Woman Isn’t

If you think the fact that some women will never have children, have never menstruated, no longer menstruate, have had their uterus or breasts removed, etc., proves that males can also be women, you’re a sexist.

Please examine that misogyny as you don’t think much of women. Women are more than their biology, but not less.

(One of the best analogies to illustrate this is this– humans are a bipedal species. Does this mean that people without their legs are not human? Does this mean that the existence of humans without legs proves humans are not a bipedal species? No, of course not. Those are absurdities. And women, similarly, are characterized by their capacity to give birth. Whether they do or do not as individuals is irrelevant. Human doesn’t need to be redefined, and neither does woman. We have working definitions that make ease of communication possible.)

 

Letter from Angela Douglas, trans woman, published in Sister, 1977.

Being a woman is not being a not-man. Womanhood is not defined as the absence of total masculinity. Woman is not something you can define only in relation to seemingly not

Imagine a world where Rachel Dolezal is called black, and she and black people are called “non-whites”.

amounting to man. Womanhood would never be revoked by an absence of those individual biological things, and absence of those things in others is not confirmation of who can or can not claim womanhood. “Woman” is not some dumping ground category to include men who don’t conform to rigid gender standards. If this were true, 90% of the world would be “woman”. Woman is not an afterthought. Woman is not second place.

Woman is not something man-made. It has been a vicious lie that woman is made by man, and society believes. It is male-centric lenses that we see through. Eve came from Adam’s rib, who was made by God in his image. Even Athena sprung from Zeus’s head. Pornified, pedophilic

“I felt like a woman!” reports Stefonknee of his “adopted dad’s” penis inserted man-on-man into his “six year old girl” rectum at the Oasis swingers club. “I was surprised I didn’t think I was going to be pregnant, I was so much a girl. I actually have an erection right now from it so I’m just going to pull my dress down a little bit,” he told the journalists who were covering his journey to girlhood.

visions cloud our mind that a woman has long blonde hair, circular mini basketball breasts plopped atop a chest, bodily hairlessness, painted faces, a dress, and 8 inch heels that force us to walk delicately and keep us from running away. My vagina is not “front hole” and cannot be duplicated by mutilating a piece of scrotum or rectum and fashioning it crudely. I am not a hole. Woman is not a collection of holes. The natural sway of our hips can be mimicked with practice (I was mocked for mine, call it cis privilege), our voices can be coached, and hormones can help you feel more weepy, because that’s what women do. They weep. Sitting in our sexual trauma support groups and memorizing our facial expressions, body language, gestures, can help you recite the true stories that help make up what we really are to society: your victims. If you were also a victim, this likewise does not make you a woman. “Victim” does not mean woman, you’ve got it backwards. “Woman” often means victim.

Man made all of those things and now you believe that is who woman is. That is not what woman is. Man makes robots and dolls to fit these visions and to satisfy male wishes. This is also not what woman is, but many believe it is just as good if not better, an improvement on woman. Surgeons and religions claim they do, but they do not create woman. Nature made woman. ONLY nature can make woman. Man has had this god fantasy for a long time because he fears woman might be a goddess. Man will never stop trying to create woman. Woman is not in his head or in his lab. If you tell him this, it hurts his feelings.

If you prefer the sex object vision of woman as the true definition of womanhood, if you prefer to refer to male thoughts when seeking confirmation of what and who woman is or isn’t, you are supporting misogyny. If you think male-created domination trumps nature-made bodily definition of womanhood, you are exercising woman-hate.

Man and woman are not defined by the acceptance or rejection of stereotypes. Men and women both can be stereotypical or not, and they are still man or woman. Biological sex is not a stereotype. It is reality. It is the only reality.

We have all been conditioned by these beauty standards and these gender roles in the west. I do not blame you if you find the pictures in the magazines attractive, this alleged ideal woman. Surgeons, artists, and photoshop crafts her. It is attainable by anyone, male or female, with access to these tools. However, you and I have problems if you believe the male crafting of woman is the truth. You and I have problems if you think what goes on in a male-centered world for a male-centered brain trumps the truth of being born female in this world.

Woman and man are not personality types. They are body types. They are not Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. They are not who likes pink and frills, and who likes trucks and muscles. Your sex does not dictate your personality. Your personality does not dictate your sex. You can be male or female and like anything you want, present any way you want. Only biological sex can determine your sex. It’s not determined by whether you are sassy or polite, or in who you like to sleep with.

Biological sex is a physical, material, observable, objective reality and what you are born with dictates how society will treat you. We don’t get to pick that. It is innate. Gender as some innate thing, however, is something that requires faith. How does one “feel like” a woman when one has never been one? Why should I blindly believe in that when my eyes and my experience show me otherwise? I’m not a religious person. I believe in myself more than I believe in whatever a man says to me. I’m to understand now that this is bigotry.

I don’t care how you live your life, and I support whatever feels authentic to you. But don’t ever mistake the role, the performance, of womanhood with actually being one. Don’t mistake the costume of woman for womanhood either. These were things imposed on us, programmed into us, and they do not define us.

