Romany,

bwahahhahahahahahardly.

too many logical fallacies and irrational notions to contend with in your post.

how dare anyone dare to dare. omg, the cheek of a voice expressed, the travesty of it.

ps. you need authority in order to give a person permission.

good luck.

Oh, Cornflower, why do your posts consistently set out to polarise people? Some women prefer to give birth one way, some another. The centuries long midwife v. doctor debate is still unresolved and the politics of the protagonists vary.

Kerry's "claim" about husbands agreeing to certain procedures is fact. Many, through love of their spouses; through fear for her welfare and that of the child's and through lack of knowledge only too willingly agree with whatever the doctor, or midwife, suggests. How does that imply a feminist construct?

I can only hope that your comment about sqatting to give birth being "Helpful in Africa" wasn't thought through properly. As it stands, and given your view that this method of giving birth is "guff", it suggests that African women are somehow different and inferior to others. Otherwise, if helpful to African women then why not to others? Traditionally it was the universal birth position until doctors (originally called "men-midwives" in this context)began to officiate at births. Millions of women, influenced not by feminists, but by the laws of gravity, find this a more comfortable way to give birth. It depends on the woman and I have not yet discovered any political preference.

Intercourse before birth? Why did this(or differing positions) scare your class? Its been part of birth knowledge for centuries and is still suggested by many doctors: its hardly feminist propaganda.

Midwives and doctors attended the same obstetrics and gynaecology lectures and courses in University. Once registered, they are also subject to the same litigation for malpractice. I'm sure some midwives make blunders, just as some doctors do. Once again, what has this to do with feminism? And what about feminist doctors? Where do they fit into the scheme?

Not having husbands present at birth was(and still is, in many places) a societal construct for centuries - not a feminist one. To state that the innovation of having sanction for one's partner or whomever one chooses to be present at the birth "obviously" owes nothing to feminists is, I think, another one of those statements you didn't think through properly.

Romany

You so ably demonstrate why so many modern feminists lack credibility because they take whatever suits them to support their case and deny anything that doesn't.

To top it off you insult and deliberately misconstrue what is said to waste the other person's time in rebuttal.

Squatting might suit a woman delivering a baby with a lower birth weight than is usual for Australians. Further, few Australian women exist in an impoverished landscape where slipping behind the nearest stunted tree and gritting the teeth is the only (not best) option. Such cultures have high mortality rates for mother and child alike.

It is probably not of interest to a well-off feminist in a big city with all of the mod cons, but country and indigenous women do not always have access to the excellent medical support she might take for granted and moans about.

High mortality and injury in childbirth were common in the West before the dramatic improvements due almost entirely to medical science. You should be aware that such fundamental hygiene deficiencies as lack of soap and water hand washing before food preparation, after changing infants and after performing bodily functions claim thousands of infants a year through 'old' killers like dysentery. Australia has similar problems in some areas but to a much lesser extent.

In their efforts to create distrust with medical practitioners and health authorities Western gender feminists do not serve the interests of women and their unborn infants at all. I would venture to say that the same well-heeled feminists would themselves elect to give birth in the best appointed birthing suite in private hospital with the full retinue of professionals and pain control on hand. No way would they contemplate giving birth in rough conditions far from medical help as some of our indigenous and country women are obliged to do.

Cornflower this topic is too much for this site. May I encourage all readers to research it thoroughly and read widely? Marjorie Tew found that there was not a positive correlation between hospitalisation of birth in the UK and declining infant mortality. The scientists that are responsible for declining infant mortality are engineers and public health professionals, not obstetricians. It is an error of logic to continue to assume that the medical profession has caused declining infant mortality.
But may I alter the course of the conversation and go to the period prior to conception? Earlier in the discussion, someone mentioned how abhorrent it is to call women ‘ladies’. There have been conversations in the past in which the term “lady” carried with it a social disability. But may I ask how a man is to woo and learn to be a faithful and considerate partner to a woman if he cannot find the “lady” within? How is a woman to show the man who courts her what pleases her if she is not in an emotionally safe place in his company? The rituals of courting seem to have disappeared in social conversation in Australia. I think feminist discourse, in seeking beyond the biological imperative, has resulted in women being considered as “just another bloke”. The 50-50 marriage success rate harms men, women and children. Let us explore new ways of reaching our full potential, ways that acknowledge the differing biological imperatives faced by men and women.

Cornflower I sincerely apologise if you found my post insulting: it was consciously vetted for inflammatory adjectives, subjective language or sweeping generalisations in a conscious effort to avoid giving offense. Further, if I misconstrued either the tenor of your remarks or any individual opinion I am sorry if this led to misunderstanding.

The purpose of my post was to point out that, especially in such emotive threads as these, introducing further contentious subjects such as the feminist question, takes us further and further away from rational thought and understanding. Which completely negates any possibility of accepting differing points of view: what should be debate turns into rancorous squabbling.

I hoped that, by highlighting some of the views in the doctor/midwife debate which you had thought were feminist driven and explaining that they weren't the dissolution of this thread - as so many others -into feminist/anti-feminist could be shown as irrelevant. I pointed also to the fact that the doctor/midwife question had been hotly contested for years without conclusion so that its introduction at this point was unlikely to lead to resolution.Like the previous poster, I don't think this is the time or place even to try.

One obvious point where we are at cross purposes though, I can identify. The different positions chosen by a woman in which to give birth are not socio-economic markers: I have dealt with women in Australia, Europe and England who prefer active birth techniques and squatting - and women in Africa, China and Asia who prefer supine positions. (Though personally, I have never come across any who have slipped behind a tree!)Once again my point is merely that such choices are not dependent on politics, affluence or nationality but are personal.

As I don't identify my own politics, nationality or socio-economic level I do hope that you understand I am not striving for partisanship but for objectivity. And I also hope that this doesn't, once more, give offence.

Cristy is yet another woman who needs all those around her to change. Her own aversion to change is evident throughout, but especially through gems such as “However, I am still trying to come to terms with the inevitable impacts of this choice on my life.” … “The real issue for me, however, is identity.”

For most thinking people, life-cycle traversal means many identities. Some are attained through great effort and sacrifice, a few by chance. Many go to plan, but just as many don’t - some just happen and just are.

So round and round we go, powered only by a woman’s feelings of insecurity and discontent. Whom to blame for her discontent? She makes it very clear: “This is not the result of feminism - this is the continued impact of a patriarchal culture that remains fundamentally unchanged at its core.”

Are we so unprepared for making such life’s choices, that we must blame others for its unanticipated impacts. Are adherents to feminism more or less likely to be disappointed than those more resigned to the so-called patriarchal oppression?

So while the sistas are doing it for themselves, the village is expected to raise their children. The logistic paradox here is that most village sista’s are now too busy “doing it for themselves”, to raise their own, let alone other people’s children. This could be, at least in part, why we need degrees in childcare, and why childcare is seen as expensive.

But why revert to logic now. As others have said, this may not be the place for it - just leave your assumed identities by the door on your way out …