#MarchWithMidwives and the erasure of 'mothers' and 'women'

[AnotherEmma]

I've been following the #MarchWithMidwives campaign because I support it. The crisis in maternity services is a disgrace. Midwives, mothers and babies deserve better.

The problem is, it's brought back all the same concerns I had throughout 2020 (when I was pregnant with DC2, gave birth and then breastfeeding). I was following my local maternity services, doulas etc on Facebook and the language was full of gender neutral shite.

Now we have a campaign which is (or should be) about the care and safety of MOTHERS, women and their babies, and the words mother and woman are fucking nowhere to be seen.

It's all "birthing families" (um pretty sure it was me who gave birth and not my family), "parents" and... my personal favourite: "service users".

JUST FUCK OFF.

I can't even challenge it because I know I'll be accused of being a TERF and derailing the main point of the campaign.

I don't suppose anyone has come across a well argued article or blog post about this, by any chance?! Because I'm too pissed off to be eloquent on the subject!

I'm a long time lurker on the feminism board (not brave enough to "come out" yet as it were, both on SM and in real life)
I'm furious at the erasure of women but I'm relatively new to the fight.

I've also been a midwife for 7 years. Things are dire at the moment. Staffing levels are so unsafe. I'm one of many off sick with stress/burnout which is obviously only making it worse for the midwives left on the ground but I physically and mentally couldn't take it any more.

If we had more midwives we'd be better able to provide the care that women and babies need. At the moment it just feels like fire fighting and the majority of us hate that we can't give each woman the time and support they want and deserve because we have up to 12 other women who need us right that minute as well. Inevitably a lot of women therefore end up with shitty experiences, feeling like they've not been listened to or supported, feeling traumatised and damaged physically and emotionally. It's just not acceptable.

It would have been great to have the support of women on MN, what a powerhouse of strong minded, passionate, articulate women.

As it is, it's incredibly annoying and disappointing how it's panned out. We really had a chance to get our voices heard here.

Chest feeding! The poor baby give it a bottle ffs

It is odd isn't if moo that women will lose out more because women find it hard to support their erasure

Women lose either way

I can only speak from a bit of a marketing background. Whether you want to 'sell a product/service' or 'rally a cry for support' you need to be able to identify your target audience and name them. If you go too niche or alternatively too wide as in 'people' you lose the audience and the message is ignored. Yes you may not always include everyone but you have to aim for the majority of your target audience - women and mothers.

Similarly there is a big difference between gender neutral language and gender inclusive. 'Birthing people' is dehumanising and confusing. Who exactly do they mean - a person who gives birth or someone who helps someone give birth? 'Pregnant women, transmen and non binary people' is far more inclusive.

Yes, when I read the pinned thread I did think "read the room"

It would have been great to have the support of women on MN, what a powerhouse of strong minded, passionate, articulate women.

As it is, it's incredibly annoying and disappointing how it's panned out. We really had a chance to get our voices heard here.

Not only did you (general you not you personally) blow it, you doubled down and insulted and dismissed the very women and mothers you wanted unconditional support from.

Also proved, yet again, that kindness flows only one way and never in the direction of women.

Great to see a mention of the With-Woman blog. There’s also a Twitter.

With-woman focuses on the harms of gender neutral language in the maternity services.

There are a few very good articles which highlight the drawbacks of removing sexed words when talking about motherhood, women's health and why ‘and birthing people as ‘additive language’ is no great answer, either.

March for Midwives is a brilliant and needed cause, undermined by them forgetting that ‘women’ and ‘mothers’ are already inclusive words.

Www.With-woman.org

@WeAreWithWoman

I see that they're pleased to be supported by men who rent women's wombs

@KentPsychMB I’m reporting your post. Surgery like this need clearance by MN otherwise the boards get spammed.

Also, read the room. ‘Identify as women’......on this board?! Most of us here are women. Because we are of the female sex. We don’t ‘identify’ .....

*survey not surgery....doh. Reported, anyway.

@Clymene

I see that they're pleased to be supported by men who rent women's wombs

What a fucking surprise.

I see your post has not been removed yet. The questions are awful, conflating sex with gender and bundling different concepts up together. Some of them are meaningless. For example, we are asked how much we agree or disagree with ‘most policies relating to gender and the sexual division of labour [sic] serve the greater good.’

That is truly bad. If you need me to explain why it’s bad, incomprehensible, confusing and likely to give you no good data at all, then you really should not be permitted to use the internet at all for your survey.

That survey - complete madness!

Ooh post removed - good. Go spam somewhere else with your poorly-designed survey 😀

Deleted now, thank goodness.

@KentPsychMB

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

You’ve possibly pitched this survey at the wrong cohort here. There aren’t many posters here who identify as women.

I have asked for my post to be deleted as it links to the survey.

I want these points in my post to stand.

Why are psychology researchers issuing surveys with such a loaded, biased and poorly worded question about "God's law on abortion and pornography requiring to be followed before it's too late" ?

Why are they conflating pornography and abortion?

Why do they assume if one has concerns about the proliferation of pornography one would oppose abortion?

Why do they assume concerns about pornography are based on religious views?

Really badly done.

Yup they can FO till the cows come home tw*/s

That survey must be a spoof surely- it's ridiculous. And needs a spelling check.

[quote tiktok]@KentPsychMB I’m reporting your post. Surgery like this need clearance by MN otherwise the boards get spammed.

Also, read the room. ‘Identify as women’......on this board?! Most of us here are women. Because we are of the female sex. We don’t ‘identify’ .....[/quote]
That doesn't bother me but I refuse to be pigeon holed as anti- abortion religious evangelical if I am anti- pornography.