Last week I showed my students the documentary The Business of Being Born, an eye-opening and important film about birth in the United States. While I applaud the film in multiple ways, I always wonder whether its critique of the medicalization of birth, and its elevation of natural birth without intervention, might not inadvertently make some women feel shame. What about those women who “fail” in their quest for a natural birth?

Writer Solange Lopes reflects on her own struggle with ideals of natural birth in the essay below. A mother, writer, and editor of the blog keurawa.com, Solange last wrote for Global Mama in July. Originally from Senegal, she now lives in Rhode Island.

- Heather Hewett

Natural or C-section: Birth or Stigma?

Hello, my name is Solange, and I did not give birth naturally, twice over….

Sounds like the typical introduction line at your local AA meeting, yes? Maybe there’s a reason. I delivered my daughter via emergency Cesarean section three years ago, and had a repeat, scheduled intervention for my son’s birth eight months ago.

Now, understand, I am an African woman, born and raised in Senegal, West Africa. My maternal grandmother walked herself to the hospital to deliver each one of her 12 children, all of them barely a year apart from each other. Where I come from, women are admonished not to scream in the labor room, because giving birth—naturally that is—is a woman’s ultimate pride.

As I suffered through 18 hours of excruciating labor, my mother, sitting by my side alongside my husband, kept reminding me to breathe… and to forego the epidural. I didn’t need it, she said, I could just push my way through it. Well, it turns out that my body wasn’t exactly in a cooperative mood, and neither was my mind.

I can still taste the disappointment in my mother’s eyes, as salty as the tears rolling down my face, as I signed the medical release authorizing the drugged relief into my body. A lifetime of suffering and self-denial flashed through her eyes, as she shook her head and sat back down with the heaviness of forced resignation. Despite the relief offered me a few hours later, pain still stung my entire being, this time more mental, more acute.

Hour after hour of pushing and breathing and laboring, and… nothing! Then the doctor’s stern face announcing that the baby’s heart rate was declining and that surgery was needed. The first thought that coursed my mind was: “What will my mother think about it?” I had mentally foregone my unborn child’s well-being, as always seeking my mother’s approval. I was not a grown woman giving birth; I was back to being a fatherless little girl looking for her mother’s approval.

And again, I saw it. The disapproval in her eyes, the images of centuries of strong women before me who gave birth alone, laying on dirt floors, with little or no assistance at all… And I, incapable, unworthy, weak thing!

The remaining hours were a blur. Within a matter of minutes, I was a mother: a child, my child, removed from the depths of my womb, or so it seemed. I was neither deserving nor did I feel entitled to receive the customary congratulations. The title of mother felt usurped, stolen by this little woman, this sell-out whom I could only perceive from my ego’s eyes. This other woman, not me, who had not proved worthy, or up to the task at hand.

In both Senegalese and Cape-Verdean cultures, both cultures I was raised in, how you gave birth is more important than the extraordinary act itself. When my more Westernized guests would inquire about the height and weight of my small angel, some other guests would ask, crudely and without compromise: “So did you have her natural?”

As I would fumble, searching for the right enough words to summarize one of the most defining moments of my entire existence, I would meet, yet again, disapproving glance after shocked look.

“Ay credu, you couldn’t push that baby out?”

Scheduling my son’s delivery via C-section was no easy feat either. Faced with the grim statistics of a repeat C-section delivery as opposed to a VBAC (vaginal delivery after C-section), I followed my doctor’s recommendation and opted for another intervention.

Another silent inner battle against deep-seated feelings of lacking self-worth and humiliation. Yet another excruciating series of questions from family members. Another opportunity at practicing my hard-earned skills at dodging inquisitive glances and words alike.

Yet in all this confusing brouhaha of egotistical mentalities, mine included, one cannot help but hear the deafening sound of sad world statistics around maternal mortality.

According to the World Health Organization’s May 2012 Fact Sheet, approximately 800 women die every day from preventable causes related to childbirth and pregnancy. Ninety-nine percent of these occur in developing countries like my native Senegal. The reported figures are staggeringly high: for each 100,000 births in developing countries, 240 result in maternal death. Compare this to a maternal mortality ratio of 16 per 100,000 in developed countries. As much as unnecessary surgeries should certainly be avoided, it is evident that adequate medical care before, during, and after childbirth is still lacking.

Having access to surgery saved my life and my babies’ lives, despite the cultural stigma I am trying hard to let go of. It will save the lives of many like me who are privileged enough to benefit from it.

