too posh to push?

Victoria Beckham aka Posh Spice, the poster-girl for elective caesarean

In an increasingly technological and medicalized society, childbirth is becoming less about the 'miracle of life' and more about simply getting a baby out safely and without incident. And there is LOTS of debate over the benefits vs. harm of this fundamental change in childbirth.

'Natural' birth advocates talk about empowering women to make choices but actually all they’re doing is trying to impose an eco-feminist ideology that privileges a problematic ideal of the 'natural'. For some reason, tolerance and pluralism goes out the window when it comes to opinions on how to give birth, breast-feeding, raising kids.

From its Biblical origins, that childbirth pain is punishment for women’s inherent sinfulness, the assumption that women should find the physical pain of birth empowering, or that pain is somehow necessary to an ‘authentic’ experience of childbirth and womanhood,  romanticizes and essentializes women and promulgates a false moral superiority in refusing pain relief or having an operative delivery (Beckett 2005).

The inferred moral highground of ‘the natural’ infers that births which do not conform to the ‘natural’ ideal as being ‘unnatural’

The result of this valourization of 'the natural' is hardly feminist- 

it results in women  feeling guilt and  failure over having chosen an operative birth, receiving  medical  intervention during labour,or deciding to have an epidural.

 This TIME magazine article discussing the rise in the number of C-sections in the US in the last decade discusses one woman's decision to have an elective caesarean and the cultural pressure she felt to have a 'natural' delivery; "We put a lot of emotional, psychological and spiritual value around birthing," says Dr. William Callaghan, an obstetrician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "But perhaps we are coming up with different cultural norms."

If feminists care about empowering women during child birth, they should do so in an evidence-based manner- The data demonstrate that the safest place to deliver is  in a medical environment.

As long as you’re not putting yourself or your baby’s life at immediate risk, you should be 

able to birth however you like and not have to justify it to anyone.

Oh, and you know what else is 'natural'? Small pox, that's what.

Beckett, K 2005, “Choosing Caesarean: Feminism and the politics of childbirth in the United States”, Feminist Theory, Vol.6, No.3, pp. 251-275.

Just a regular everyday normal guy

Hegemonic masculinity is the social ascendency of one 'type' of men, achieved via the embedded values and powers that are inherent within things like religious doctrine, mass media, wage structures and taxation policies... can you imagine a few descriptors for the masculinity that is generally dominant in Australian society? Let me help you out with a few-

He's white. His family is white. He speaks English.
He's heterosexual.
He's aged between 25 and 50.
He has a girlfriend/he's married, but if he's currently single he will almost certainly marry at some point.
He's working/middle class.
He has a job, perhaps he's a tradie or if he's university educated perhaps he's an engineer.
He likes sport. And action movies. And beer.
He's hopeless at domestic chores, and he doesn't care.
He's not very political.


There are so many complex, different, and competing forms of masculinity, so it's debatable whether these qualities are, in fact, examples of hegemonic masculinity, or that these characteristics and traits will remain 'fixed' as cultural ideals. The values of society are fluid and changeable, and the concept of hegemonic masculinity does not infer "total cultural dominance or the obliteration of alternatives" (Connell 1987, p.60). But, do you see what I'm getting at? These are some examples of  the dominant 'cultural ideal' of the Australian male that is currently embedded in the Australian psyche.

I find it interesting how non-hegemonic patterns of masculinity are incorporated into the hegemonic masculinity, like the mainstream adoption of black hip hop culture. (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005). Or the phenomenon of the "metrosexual".


I also find it interesting how  women are central to the processes of constructing and reinforcing masculinities, as mothers, girlfriends, sexual partners, wives, daughters, friends and collegues.  New configurations of women’s identities and their power is going to have a great effect on the interplay of femininities and masculinities. As Connell points out, there is a 'fit' between hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. . Emphasized femininity is “oriented to accommodating the interests and desires of men”; it's “the display of sociability rather than technical competence, fragility in mating scenes, compliance with men’s desires for titillation and ego-stroking in office relationships, acceptance of marriage and child care as a response to labor-market discrimination against women” (Connell 1987, p. 183- 188- 187).

References:
Connell, R  & Messerschmidt, J 2005, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept” Gender and Society, Vol.19, No.6, pp. 829-859.

Connell, B 1987,  Gender and Power, Polity, Cambridge.