You can’t possibly compare a biological hazard with a military role.

I think your equivalence is totally false here. War memorials (which also have the names of women who died in the wars) name people who were killed in the line of duty protecting their country from Nazi invasion.
A total of 384,000 service personnel died during WW2 whilst a total of around 10,000 women died from pregnancy and childbirth related causes during the same time.

I get that women should have recognition for continuing the human race but... i don't think it'll help us increase the birth rate right...??!! So not helpful overall.

@Wiseplumnet It sounds like you've been spending a lot of time reading about ancient Sparta, as in ancient Sparta the only people permitted to have gravestones were (1) men who died in war, and (2) women who died during childbirth.

I think it’s only fair that men fight wars. They start them.

The women who were widowed young, or lost their beloved son or brother suffered for longer. That is the equivalent. But I don’t think they need a memorial.

Are you sure war and fighting isn’t also a biological hazard ?

OP, going by that logic, how do you feel about monuments to emergency service workers who have been killed in the line of duty? After all, they made the choice to go into that career. Are they any less deserving because their career was something they chose?

I get you OP, off the back of the twattish comment "women have had it easier through history" I'd want monuments to every fucking thing that women do, and have done. Including dying birthing those soldiers that are sent off to die themselves.

Somebody worked out the same figures for the Napoleonic Wars.
A British woman had a greater chance of dying in childbirth than a British soldier had of dying in battle. Eighteen percent v fifteen per cent, if I remember rightly.

The earliest war memorial in the UK (Middleton Lancs.) recalls the men who fought the Scots in 1513.

Yes I agree. Some religions liken childbirth to battle - both war and childbirth keep nations going. Both cause death.

More women risk death to keep their country filled with people than men do going to war nowadays. Few British men will ever go to war.

Nope😂

Didn't know that, very interesting, seems antiquity already thought ot it.

Start with a monument to Emilie du Chatalet. She was a French mathematician (same era as Newton and Voltaire). She became pregnant in her 30s and knew birth was incredibly risky at that age. So she spent her pregnancy writing her great mathematical work. And as she predicted, she died in childbirth. Her pregnancy was literally a death sentence and she knew it. :-(

I feel that the commemoration of emergency service workers who signed up as a career choice and lost their lives saving other lives is totally deserved and I would support it whole heartedly. I have friends and family who work in these services.I am not trying to take commemoration away from anyone, why would I? I don't really understand the point you are making. I am looking at it from an historical viewpoint . If you want to compare it to career choice, one way of looking at it is to think that the only 'career' open to women was getting married, often for financial security and the risk they took by choosing this 'career' was having no control over their fertility after marriage. Childbirth was dangerous and statistically a woman was more likely to die or sustain life changing injuries with each pregnancy,( fistulas for instance). This has always been seen as a woman's fate. War and fighting has been seen as a man's fate. Why does one get commemorated and the other not?

Just point out to him that men start the wars.

I agree we should remember those who died giving birth. It must have been terrifying as you realised your life was ebbing away before adequate medical care was available for so many. And to have known the risks as you entered pregnancy and labour- not completely unlike a soldier going to war. Worse still - So many women in the world are still living with these risks.

I understand where you are coming from OP and why your brother has infuriated you.

Wouldn't a lot of the soldiers rather not have been born than get sent off to suffer and then die horrifically in a war? I know I would if I was a man.

Having children is a personal choice not a community service or a war

Historically no, it very frequently was NOT a choice!!! Do you seriously imagine that women contemporaneous with the male heroes depicted on heroic historical statuary around the UK generally had agency to decide who to marry, when to have sex, whether or not to exercise control over potentially getting pregnant?

This is obviously not true - but a good thing to explore for people open to revising their knee-jerk opinions, as we can also look at how even today women are not afforded these basic human rights and "choices" around the world - look, for example, at the women forced into serial pregnancies because their husbands had lactation fetishes, which COVID put front and centre in the global spotlight - you MUST have seen this???

Going off to war is also a personal choice. Personally I'd opt for going prison as a conscientious objector, rather than dramatically wishing I'd never been born.

@Dutch1e easy to say from the comfort of your own home knowing you'll never be in either situation.

oddly I saw this on sm this morning. Not the suggestion of a monument, but the stats generally used as more of a counter argument to the whole women need “protecting”, they need men to fight for their freedoms, abortion is murder, up the patriarchy men sacrifice their lives for you BS.

If memory serves, in the US since 1985 something like 3 million men (and some women) have died in combat.

16 million women died in childbirth over the same time frame.

when you compare those two numbers all the “thank you for your service” celebrating the armed services pale somewhat. Especially when men are withdrawing abortion access without even considering the effect on women’s lives.

all those women dead. The men get thank you and rewarded, the women get well more of you should die that’s what you’re there for.

There is a monument to Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales who died after a terribly mismanaged and botched 3 day delivery of a very overdue (2½ weeks) and huge baby (stillborn) in 1817. She was a woman who might have been Queen instead of Victoria. The death caused public outrage and the monument at Windsor was funded by public donations.

Your brother's whole reasoning is wrong at it's most basic level as it assumes:

1. That only men have ever been soldiers
2. That only soldiers.die in wars

Unless the whole war takes place in an empty field (it rarely does) civilians tend to suffer and die as well. In the times of siege warfare the whole city would be locked down and face starvation, disease, massacre when the gates were opened. Later as mechanised warfare became a thing cities with people in them were bombed. In fact, the rules of war protected soldiers far earlier than they protected civilians. Eg during medieval sieges it was common for "quarter" to be negotiated for the soldiers but not the citizens. Often soldiers could expect better treatment a sPOW because they could be ransomed back. Later on the Geneva conventions carried far more protections for captured soldiers. That's part of the reason Soviet soldiers were treated so harshly by the Germans- Stalin refused to recognise them as captured soldiers so they had no protection.

I have seen Americans say talk about the Vietnam war in those terms but actually lots of women died and suffered in the Vietnam war. Women fought too. They weren't Americans though so they don't count.

I don't agree with monuments to women who died in childbirth. Part of the reason statues to fallen heros were first built was because it was seen as a noble thing "pro patria mori" . WW1 changed that and later memorials are more nuanced on the issue. But I don't want to see death in childbirth fetishised as a noble sacrifice.