But shouldn’t this privilege be available to all women?

Hello, my name is Solange, I am healthy, and so are my babies.

My colleague Bridgette Sheridan has been complaining about The Atlantic coverage of gender for the past few years. So she forwarded with delight a spot-on column “The Intellectual Situation” in n+1 , a literary magazine that publishes social criticism, political commentary, and essays. The editors at n+1 begin:

Listen up, Ladies

Every time a plane flies over New York, we think, “Oh my God — is it another Atlantic think piece?” We mean, “an Atlantic think piece about women.” The two have become synonymous, and they descend upon their target audience with the regularity and severe abdominal cramping of Seasonale. “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” “The End of Men,” “Marry Him!”

Read their piece all the way to its logical conclusion:

So far, this strategy seems to be working. The Atlantic had its first profitable year in decades in 2010, and in 2011 made more than half its ad revenue from digital sales, while print ad sales were the highest they’d been in years. In fact, since we married our deadbeat boyfriend, quit our job, and accidentally had quadruplets through in vitro fertilization (all boys, thank God!), we’ve realized we could use some of that cash, so we’re thinking of pitching an article: “Why You’re Failing the Daughters You’ve Never Had and Probably Never Will.”

Will definitely read more from n+1.

-Virginia Rutter

It’s been almost two weeks since the elections. I am sleeping normally for the first time in months. The money pouring into the campaigns of the some of the most extreme anti-woman, out of touch candidates astounded and scared me. Could it make a difference? Would those who seem unable to accept the realities of a multicultural society, one where women have made substantial progress toward equality, carry the day? I was pretty sure the answer would be ‘no’. But ‘pretty sure’ and ‘sure’ can be far apart in the middle of sleepless nights.

Twenty years ago as the elections of 1992 approached, only two women held seats in the Senate. Three additional female Senators were elected that year and 1992 was quickly dubbed ‘the year of the woman’. Senator Barbara Mikulski responded, “Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus. We’re not a fad, a fancy, or a year.”

Her words should echo in our minds now. Yes, Todd ‘legitimate rape’ Akin and Richard ‘pregnancies from rape are God’s will’ Mourdock were soundly defeated. Yes, there are now 20 women in the Senate, an all-time high. But 20 is 30 seats shy of equal representation. And if anyone thinks the war on women has ended, watch some Fox News. Upholders of the white male patriarchy are out in full force. Woman hating is still ‘just fine’ and racism is every bit as woven into the irrational ‘reasoning‘ put forward to ‘explain’ the ‘surprising‘ election losses as it was prior to November 6th. Among the prominent villains identified are single women, homosexuals and urban voters.

Throughout this election cycle the kinds of right wing nonsense presented as rational political discourse insulted the majority of Americans. And the majority rejected it. But the possibilities inherent in the much discussed ‘new electorate‘ are far from guaranteed. The anti-woman, anti-diversity crowd will not give up easily. They remain committed to rolling back change whenever and wherever they can. The past decade offers ample proof of this harsh reality.

The 2012 election has been the year of everyone, everyone that is except white male voters and their wives. A sizable segment of the male conservative electorate is angry. For many of them women are a convenient target of abuse and contempt. Feminists are ‘bad women’, the major threat to a 1950‘s fantasy world where men were in charge and women were adoring ‘help mates’. The patriarchy is cracking but it is far from finished.

A few days ago a friend sent a group email asking, “How can we hold-and use-the power of women without the crisis of an election?” For me the answer is clear, if not exactly welcome. I am tired of this battle. I want to work on new projects, to reflect and write and move at a more leisurely pace. I don’t want to keep getting into unpleasant discussions with people who say ridiculous things. But I can’t, none of us can.

Active engagement in the political process requires a long term commitment in a democracy. The ‘new electorate’ must increase-not step back from-passionate engagement in politics. Maintaining this new coalition-a coalition that also includes a significant number, if not the majority, of white male voters-and negotiating the differences that exist among the members is crucial as we move forward. We all have a role to play, even without, in the words of my friend, the ‘crisis of an election’.

Whether we run for office or work on the campaigns of those who do—or simply speak up and challenge the misogynist, homophobic, racist ignorance and fantasy some are still peddling, we cannot go back to business as usual. Power and influence are rarely given up, they must be claimed, fought for and won. The old cliche, ‘there’s no rest for the weary’ may be hackneyed, but it expresses the reality confronting us. So, deep breaths everyone, there’s momentum to build on and work to be done.

