Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

 0 items

• Login
• Join

Search this site:

I just read an excellent piece from Bitch Magazine.

A commentary that uses the depiction of childbirth from one particular new TV show, to explore depictions of women giving birth on television and in the movies. It’s easy to use one particular depiction to explore them all, because they all depict the same thing.

Woman giving birth = raving lunatic. If she wants a natural birth she is a raving lunatic plus control freak.

The problem?

In Up All Night, and in most other depictions of women as screaming, raving lunatics in labor, she has repeatedly said what she does and does not want or feel comfortable with and she is being ignored. She is being told that the people around her know better than she does what she needs.

And you know what? For most of us in life, when we communicate something we do or do not want to the people around us and we are not heard, we do one of two things. We become screaming, raving lunatics desperately trying to be heard, or we become silent.

In my work as a doula I see women not being heard more often than I’d like. I see women being verbally told, or given the message through the actions of those around them, that everyone else knows better than she does what she wants, what her body needs and what the baby who has been growing and living within her body needs. And most of the time when I see this, I don’t see women becoming screaming lunatics. I see them become silent.

This silent, docile version of female behavior is one that our culture finds much more appealing.

And here is the most significant thing about these dynamics in real life birth as it relates to our steadily rising cesarean rates in this country:

When a woman is not being heard, respected or supported (in the forms of being told she doesn’t know what she needs, that her body is not working right, or that her baby is in danger) whether she is screaming in response or becoming silent, her body releases adrenaline and her labor cannot progress. All her nervous system understands is “Danger. Don’t give birth right here, right now.” Prepare to fight, flight or freeze. It’s no wonder all these women end up with cesareans for “failure to progress”. Maybe we should call it a cesarean for failure to be heard, respected and supported.