My friend was a trans woman. This was the last thing she tweeted to her followers.

I notice most people who disagree with that fail to define woman when asked. They can’t but I can. A woman is simply this: an adult human female. No more, no less. Womanhood is not a role to be enforced nor is it a uniform, it is merely a material reality. Who you gonna choose to believe– them or me? Your choice. But who you believe says a lot about you and what you truly value woman for.

Unassisted Birth: What Feminists Need to Know

 

Lynn Griesemer, author of Unassisted Homebirth: An Act of Love, has a website called unassistedhomebirth.com. On it, she makes the following commentary about feminism:

Unassisted Homebirth and Feminism

In my book, Unassisted Homebirth: An Act of Love, Chapter 16 is titled Childbirth:  A Feminist Issue?  I do not wish to reiterate the chapter, but only say that if women want to be truly liberated during their birth experience, they need to take charge of their births by deciding what they want and taking deliberate action toward their goal(s).

Feminism has focused on “reproductive rights” and career opportunities, but has largely ignored the important process of childbirth.

One of my future goals is to contact women’s studies programs at colleges and universities and encourage them to consider teaching a unit on empowered childbirth.  Young women need to know that feminism should not be restricted to reproductive rights and equality in careers, but that it extends to every aspect of womanhood, especially childbirth, which is a defining moment / experience in many women’s lives.

 

Feminism does often neglect childbirth, sometimes even leaning more towards the woman’s obvious right to not even begin a family. Still, how can “feminists” have such blatant disregard for the power of or disrespect for the vagina? Childbirth is a battleground for the vagina (as are the politics around our births). Shouldn’t that be a central point or focus?

When feminism DOES address the act of childbirth, it tends to address a woman’s right to powerful narcotics in order to have a humane experience, neglecting that this is still completely dependent upon and stemming from handing our body over to the patriarchal system which is modern maternity care.

It completely neglects that for women to know their TRUE power, they could avoid that system altogether as well as avoid real pain, trauma, or injury (which comes standard with the current system of birth).

This type of feminism lets patriarchy in the back door. [All innuendo contrived from that is completely appropriate.] It does not protect the vagina nor recognize our power. I call this “white coat feminism”, because it’s the feminism that focuses on having the same professions and beliefs as men, wishing to be regarded as logical and [pseudo] scientific only, to the detriment of the actual true fullness of our capabilities. That we have differences in the sexes is cast off as mumbo jumbo, as if clearly the only thing different about us is penis/vagina. We have completely different biological abilities, functions, and motivations. The brain-body connection, hormones, intuition/instinct, or maternal traits are absent in these discussions. Just because we can do everything boys can do does not mean we have to be exactly like them. Why are we disabling ourselves? When you’re striving to be accepted like of the boys, don’t lose the very thing that makes you a woman. That’s not feminist, it’s misogynist! It’s self-hate and denial.

Just think: we are facing our version of being emasculated when we are denied our true power and identity.

How feminist is it to remove the qualities which make us female? We’re not talking about removing negative stereotypes, we’re talking about stripping away all things that make us women, including the positives. How in the hell is that “feminist”? If you don’t celebrate women or even believe they have power, you don’t love women and you aren’t a feminist.

Putting on a pair of jeans and holding the same respected professions as men does not make one a feminist. Saying that the only way we can have a peaceful birth experience — the very natural function which defines our sex! — is if we give ourselves over to a system created and run by men so they may rescue us does not make one a feminist. What happened to women are strong, women are goddesses, women are powerful? Is that just something we believe when we want to throw a baseball, but doesn’t extend to the one thing we are biologically designed for to continue the species?

Feminism wouldn’t ignore the dark history of obstetrics and see it rooted in misogyny, continuing today.

Feminism wouldn’t ignore our special powers or keep us in the dark to them.

Feminism wasn’t the fight to be just like men. It was the fight to be women and all the glory that entails and be respected for it.

Feminism acknowledges something in the divine feminine or collective female consciousness, adores us all as symbols of creation, earth mother goddesses, formerly and temporarily oppressed sisters.

Feminism seeks to connect us to how beautiful being a woman is, and asks society to observe it as well.

Feminism wants you to have the choice in childbirth to have addictive narcotics shot into your spinal fluid or to have an amazing empowering natural experience where you can see firsthand how incredible you are (which keeps you and your baby healthy and strong). Both can be painless, but the latter can increase your spiritual and primal awareness of your true nature and potential, is a rite of passage, and an exit from the patriarchy. One of them just happens to be better for feminism because it lets a woman in on the secret that has been kept about her essence for so long.

 

For more wolfy stuff, click here.

For Elizabeth’s book on unassisted birth, In Search of the Perfect Birth, click here.

Sexism and Childbirth Choices

QUESTION:  Is natural childbirth

sexist? Is medical childbirth sexist?

It depends. Before labeling, you really have to be fair and consider the source.

Michel Odent has been called or implied sexist by a certain infamous Dr. and anti-NCBers for providing info to empower women through realizing how to give birth naturally and the beauty of it.

