Milli Hill: I will not be silenced

[TheFleegleHasLanded]

I love Milli Hill’s work and know many other women on here do too. Check out her latest blog:

“But too many women have been silenced, and I don’t want to join them. There are conversations about women’s rights, women’s bodies, and the words we use to talk about women’s issues, which need to be had, but which have been made taboo in our current culture. And this is not healthy. Worse still, women like me have been used as an example to others of what happens to you if you raise questions. And others have seen these public draggings, and decided to keep quiet themselves. This kind of behaviour, in which dissidents are made a public example of in order to ensure compliance to dogma, does not have very good historical precedents. And yet it currently describes itself as ‘the right side of history’.”

www.millihill.co.uk/2021/07/10/i-will-not-be-silenced/

Yes FloralBunting, all of this feeds very neatly into male supremacist aims. Very neatly indeed.

Millie and people like her reawakened my feminism after I became a mother. I realised that childbirth is a feminist issue. I ran a positive birth group and an infant feeding group. The beauty of both is that they are communities of women supporting women.

I am so disappointed in Birthrights, an organisation founded by women, to challenge the prevailing culture of birthing women being ignored and infantilised, or worse, abused or assaulted. Birthrights was radical in that it looked at childbirth through the lens of human rights and feminism. They have let themselves, and Millie, down.

I have followed her on Instagram now and she's shared an article about this. I'm glad to see she's got mostly positive and supportive comments, with just a handful of people saying they won't be following her now because she's not inclusive in her language. It's a shame to see that, I hope they realise what they're asking of her, what they are giving away and may never get back.

Severing women from their reproductive rights, be it in conception, pregnancy and birth is not a feminist act, it's a male supremacist act.

It also fits neatly into the commercial surrogacy narrative with women as breeders so that men can have "access to a uterus" as a certain gay man who has been in the news regarding surrogacy so nicely put it Floral .

Assoc of Radical midwives published their summer issue last week.

I love ARM but struggled to read an article which featured Woman* constantly. The asterisk then went on to add '& birthing people'. There were different styles throughout the issue. I give it 2 more issues before women is not used by ARM.

The ONLY people who get pregnant are women. The ONLY people who give birth are women. To say anything else is insane. It shouldn't be brave to say it, but it is

for Milli - impressive bravery

I'm really disgusted by the way birth rights behaved. The quote from the ceo- that she was especially horrified to see milli had said that obstetric violence is violence against women. They obviously have no feminist analysis. Actually pretending that this type of abusive act is not a type of violence against women & girls. If we can only ever talk about abuse of birthing people, discrimination against lactating individuals, taboos or other discrim against mensteuators, but always pretend we can't join the dots and see what those disadvantaged people have in common - then we can't actually name the problem in its full context. Solutions are not possible because they require us to see this as largely the way society (and in this case medical establishments) treat women. It's about being female. It's not the only aspect but it's a central one.

It's also hypocritical of birth rights. Not long ago they were happy with woman centred language. They've expunged it from their Web site, but it lingers in the things their staff have done in the past-

Maria Brooker
"Maria was previously UK General Manager of Maternity Neighbourhood (a US based, midwife-led company developing a woman-centred electronic maternity record."

Rebecca Brione
"Until recently she was Vice-Chair of her local Maternity Voices Partnership , and monitored care and decency for women in prison as member of the Independent Monitoring Board for HMP Downview."
"She carried out the research on the experiences of women facing multiple disadvantage in partnership with Birth Companions."

And they don't stick to their own policy of always saying women and birthing ppl. From earlier this month-
"“Induction proposals ignore black and brown women’s experience of maternity services” says Birthrights."

So are they going to sever relations with themselves?

This is so sad to see! And the disproportionate response to her comments is frankly scary.
Milli’s work is brilliant, particularly Give birth like a feminist.

I was so grateful to discover Milli and her voice after a horrible birth experience. I felt violated and over time grew more and more baffled at the way most women are routinely treated during pregnancy, labour and birth, especially in a society where we are placing more emphasis on women’s consent and autonomy in other situations. What was even more baffling was the lack of discussion from feminists on childbirth issues like consent and obstetric violence. So finding Milli and her work was a ‘yes! Finally someone gets it too and seems to really care’ moment.

