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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Birthing mother abused for refusing male nurse

999 replies

sakura184 · 12/07/2019 01:28

This kind of crap is why I opted for homebirths

pjmedia.com/parenting/colorado-doula-and-assault-survivor-investigated-by-dhs-for-refusing-male-nurse-during-birth/

OP posts:
aliasundercover · 15/07/2019 01:22

:)
Well, we can agree about the pay at least.

sakura184 · 15/07/2019 01:22

Not only is my job shit but my hours are totally shit too, making the job even more crappy.
Sorry for generalizing. I don't think your job is on the same level as my job

OP posts:
aliasundercover · 15/07/2019 01:29

I've had 'good' jobs and usually I hated them. I was a teacher for a long time - I loved the students but couldn't take the meaningless 'initiatives'.

I like my job because I go home every day thinking that I made a few people lives better.

Aaarrgghhh · 15/07/2019 01:47

Wow, okay. Escalation, again. I don’t know why you aren’t understanding what we are saying. How do you propose forcing women into medical roles? Also, your attitude towards lower paid jobs is disgusting. We shouldn’t be telling people their jobs are crappy and they should go for a better one, we should show them the respect they deserve. The crappy (as you put it) jobs need done, do you want all men to have crappy jobs and the women to have amazing jobs? So you’re sexist then?

StrangeLookingParasite · 15/07/2019 02:12

I mean really that's the least we can expect from a feminist isn't it. Giving us something to read

Eh?

Maniak · 15/07/2019 02:25

@GeorgeFayne

"Every woman is different. Every pregnancy is unique. Our goals, desires, and medical histories all vary. THIS SHOULD BE RESPECTED."

So what do you think about women who turn up for their first birth not knowing what to expect? It's hard to have meaningful goals in that situation. With subsequent births, you can have a clear idea what you want and don't want. But the first time, I doubt many women come in saying "I don't want men to examine me without asking first", for example, because it might never occur to them that such a thing could happen. But if it did, they could be very clear the next time.

Also, in terms of the risks to the baby, you don't have much choice but to accept what the staff are saying to you, unless you have specialist knowledge yourself. Some mothers do, but I think most women wouldn't.

So is it that the first time mothers are just counted as not having goals and desires? Or do the hospital staff decide for them?

GeorgeFayne · 15/07/2019 07:08

Maniak
I have so many thoughts about your questions and so much I would like to say, both about our current state of things as well as a system that would truly center women and best meet our needs. That said, I'm not sure this is the best thread to do that. A number of us have put some time, thought, and feeling into responses that have been either ignored or belittled by the OP, and the general tone of the discussion has been...well, odd.

There was a suggestion about the sanest thing being to leave the thread, and I'm wondering if that might be an excellent idea? I would be happy to start a general thread about childbirth, women's health, and feminism, and share my thoughts there.

HorridHenrysNits · 15/07/2019 07:11

This thread being about birth trauma solely due to medicalisation is a pretty new development OP. You should have spelled that out clearly at the start.

hazeyjane · 15/07/2019 07:16

Get with the programme, HorridHenrysNits, it's also about low paid 'crappy' jobs and porn soaked gynaecologists.....I think

sakura184 · 15/07/2019 08:03

Some women are so clever. Good jobs. Mr Right. Feminists should probably pack up and go home.

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 15/07/2019 08:11

Maybe for her the potential risks of c section are worth taking so she doesn't have to experience labour pains.

Do you understand how utterly misogynistic that comment is?!

When reasons for requesting a Cs have been looked at, pain tends not to be a dominant factor.

The suggestion that it is, is one that is peddled by the popular press who also spout the trope about 'being too posh to push'.

Thankyou RedToothBrush - I always worry when posting about electives, because I know that for some women they are very healing, and my experience was the very opposite!

No not at all. My worry has been that support for ELCS for mental health reasons has been pushed without thought in some cases. It's viewed as something of a magic bullet for birth fear. When you start to talk to women about birth fear you get a huge range of responses, concerns and priorities and it's important to unpick those and think about a range of alternatives and their positives / negatives and give thought to the underlying causes of the fear as often those causes are long standing and aren't just about birth.

To here a negative experience is healthy because it makes people think about how it might not go to plan or meet their expectations. Considering it helps to cope with it or make people think that actually they might prefer another approach.

More often then not, support and being listened to and respected is as important as the method of birth anyway.

It was decided that the point of this thread was birth trauma from hospitals and male interference when I started the thread

Thats not how debate on MN works. You don't 'own' a thread.

And just HOW sexist is it to say that women must stick to their own and gynecology must be promoted as a female only career? The female doctors I know already felt pressured to go into certain areas of medicine based on gendered stereotyping and attitudes. Medicine still has a major problem with misogyny as a career despite the number of women who qualify as doctors. Many professional women are keen to break out of that, and for that reason pressure to work in gynaecology is unwanted and counterproductive.

On the flip to that there are more midwives leaving the profession than joining it, despite government promises to recruit thousands more.

A good friend currently works as a health care assistant in a maternity ward, and would like to train but she simply can not get the finances to add up despite looking into it and effectively having some experience.

I have to say that for all the bleating on about feminism, childbirth and it being the subject of the thread which we must all cowtow to, there are some really ignorant views that are totally counter to centring women, understanding problems in maternity and knowing anything very much at all about birth fear.

