Female desire and the princess culture

Posted on January 18, 2011 by margotmagowan

Thank you Peggy Orenstein for writing the brilliant book Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Every parent should read this new, excellent analysis of the ubiquitous princess kid-culture and its various mutations in the world of grown-up women.

Orenstein, a NY Times journalist, mom, and writer takes on and deconstructs two (so annoying!) messages every parent hears if she dares to challenge the monarchy of these frothy creatures.

Myth number one: we’re just giving girls what they want!

Orenstein responds with a brief history of marketing and information on child brain development– some major points paraphrased here:

Pink Children were not color-coded until early twentieth century. Before that, babies wore all white, because to get clothing clean, it had to be boiled. Boys and girls also used to all wear dresses. When nursery colors were introduced, pink was more masculine, a pastel version of the red, which was associated with strength. Blue was like the Virgin Mary and symbolized innocence, thus the girl color. When the color switched is vague. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland all wear blue. Sleeping Beauty’s gown was switched to pink to differentiate her from Cinderella.

Baby doll In an 1898 survey, less than 25% of girls said dolls were their favorite toy. “President Theodore Roosevelt… obsessed with declining birth rates among white, Anglo-Saxon women, began waging a campaign against ‘race-suicide.’ When women ‘feared motherhood,” he warned, our nation trembled on the ‘brink of doom.’ Baby dolls were seen as a way to revive the flagging maternal instinct of girls, to remind them of their patriotic duty to conceive; within a few years, dolls were ubiquitous, synonymous with girlhood itself. Miniature brooms, dustpans, and stoves tutored these same young ladies in the skills of homemaking…”

Princess When Orenstein herself was a kid, being called a Princess, specifically Jewish-American, was the worst insult a kid (and her family) could get. How had a generation transformed this word into a coveted compliment?

Disney Princesses as a group brand did not exist until 2000. Disney hired Andy Mooney from Nike. He went to a Disney on Ice show and saw little girls in homemade princess costumes. Disney had never marketed characters outside of a movie release and never princesses from different movies together. Roy Disney was against it, and that’s why, still, even on pull-ups, you won’t see the princesses looking at each other. (How’s that for a model for girls in groups or female friendships?) Princesses are now marketed to girls ages 2 – 6. Mooney began the campaign by envisioning a girl’s room and thinking about a princess fantasy: what kind of clock would a princess have? What type of bedding? Dora and Mattel followed suit with Dora and Barbie princess versions and then along came everyone else.

Toddler Clothing manufacturers in the 1930s counseled department stores that in order to increase sales they should create a ‘third stepping stone’ between infant wear and older kids clothing

Tween Coined in the mid-1980s as a marketing contrivance (originally included kids 8 – 15)

More on tweens, toddlers, girls and boys: if there is micro-segmentation of products by age and gender, people buy more stuff. If kids need a pink bat and a blue bat, you double your sales. Orenstein writes: “Splitting kids and adults, or for that matter, penguins, into ever tinier categories has proved a surefire way to boost profits. So where there was once a big group called kids we now have toddlers, pre-schoolers, tweens, young-adolescents and older adolescents, each with their own developmental and marketing profile…One of the easiest ways to segment the market is to magnify gender differences or invent them where they did not previously exist.”

http://www.jeongmeeyoon.com/aw_pinkblue.htm SeoWoo and Her Pink Things by JeongMee Yoon

One major fallout of gendering every plaything? “Segregated toys discourage cross-sex friendships.” Boys and girls stop playing together. Orenstein writes about the long-term effects: “This is a public health issue. It becomes detrimental to relationships, to psychological health and well-being, when boys and girls don’t learn how to talk to one another…Part of the reason we have the divorce rates we do, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking behaviors, sexual harassment is because the lack of ability to communicate between men and women.”

Orenstein argues: “Eliminating divorce or domestic violence may be an ambitious mandate for a pre-school curriculum, but its not without basis: young children who have friends of the opposite sex have a more positive transition into dating as teenagers and sustain their romantic relationships better.”

Myth #2: that princess stuff is just a phase– she’ll grow out of it!

Princesses are marketed to girls 2 – 6 years old; there’s something very creepy and dangerous about making these kids victims of billion dollar industries. Kids brains are literally being formed, they’re malleable. So this little phase is helping to create a brain that lasts forever.

Scientists have pretty much moved on from the anachronistic, simplistic debate of nature versus nurture. It’s now understood that nature and nurture form and create each other in an endless loop. Your experiences influence your wiring.

For example, small kids can make all kinds of sounds to learn languages. Lise Eliot, author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain is quoted by Orenstein: “Babies are born ready to absorb the sounds, grammar, and intonation of any language, but then the brain wires it up only to perceive and produce a specific language. After puberty, its possible to learn another language but far more difficult. I think of gender differences similarly. The ones that exist become amplified by the two different cultures that boys and girls are immersed in from birth. This contributes to the way their emotional and cognitive circuits get wired.”

“It’s not that pink is intrinsically bad, it is such a tiny slice of the rainbow,” Orenstein writes. To grow brains, kids need more, varied experiences, not fewer.

Phases don’t vanish, they mutate.

