Contact Bruce
About
PWP
Links
Photo Credits:-
Faceless Woman Statue (shimondrory, Morguefile)
Woman Statue (shimondrory, Morguefile)
Child climbs on kneeling Woman's back Statue (shimondrory, Morguefile)
Flowers & Black Woman Statue
(pixel2013, Pixabay)
|
 Women & Failure
This addresses
how women feel like failures when faced with messages such as 'Natural
Childbirth is Best' and 'Breastfeeding is Best', and when
faced
with stories of women who pop out babies painlessly when in a paddy
field of rice.
Natural
Birth
Midwives in the UK have backed down on a
campaign for natural childbirth because it makes women feel like
failures (Daily
Mail, posted 12 August 2017, accessed 16 August 2017).
One issue was that women
believed that midwives were only interested in women who give birth
naturally.
Another issue was midwives appearing to seek natural birth at
all costs, which seems
extremely rare.
Instead, we now have a better births initiative, where
interventionist birth is now called normal.
The way I see this is that interventionist birth is like smoking was in
its heyday,
where it was ‘normal’ and widely practised. You
might say
it was abnormal or antisocial or very difficult NOT to smoke. Cigarettes
were even given to WW1
allied soldiers
to
boost
morale. So,
mothers, do not feel like a failure when undergoing interventionist
birth when all around are doing it! It is very difficult to do
otherwise.
Nowadays,
we know otherwise about
the dangers of smoking. But to change this, it took decades of work to
overcome financial interests and societal fashion.
So, for women to birth naturally needs more than the evolutionary and
scientific evidence. It needs society to support Natural Birth.
Society does NOT support Natural Birth when almost every birth that is
seen in movies and TV is NOT a natural birth. Movies
need to depict natural birth.
Society does NOT support you when it makes birth a medical,
technological birth. Demedicalise! Birth
is rarely a medical event.
Rather,
birth
is a massive rite of passage for a woman, a spiritual and mental and
emotional
and physical initiation – and society does not treat it thus.
Instead birth has
become a medical, technological event. Birth is NOT this!
Society
needs to support women's precious initiation.
We need to hand over birth to
women. Remove men and medical authority.
Society as a whole
must embrace natural childbirth and its deeply transformative power.
Women on their own cannot do it. They just feel like failures.
We must
embrace the instinctive female body.
Otherwise, what will become the next new 'normal'?
 Breastfeeding
Will
NOT-breastfeeding be the next 'normal'?
Will not-breastfeeding
accompany interventionist
birth as the new 'normal'.
I'd say it already does.
Unfortunately,
the 'Breastfeeding is Best' campaign makes women feel like failures and
guilty when most mothers fail to breastfeed for even a short
period of time. The magic
potion is squandered.
There is so much evidence that is breastfeeding is the Way.
Yet
society sets women up for failure. See
here and here.
Is this what you want in your society, compromising the health of
future generations?
Summary
Interventionist birth as a norm is as damaging as smoking and formula
milk as norms.
Yet, faced with messages that natural birth is best and breastfeeding
is best, women feel like failures and guilt-ridden. Or else they avoid
this with medicalised birth and formula milk, which compromises the
health of future generations.
Is this what
you want, society?
Is this what you want, women?
Is this what yo want, men?
Instead of women feeling failure and guilt,
maybe it’s time for all of us to be angry with a society that
medicalises and commercialises
birth, that only sexualises and monetises the breast?
Maybe it’s time to rebel against an unsupportive society that
neglects the initiation of birth.
Let us embrace the powerful, instinctual, spiritual woman.
Let us value the nurturing breast.
Let us respect the life-giving vagina.
Let us empower women.
Let us create Success
for Society, a Culture
of Touch, a Culture
of Love.
Resources
- MYTH: Prostitution is the oldest profession (Nordic Model Now!, 30/3/2016).
- Silence and powerlessness go hand in hand – women’s voices must be heard (Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, 2017) [Being unable to tell your story is a living death].
- Sheryl
Sandberg saga shows it's time to lean out of corporate feminism
(Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian, 2018)
[Capitalism has coopted feminism and become a way for privileged women
to advance their careers. We say: enough.].
- Why women have
less power than you think (BBC, 2018).
- The
deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to
car crashes (Caroline Criado Perez, The
Guardian, 2019) [So many excellent examples
given of a world designed for men - that has forgotten women and risks
their lives.].