Not to mention how trying to restrict the topic of conversation (whilst simultaneously going on about how taboo it was to talk about women centred care) is quite gobsmackingly arrogant and ironic. How can you stop something being taboo whilst also telling people they aren't allowed to talk about things that don't fit in with your narrative?

It's appalling.

Maniak · 15/07/2019 08:42

A lot of people seem mad at the OP. I can't see it myself. I like the ideas she has put forward. For me, it's like Germaine Greer - you don't have to agree, just consider the argument space. But I'm new to mumsnet and there are probably all kinds of unspoken rules etc.

@georgefayne. If you would rather answer somewhere else, could you put a link to it here? Thanks.

Maniak · 15/07/2019 08:43

Just saw it! I spoke too soon.

GeorgeFayne · 15/07/2019 09:05

Well, that's just the new thread, Maniak, as I still have to answer your question. :) I've never created a new post based on another thread, and I'm not sure how to do it without it being confusing or weird. I will answer, though!

I should also like to add that I'm not mad at the OP. More like confused and frustrated?

In the meantime, (1 am here in the US, and I've got to get some sleep!), this is one of the best little summaries about birth I've read:
kickassbirth.com/lemon/

Justhadathought · 15/07/2019 09:37

You weren't pleased you were challenged on your adoration of Ina May Gaskin so you've changed it again

If someone was inspired by 'Spiritual Midwifery', so what?

This is one of those highly emotive subjects because of the profundity and intensity of pregnancy, birthing and motherhood.

We've all had our own particular experiences of birthing; with the very particular conditions surrounding that. However, it does strike me that women with positive home birth 'stories', and views formed as a result of that, come under much castigation and pressure not to talk about it for fear of upsetting other women. This has long been evident.

These days the acceptable narrative is " The most important/the only important thing is the delivery of a healthy baby" and anyone who talks about a woman centred birthing experience is dismissed as being almost selfish. Natural, home birthers are treated and talked about in the way that anti-vaxxers are.

Justhadathought · 15/07/2019 09:40

Have to say, too, that for me a male mid-wife would feel very alien - and I instinctively feel that mid-wives should be female.

Female doctors are often no more sensitive or aware than male doctors - because they have all been trained in the same medical model. In fact, some female doctors are worse than some male doctors - or it is certainly felt that way because one expects compassion and empathy from women. But women are capable of projecting their own issues onto other women, as much as any men.

sakura184 · 15/07/2019 11:27

*@Maniak
*
A lot of people seem mad at the OP.

About 10 years ago, I would get this kind of response if I made an anti trans post on mumsnet. That's why I don't really think it's ok for women to say "I peak transed but before that I drank the Kook Aid".

Erm no you just enjoyed jumping on the misogynistic band wagon because it's fun to bear bait a feminist

You're exactly right thought Maniak. People who disagree with me so much should that it gets personal (name calling etc) either start their own threads or just stay away rather than try to harangue me into accepting standard orthodoxy

OP posts:
sakura184 · 15/07/2019 11:40

Justhadathought

I wouldn't want a midwife who hadn't given birth. So you could say that my criteria for a person who helps me and is around me in birth is someone who has given birth themselves which automatically excludes men: it's not personal.

OP posts:
sakura184 · 15/07/2019 11:52

@RedToothBrush

I'm sorry but to extrapolate misogyny from my comment that I respect women's decision to have a c section even if there is no medical need is such a stretch.

Below, I described labor pains as an abomination, which they are. I can completely understand not wanting to go through a vaginal birth. Can't believ I have to spell it out that I also get that there are a billion different other reasons why a woman might want a c section, reasons I'm not fully aware of. I just took it as a given that this was understood by my comment.

And a c section is risky so you would expect some people to say that a woman must absolutely always take the safest or optimum childbirth method, but I disagree with this. I think she should take the route that is best for her even if it's riskier. Just because she wants to.

OP posts:
sakura184 · 15/07/2019 11:56

I think denying any woman a c section, when she really wants one, is just as much about controlling women as forcing unwanted and unnecessary medical procedures on them. It's all the same.

OP posts:
sakura184 · 15/07/2019 11:59

And yes I also get that in some cases a c section is better for health reasons than a vaginal birth. By all means discuss this on the thread.

What I won't have is people telling me I can't discuss what the thread is actually all about by detailing it into oblivion. Can't believe I was talking about my job last night. The absolute refusal to allow me to discuss unwanted male medical attention has sent this thread into some strange directions

OP posts:
sakura184 · 15/07/2019 12:00

derailing it into oblivion

OP posts:
GrammarTeacher · 15/07/2019 12:03

This is one of the strangest threads I've read on here for a variety of reasons. Given your attitude towards men I am genuinely surprised you allow any in your life if you can't trust their motives!
In my first labour I experienced the full range of services (other than a home birth). I was cared for very well by everyone. Where I encountered issues the second time that was due to underfunding not sex or gender of the staff.
This thread plays into the hands of people who think feminists are man-haters.
I have always considered myself a proud feminist. But I don't recognise what Mumsnet Feminism has become under the guise of protecting the traumatised.

sakura184 · 15/07/2019 12:09

@GrammarTeacher

You must be one of these clever women I hear about who have managed to escape men at their worst.
Also there is a difference between allowing certain men "into your life" and not knowing what kind of unknown man is around you when you're in labor. Who wants a porn watcher giving you internal examinations? How do you know he isn't a porn watcher?
Don't care if he is? Great for you. This thread is for women who notice and care about these types of things.

OP posts:
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