Feminism and McBirthing

It always surprises me when I come across a woman who identifies as a feminist but does not support birth as a feminist issue. I come across these women all the time. Women who have bought the idea that modern medicine=painless birth=liberation. We were sold this bill of goods more than a half century ago and it seems we bought it hook, line, and external fetal monitor.

The reality is that we were sold the idea of liberation but it was really about control. Control over a magical, mysterious, powerful experience that is inherently and uniquely feminine. A birthing woman who is in complete control of the process, who is able to feel safe enough to surrender, is a warrior. She is a fierce, primal beast. She is the Big Bang Theory, Creationism, the mythic Ohm. She is love.
The patriarchy most often does not attempt to hide its agenda. It wants women submissive and virtually silent, with a dab of rouge and a smattering of pearls. It wants us to buy the latest brands, barf the latest designer foods, and binge on the latest pharmaceuticals all designed to make us well aware of the fact that we are sad, weak, and fat. If they can keep us trapped in that cycle, they can get things like Cytotec and 33% C-Section rates and Pitocin for every birth past us--Just like they got Twilight Sleep and X-Rays and Thalidomide past us before.

Until women stop buying into the myth that painless birth equals liberation and that modern obstetrics wants women to have a choice, we are going to lose more and more babies and mamas. This co-opting of the feminist language is clever: When we cry out over the Cytotec, over the Caesarean birth rates, when we question the necessity of induction, we hear in response, over and over again : Women should have the right to choose a cesarean birth or an epidural or an induction. It is her body. But this same choice shouldn’t be afforded to a woman when it comes to where and with whom she gives birth? I do agree that we women absolutely own the rights to our own bodies, we can do with them as we please, whether that be scheduling an induction, choosing a cesarean, having many children, having zero children, or squatting in our own bathtubs to have our babies.

The real heart of this matter lies in the fact that birth is Wild. An undisturbed birthing woman is a fierce, primal force. Her power is evident and her strength nearly unshakable. Institutionalizing birth removes the wildness. It tidies it up. It keeps women silent and contained—quite literally. If they can keep you plugged in, the machines and the drips and the needles and the belts all ensure you will be immobile and silent and trapped. All other lady mammals move and moan and gyrate to get the baby out. They seek darkness and stillness and safety. When a woman is confined it makes her labor much, much harder, which brings down more and more fear, which can cause her labor to slow and her experience to be excruciating. Wild, gyrating, women are a reminder of the love making it took to get that baby in there, and very few people are accepting of a woman in full bloom—a woman strong in her sexual self—We can accept and even expect a laboring woman to scream in pain, but we turn away in disgust or amusement or disbelief that a woman could also experience bliss and ecstasy, and indeed, orgasm during her birth. Why are we accepting this? Why is it acceptable for a woman to experience pain but not ecstasy?

We began this trip many, many years ago when the Divine Feminine was stripped from us, when thousands and thousands of midwives were burned and drowned, murdered for practicing witchcraft. Western Medicine was in its infancy and in order for men to steal birth away from us, a move that fueled the Patriarchy immensely, they had to convince women that their pelvises were too small, that their babies grew too big, that midwives were ignorant and filthy, that birth was best left in the hands of the professional man in a sterile and controlled environment and we could just stop worrying our little heads about it and get our butt back on that bed, lay flat, and let the doctor deliver us to freedom—and then we could cough up a whole lotta cash to pay the good man for all his troubles. Meanwhile, we now have nearly lost our super power. Birth is uniquely feminine. Women were put solely in charge of bringing life forth onto this planet for a reason, and this threatens the very heart of the patriarchy. When birth is left undisturbed an amazing transformation occurs—A woman is born, full in her strength and in the wisdom of her ancestors. She mothers her baby easier, she can stretch her limits further, she can, more easily, open her heart and connect with the source of all nature.

The thing is, women know on a primal level what they are missing. We live in a society that has us hooked on foods that are made in a lab, on news that is made up on the TV, on excess and on the idea that we no longer know what is best for our own selves. We need a doctor/politician/newscaster/Ronald McDonald to tell us how to eat, feel, breathe, and live. It is no wonder that assembly line birthing has dominated. Our whole culture thrives on convenience and lack of real choice. Pretty soon we won't be able to inhale without consulting 3 physicians as to when the appropriate time to exhale will be. We will all fit neatly into little controllable boxes with our Big Macs and Plasma Screen TVs and nary a word about personal freedoms or choices.

But, I digress; back to the women---they know what they are missing. I talk to women nearly every day who tell me how traumatized they were by their own births. Some may not even have realized how traumatic their births were until 20 years later. I have met little old ladies who can tell me every single detail about their births and how they were made to feel. Women don't forget. We remember our births for a lifetime. We remember them for a reason--because they are important and because our bodies need to remember them. We need to remember scaling that mountain, feeling like we couldn't go on. We need to remember the triumph of surrendering to the power of the voyage and the transcendence that was given to us. Our bodies cling to the memory of the smells of amniotic fluid, the sounds of birthing, the feeling of a slippery, wet, warm brand new monkey baby on our bellies and chests and in our arms. The cells of our breasts never forget how they felt the first time they nursed a baby and watched as his fat little cheeks bulged with our milk.

Most women in our culture, however, only remember that their pelvises were too small or that their cervices could not dilate at the proper speed. They remember the smells of stale linens and ammonia. They remember the glare of the fluorescent lights and the sounds of the beeping, always beeping machines. They remember starkness and hard surfaces and coldness as a metaphor for the entire process. Their births were processes. A means to an end. They don't remember the transcendence because most of them were not allowed to feel it. And you know what? A lot of women buy it. They buy that what they experienced was as good as birth gets. They may even buy it for 50 years, but at some point, sometime, most of them come to feel robbed or violated or lost. These are the women who find me and I am grateful to help them. Sometimes it just seems futile in the midst of the birth machine. Every time I am at a hospital, which is rarely lately, I am confronted with how big the machine is and how deeply entrenched it is in each of us. My guts feel it, my head knows it, and my heart breaks because of it.