- 17
reasons why modern women are struggling so much - physically, mentally,
emotionally and spiritually. (Beth Bridges, 2019).
- Coronavirus
and gender: More
chores for women set back gains in equality (BBC,
26 November 2020) [set back by 25 years].
- Breastfeeding
mums ‘lacked
support’ during [Covid-19] lockdown (BBC,
2020).
- Building
collective feminist leadership – unlearning the
“me, me, me” (Feminist Hiking Collective, 2020).
- From
porn to true crime stories, we must end the portrayal of violence
against women (Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, The Guardian,
2021) [Society is full of structures that dehumanise and
trivialise women, but we have the power to disrupt them].
- Women
are harmed every day by invisible men (Rebecca Solnit,
The Guardian, 2021) [When men harm women, we obscure
their role. Instead, we blame women for the injustice that happens to
them.].
- Women
reach 40 and hit their stride … only to be cruelly shoved
aside at work (Rachel Shabi, The Guardian, 2021).
- Disaster
patriarchy: how the [Covid-19] pandemic has unleashed a war on women
(V (formerly Eve Ensler), The Guardian, 2021)
[Women lose their safety, their economic power, their autonomy, their
education, and they are pushed on to the frontlines, unprotected, to be
sacrificed. Patriarchy needs to be exorcised from Earth.].
- Virtual
conferences exclude most African women – how can we be heard?
(Memory Kachambwa, The Guardian, 2022).
- The
Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial was an orgy of misogyny (Moira
Donegan, The Guardian, 2022).
- Women’s
rights have suffered a grim setback. But history is still on our side
(Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, 2022)
[You can take away a right through legal means, but it is harder to
take away the belief in that right. Feminism is a human rights movement
that endeavors to change things that are not just centuries, but in
many cases millennia old, and that it is far from done and faces
setbacks and resistance is neither shocking nor reason to stop.].
- There’s
an antifeminist backlash silencing women – more and more
literally (Moira Donegan, The Guardian, 2022)
[Powerful men are using defamation lawsuits to shut down allegations
against them, and anti-choice groups are trying to pass laws
criminalizing speech about abortion. Free speech for whom?].
- The
cult of confidence: could positive thinking be making us feel less
secure? (Eleanor Morgan, The Guardian, 2022)
[Women exploited. Systemic issues ignored.].
- God’s
Creatures is a film on why rapists are protected. Its makers say
that’s why distributors won’t pick it up
(Maeve Higgins, The Guardian, 2022)
[Why do we uphold systems that fail women?].
- Carry
on screaming: why letting it all out, especially for women, can make
you calmer and happier (Pragya Agarwal, The
Guardian, 2022).
- Her
right to speak versus his reputation: how courts around the world are
getting this wrong (Jennifer Robinson and Keina Yoshida,
The Guardian, 2022)
[Speaking out about gender-based violence is a human right, protected
not just by the right to freedom of speech, but also the right to
equality and the right to be free from violence].
- "Good
girl" conditioning (Dr. Nicole LePera,
Twitter, 2022) [How to unlearn it].
- From Enola Holmes on Netflix to Britain’s union leaders, why feminism for the 99% is thriving (Jo Littler, The Guardian, 2022)
[Instead of ‘leaning in’ & climbing the corporate
ladder, a new generation is taking aim at economic and gender
inequality].
- Success for women need not be the same as for men (Letters, The Guardian, 2023) [In our patriarchal society, success is usually financial. It’s time we changed the game.].
- ‘I started to unravel’: Why do so many women over 40 struggle with stress? (Lorraine Candy, The Guardian, 2023) [Perimenopausal?].
- Nine out of 10 people are biased against women, says ‘alarming’ UN report (The Guardian, 2023).
- Happiness of girls and young women at lowest level since 2009, shows UK poll (The Guardian, 2023).
- The soft life: why millennials are quitting the rat race (Leila Latif, The Guardian, 2024).
- ‘Baby brain’? ‘Fussy eater’? By dispelling such myths, science is taking the shame out of parenting (Lucy Jones, The Guardian, 2024).
|
Also see:-
Culture of Touch
Natural Family
Living
Women
& Failure Quotes
The
Importance of Women
Links - Women
|
Women
& Failure