The logic seems to be that he’s old, he’s a man, and anyone who would deny women of pain relief (medication) in childbirth is a sexist who believes women should suffer in childbirth. They also take issue that these philosophies “remove choices”, but I argue that a) so do anti NCBers, in trying to more strictly regulate birth options, and b) we are for INFORMED choices, but we disagree that all women’s choices are actually well-informed.

That’s not what natural birth is about, though. It’s not about being cruel and making women suffer. It’s not about removing WELL-informed choices. It’s about providing right info, and putting power that is life-altering back into the hands of women. If women knew just how powerful they were, this would actually be a threat to the patriarchy… !

So, no, I promise you, none of us thinks women should be in pain and suffering for their birth. In fact, I’ll be the first one to tell you to be kind to yourself. If the pain is unbearable to you, take the meds. And don’t be hard on yourself for making that choice. I don’t want to see women suffer, and I doubt that’s Odent’s intention, either.

So what IS this Odent physiology stuff about? It’s about the fact that women don’t automatically suffer just because the paternal obstetric model doesn’t relieve the poor, weak woman with pain meds. That’s right… not every woman is some poor, suffering child whose pain can only be relieved by some white (-coated) knight, who mercifully swoops in to bestow his paternal hit of drugs.

I have done it both ways (drugged and not). I have received pain meds and been ever so grateful. I have also wished I would lose consciousness and had an excruciating “natural” birth. And, I have been liberated from the cycle by owning my birth and surrendering to it– naturally and physiologically. Guess which birth was best?

I’m going to show you some things and then I want you to decide what is truly sexist: Giving power and information TO, or degrading and expecting less FROM?  These are merely examples of the rhetoric, and the personalities behind the rhetoric. Some opinions and values are shared by their friends, and some are not.

This is a point about what IS sexism and what IS real feminism; when people cry “sexist”, we need to consider the source.

[Values include: being a MILF (and making sure everyone knows you are)…]

Because only a twat would think that inductions weren't such great ideas.

Take away: Even Dr. Amy puts the smack down on rampant sexism coming from Aleah and friends.

 

This one needs explanation. Someone who left critical comments regarding my book also reviewed another book (which is what you are reading here, from Amazon). I think their words give added insight to their attitude towards feminism. I lump them in because these are all critics of NCB and usually self-proclaimed "feminists" or believers in equality and choice, and I think this is not always quite accurate.

These are just some examples of the differences between “sexism” in natural childbirth and sexism in anti-NCB. I know that some believers in natural birth happen to be sexist or perhaps even come from a women-as-subservient place, but you are certainly not finding any of that with me or Odent. We are champions of women, and it’s wrong to falsely paint these principles of biology as misogynist. I am a progressive, believe in freedom and equality, and have been called a feminist since I was a child– and I am proud of that. I believe women are amazing goddesses and deserve the utmost respect. I believe in a return to our innate maternal wisdom.

Okay, so Odent is a sexist for playing into woman’s birth goddess “fantasies” and putting women on a pedestal to encourage them to take back birth from the medical model, but people like those shown above are not sexist? Odent may have a penis, that is true. A man can be a feminist just as sure as a woman can be a chauvinist, however.

I’m not trying to be mean, honest. I’m just trying to say that…

It’s hard for me to really take seriously the opinions of people crying “misogynist” who think the standard of beauty is being a dyed blonde, breast job having, diamond wearing MILF nurse; who think “pushing a baby out your vag” is no big deal and even something to ridicule, and constantly calls people in a condescending tone “honey”, “love”, “sweetie”– when she isn’t busy using her favorite insult, “twat“. You dig what I’m saying?

Why should anyone take seriously opinions on Dr. Odent coming from these folks? All things considered, if these are your attitudes in life, your idea of what is “misogynist” falls a little flat with me. These to me are not true feminists and not actual advocates for women. These are the biggest misogynists of all. I certainly won’t listen to what SHE thinks WOMEN aren’t capable of. I wouldn’t even trust the limitations she puts on herself.

It’s worth noting that these are the same people who call my friend an “attention whore” for talking about her rape to explain her birth views, and bring it up as another source of ridicule.

These aren’t healthy, credible sources. Before you call misogyny, you must consider the source.

Okay, so, what is really sexist? The natural childbirth advocate who tells women how they can have the best birth for their self and their child without trauma? Or the anti-NCBer who tells women that they aren’t special and should shut up?

You decide. Who’s the sexist and who’s the feminist?

Are you for women, or are you against them? Do you believe in them, or do you think they are ridiculous?

You have to love yourself before you can love someone else. It seems we have an epidemic in our culture… a serious lack of understanding of our true worth.

If we’re going to give birth back to women, we need to start patching that up. You are not a pair of tits and a hair color. One day you’ll be old, or fat, or ugly. For now you are a youthful woman, perhaps fertile, certainly glorious and beautiful no matter who convinced you that you’re not. Your real power and beauty is something ageless and within. What’s it going to take to undo all this damage and convince our insecure women of this? Can it be undone?

Sorry, I wanted to keep this short, but I couldn’t leave you without ending it on this note.