To see her vilified by certain people like this is so upsetting and disappointing, her comments are so mild compared to the reactions! Then you look at all the fighting and people turning against each other meanwhile women right this very second are being failed by maternity services, being traumatised and violated as they give birth. It just sets everything back :(

One positive about this is the almost universal horror that readers have expressed under the Times article. Including hundreds of men - who of course will be fathers.

This will only be won with the active involvement of good and decent men as well as all the efforts of women.

I have come across this group

with-woman.org/

On their Twitter account they declare their support for Milli Hill.

They may well be what I have been searching for - an explicitly and unashamedly woman centred group for mothers, midwives, doulas and breastfeeding counsellors.

I was so pleased to read this piece by Milli Hill.
I mean, not pleased that she was treated the way she was but great to see her speaking out and speaking up for women.

I had a baby last year and the woke language was very noticeable, I was so upset and angry about the erasure of women and the words we use to describe our lived biological experience in the name of so-called "inclusion". The local birth support groups and doulas were/are all about embracing "pregnant people", "birthing people", "chestfeeding". I hated it.

Lots of good comments on the Times, also lots of deletions and now they have closed comments.

@AnotherEmma
There was a recent thread about someone on Instagram talking about birthing people etc and pile ons on anyone questioning the language, whilst critiquing latest guidelines from NICE.

It is worth noting that NICE use the word WOMAN, consistently throughout.

www.nice.org.uk/news/article/nice-recommends-inducing-women-in-labour-earlier-in-new-draft-guidance

Furthermore the Royal College of Midwives response to the guidelines also exclusively (unless I missed it!) uses the word WOMAN.

If it's good enough for the professionals guiding practice it's good enough for everyone else. Refer dissenters to the professionals.

I'm glad she's said this.

Link to RCM document:

www.rcm.org.uk/news-views/rcm-opinion/2021/the-rcm-response-to-the-nice-induction-of-labour-draft-guideline/

Jesus. I grew up with my mum's second-wave feminist books on childbirth and we've gone backwards even from then! (1980s) in centring women in birth!

Solidarity for Milli. My DD is 8 so she will be needing to think about periods in the next few years, so I've just pre-ordered her period book. Keep going! This is all absolutely necessary and essential!

Re: access to a uterus

www.cbc-network.org/2021/02/men-now-want-access-to-uterine-transplants/

thefederalist.com/2015/02/03/lbgt-demands-for-other-peoples-children-are-misogynistic/
[not sure what the author means by 'a child's right to have a mother and a father', but worth reading anyway]

This takes the biscuit for a misleading headline, but there again it's the Daily Heil so what did you expect?:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6943105/Gay-transgender-man-tells-story-giving-birth-boy-despite-fears-trans-phobia.html

This is from all the way back in 2008:

abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/OnCall/story?id=4439567&page=1

and contained the following gem:

'For David, who flirted with becoming a parent, but eventually decided against it, gay men are the ultimate parents. "Gay men go through so many hoops to have kids," said David. "They really want them, unlike mothers like Britney Spears who don't care about their kids."'

I've just pre-ordered her book on periods for girls. It sounds great. My daughter and I have been looking into working with our monthly cycle so this sounds good.

Not sure if anyone has already said this but Give Birth like a Feminist and the Positive Birth Book are both 99p on Kindle at the moment. I have bought both and will probably buy both in paperback too. I have been listening to Milli read the audiobook of Give Birth Like a Feminist and it is excellent. I am looking forward to My Period in August.

Birthing people’ seemed ok – but I did wonder how the phrase had been chosen, and who had agreed that this was the best pair of words for those who were pregnant but did not wish to be referred to as women. I asked this question in a group for student midwives, but was quickly informed that questions like this were not acceptable, and I was requested to no longer post in that group.

I found this is chilling. Orwellian. People, especially women, are expected to obey arcane new rules without question. No explanations will be given, and any attempt to discuss the new rules or ask for clarification is treated as a transgression.

I’ve bought a copy of each of her books in paperback (no use to me, but my daughters might eventually use them) and reserved the one on periods.

Do the authors get much of the proceeds when Amazon are doing 99p offers?

Looking forward to seeing how men react when they are renamed the “inseminating person”.

I don’t know…
“The Inseminator” has a certain ring to it 😎

PaterPower, Milli herself is promoting the kindle books at 99p so I assume that she is keen that we buy them even at the reduced price… the promotion comes from the publisher rather than Amazon I believe.

I agree PRabbit. I am still waiting for inseminating parent to become as ubiquitous as birthing parent.