mai’a aka guerrilla mama
i have a couple of other posts churning in my mind that i want to write for flip flopping joy. but a quick note in the meantime…
those of you who know me, know that i am a birth worker. with a relatively rational philosophy around reproductive health. basically, i trust women.
so a couple of months ago, there was a post on a relatively popular ‘natural birth’ blog, unnecesarean. called: stuff white people like: talking about birth.
now, it is rare in the natural birth world to see anything more than a token mention of race, class, ethnicity or other marginalized identities.
normally, i dont bother with the: where are all the people of color at in our movement? kind of questions, because well, i have a life.
but i had been thinking and researching about birth outcomes in relation to race in the us america. and so i was interested in seeing where the conversation was going to go.
it went.
i added a few (very long) comments trying my darndest to move the convo passed–i guess woc just dont care about birth the way that we white women do (because woc are used to being abused and dehumanized)–to looking at the multitude of ways that woc are speaking up and continue to be dismissed by the natural birth movement.
of course that didnt happen. (ha! when does it?)
anyways. on with life.
a few days ago i was tip toeing through the birth blogs when i say that unnecesarean had taken on two new bloggers. so now it is a group blog. which is great, except all of them (to my knowledge) are white women.
sigh.
this isnt sour grapes on my part. i stopped blogging before unnecesarean announced it was a group blog. but considering the amount of women, birth advocates, doulas of color, etc. who are writing about birth, i just want to shake my head when i see one of the more popular natural birth blogs just increase its whiteness triple fold.
why bother asking: where are all the women of color at? getting a series of specific answers (with links). and then when you finally do get the opportunity to support ppl of color in birth activism, to give them access to a larger audience, you choose not to?
i hope im wrong. i hope that at least one of these new writers is a poc. i hope that i get to read from all of the new writers about rights to informed consent and refusing medical interventions that explores the multiple histories and experiences that exist across racial and socio economic communities. i hope that i read more on the blog from folks who are most at risk for birth trauma, unnecessary interventions, maternal and child mortality, etc.
i hope.
- Share
February 7th, 2010 at 9:09 am #
Hi Mai’a,
I’m still sitting with it all, reading and researching and listening. You pretty much blew my mind with the concept that everything that white women recommend about birth and reproductive rights is often totally irrelevant to WoC. It was that three way mirror thing that made me realize that I had neglected something so completely obvious. The main thing I’m trying to work out before I start posting on it is how the long history of denigrating and claiming ownership of the bodies of WoC coupled with attitudes toward black women in the U.S. as unfit parents affects decisions made both about birth and discussing birth, plus the huge can of worms of how PoC have been viewed by science and medicine. Do WoC in the U.S. really have the right to refuse interventions without being labeled unfit, unstable and a potential danger to their children? Yes… but no. I’m in that “holy shit how could I have been so oblivious” stage and I’ve been actively trying to get a grasp on what WoC go through in terms of birth rights, bodily autonomy and parental rights before opening my mouth again.
I can’t believe it’s already been two months since that post. I was bummed in January when you took a break from blogging and I was glad to see you come up in my feedreader on flipflopping joy.
Jill
February 9th, 2010 at 6:19 pm #
::thinking as I feed my 7 week baby::
February 13th, 2010 at 12:55 pm #
@ jill
i apologize for getting to this reply so late…ugh..life…
and i was thinking about this reply.
and i realized i am of two minds.
on the one hand: when i get hit with new information that requires that i rethink some of the assumptions i had been working with…i have to take time to read listen gestate until i can emerge with where i stand and how i can articulate that stance.
i have a deep appreciation of that process.
on the other hand: i worry about getting stuck in that process. swimming in my own head about the way to say it ‘right’. and perfect. and i find myself focusing more on ‘not wanting to be wrong’. and i miss opportunities to learn from my mistakes. to being vulnerable.
to me-in the end- it is more important that i act respectfully than i get the right words.
if you are looking for more resources, let me know, and i may be able to point u to some fruitful places/writing.
i think that part of the difficulty is that birth blogs, for the most part, focus on the pregnancy/birth/postpartum experience as being seperate from other aspects of life, history, stress, lifestyle, structural violence, etc. and within that type of compartmentalized discourse talking about the grave differences in maternal/infant mortality and health between races becomes impossible.
if we assume that white cis women’s experiences are the norm and structure our discourse around those experiences, then we can only partially and inadequately address these grave differences. they are seen as marginal issues of marginalized bodies.
for me, since i studied and taught anti oppression analysis for so many years, when i started to look at birth, i brought that analysis into birth work automatically.
and definitely yes, this marginalization, is part of a larger pattern of violent relationships between the medical est. and woc’s bodies.
i am interested in dialoguing about this more. for the sake of all of our lives and bodies.
February 13th, 2010 at 12:56 pm #
@lisa
oh. many hugs and kisses to you blessed new mama. and your lil one.
after i read your comment i leaned over to aza and just smelled the top of her head. it still smells like baby…
February 14th, 2010 at 9:15 pm #
“focus on the pregnancy/birth/postpartum experience as being seperate from other aspects of life”
I think it’s been compartmentalized on my blog because it’s been compartmentalized in my head. When I realized the overlap, I kind of went into overload trying to peel off layers of the proverbial onion.
I think you’re right about warding off being vulnerable with excessive ruminating and research. Let’s jump back in. I’ll get something posted in the next few days.