Just about the most mundane thing to populate media lately has been the claims of the end of men. Even so, two weeks ago, I attended a useful conference at Boston University Law School on “investigating the claims of the end of men.” The subject of the conference was taken from the title given an article that led to a book by journalist Hanna Rosin. Rosin’s upshot is that women are gaining in the work place and in leadership; from this claim Rosin has helped to fuel a perception among some men and some commentators that men are losing ground. (The image above is JFK signing the Equal Pay Act, June 10, 1963.)

Why am I so down on these claims? Stephanie Coontz skillfully analyzes many of the reasons in “The Myth of Male Decline.” Check out Nancy Folbre’s quick summary at the Economix blog today, and she explains: “The men-in-decline issue can’t be reduced to numbers, but in a comprehensive critique in The New York Times, Stephanie Coontz highlights misleading inferences drawn from a marketing-firm study of several metropolitan areas showing that never-married childless women in their 20s out-earn men in the same category.” (After you read Coontz, then read Folbre, and follow up on her fun review of Philip Cohen’s debunking of the end of men!)

Let me add another piece of evidence released after Stephanie’s piece appeared in The New York Times. The American Association of University Women’s October 2012 study, “Graduating to a Pay Gap” (.pdf) found that one year after college graduation, women earn 82 percent of what men earn. As Nancy Folbre noted, “While young women are more likely than young men to graduate from college, their diplomas don’t generate equally rich rewards.”

The AAUW study found a few factors could account for part of the gap, but about one-third of the difference could not be accounted for. Some of that 18 percent gender gap is explained by choice of major. Men major in fields that lead to higher pay. This isn’t a signal that the difference is fair, or natural, or justified. It just tells us that there is a system of what would otherwise by arbitrary differences between men and women that makes it easier for some people to maintain a sense that gender difference in pay “just happens.”

Think about this: The proportion of women in computer science went up to 37 percent in 1985. Then it went down to 22 by 2005. That kind of swing isn’t nature (as in the conversation-ending claim that it is just natural that boys and girls have different preferences). That is something else….

Some of the gap is explained by occupation. Men are in higher paying occupations. Keep in mind: the reasoning here is a bit circular: are men in higher paying occupations? Or is it that occupations with a high share of men are better paying? A little bit of the gender gap is explained by differences in hours worked. Women averaged 43 hours per week, men 45 hours per week in the study.

None of these factors are signals that men and women are different, but that the world is different for them. So that leaves the “unexplained” part of the gap. The executive summary of the study offers this description:

Consider a hypothetical pair of graduates—one man and one woman—from the same university who majored in the same field. One year later, both were working full time, the same number of hours each week, in the same occupation and sector. Our analysis shows that despite these similarities, the woman would earn about 7 percent less than the man would earn. Why do women still earn less than men do after we control for education and employment differences?

The authors suggest that discrimination, including bias against women in negotiations (employers appear to respond to women’s negotiating attempts less favorably and to men’s negotiating attempts more favorably), might explain some of it. Tell me about it. I keep saying it: inequality is sneaky. But it isn’t subtle.

-Virginia Rutter

On Sunday, I was enjoying a nice dinner with my family at a new local restaurant that actually features produce from local farmers’ markets. All was good, until my 8-year-old daughter decided to ask our waitress, “Who are you going to vote for to be President of the United States?” Too young to know that it’s not ‘polite’ to ask strangers about politics, she was surprised to hear the waitress reply, “I’m not going to vote. I’m 28 years old, and I’ve never voted because I don’t know enough about the issues to vote.” That answer stunned my daughter into confused silence because she’d watched the debates and had her own clear ideas about at least a few of the issues. In the awkward silence, my 70 year-old dad (a pro-choice feminist) gently suggested to our waitress, “Well, you don’t have to know a lot about every issue to know who to vote for — even if you just know about where the candidates stand on one issue….” At that point, I knew he was hinting strongly at Obama’s and Romney’s clear differences on the topic of women’s reproductive rights, and I did not want to go there — not with our waitress, in the middle of a family-friendly restaurant.

As uncomfortable as that conversation was, I almost wish my dad would have made his point…almost. While it’s not the best voting strategy to be a single-issue voter, the facts about the differences between the two candidates (and their two parties) on this one issue are fairly astounding and have long-reaching consequences for the health of girls and women throughout the U.S. Today, I had a chance to catch up on my twitter feed and came across the perfect illustration for this post - impressed by the clarity and distressed by the facts presented, I give you The Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart:

Reprinted by permission from author, Brainwrap