Orenstein’s book traces how the real life Disney stars/ girl princesses (i.e. Lindsay Lohan, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus etc) attempt to make their transitions from girl-princesses into adult ones; or more crassly, from virgin to whore. Orenstein writes it’s impossible to commodify one end of the spectrum and not the other, and there are so few models of healthy female sexuality out there. She writes, “Our daughters may not be faced with the decision of whether to strip for Maxim, but they will have to figure out how to become sexual beings without being objectified or stigmatized.” All that early training for girls to focus incessantly on their appearance lasts a lifetime. What happens when these girls try to grow up? Orenstein writes girls learn, “Look sexy, but don’t feel sexual, to provoke desire in others without experiencing it themselves.”

How does this emphasis on dressing up and attention for appearance affect kids as they grow? Stephen Hinshaw, quoted from his book The Triple Bind, explains, “Girls pushed to be sexy too soon can’t really understand what they’re doing…they may never learn to connect their performance to erotic feelings or intimacy. They learn how to act desirable, but not to desire, undermining, rather than promoting, healthy sexuality.”

The basic message I got from this book: the issue is not pink or princesses, but to give your kid more experiences not less. Remember– many colors in the rainbow!

(1) Encourage and reinforce cross-gender play. If your daughter is playing with a boy, acknowledge it, reinforce what they’re doing. You are the biggest influence in your kid’s life, you’re not ‘just another person.’ Talk to your kids pre-school teachers and administrators about encouraging cross-gender play. There is lots in this book about how teachers are not trained in this area at all and miss opportunities to help brains grow.

(2) Remember, your kid is not a small adult. She has a different brain. Help that brain grow! If your son picks up a My Little Pony, buy it for him instead of yet another car. It won’t make him gay! It will make him smart!

(3) Your kids are watching you! Again, they are not just little people with fully formed minds. If you criticize your appearance (or another woman’s), how you treat your partner, how you eat, she takes note.

Childless and happy

Posted on December 2, 2010 by margotmagowan

The latest issue of New York Magazine has a seven page story on the longterm fallout from the Pill’s legalization in the 1960s and it’s subsequent infiltration into mainstream American sexual culture. The magazine’s cover photo pictures a woman sticking out her tongue, a white pill stuck to it, evoking similar imagery from the Sixties of young people eagerly ingesting tabs of acid. The message is, of course, that the Pill is just as insidious as all the other drugs that came out of the era; it’s ‘free love’ revolution no better than the concomitant drug craze that left my generation moaning about their parents’ addictions and irresponsibility, feeling as if were left to clean up after somebody else’s party.

The article makes the point again and again, that yes, contraception may have advanced female independence and sexual freedom, but it, too, has an irresponsible twin movement; it’s created a modern, multi-million dollar fertility industry fueled by women who delayed childbirth too long and now, in their thirties and forties, are miserable because they’ve failed to reproduce.

The article succeeds in perpetuating beloved myths about womanhood, all which spring from one essential notion: women desperately want to have children and women who don’t are unhappy.

Once you accept this basic tenet, a series of other beliefs follow as logically as a proof from highschool geometry. Women are naturally Madonna-like and possess the qualities we prize in good mothers; they’re dedicated, nurturing, and kind; their life’s mission is to find good fathers for their offspring; that’s why they seek out men who are powerful and rich and that’s why men are attracted to women who are young and fertile; and that’s why women aren’t motivated to be in positions of power and that’s basically why the world is the way that it is. Childless women are creepy, but they’re okay if they’re sad about their state.

The way the New York Magazine article falls all over itself to highlight female pain reminds me of how the media paternalistically covers sexual assault survivors with gray dots so they don’t have to be ‘shamed’ again. Wouldn’t it be better if we had a society that actually recognized and valued those brave women for the heroes they are? Wouldn’t it be better if our culture actually valued childless women?

Bad things happen to women, but very often, they recover. Contrary to popular belief, they recover from assualt, from abortions, and from childlessness. They’d recover much faster and in far greater numbers if the world supported and valued them for their multiple roles and potentials instead of falling all over itself to celebrate motherhood as the primary female achievement. If for example, magazine covers didn’t show a woman crazily licking up a birth control pill like a tab of acid or feature multiple images of the latest starlets’ “baby bumps.”

There are also many women, perfectly happy, well-adjusted women, who don’t want kids. Elizabeth Gilbert, best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love is one of them. She writes about her blissful childlessness in her book, Committed. Gilbert, successful and talented, is widely criticized for her self-absorption.

But here’s a crazy idea: having kids is actually just about the most selfish act (read un-idealized-feminine) a human can engage in. Rapidly growing world population issues aside, we have children because we think it will make our own lives more fulfilling; we want to create another human being with someone we love; or we are seeking immortality by continuing our gene pools. That selfishness isn’t bad by the way. All ‘good’ deeds are self-centered. God was smart that way. We give money away because it feels good or work for causes or support political candidates because they further our personal beliefs. But as Erica Jong notes in her recent Wall Street Journal article, when women have kids, their worlds can become very small and limited, mothers turning away from the world’s unsolvable, overwhelming issues into the self absorption of their own families.

The species needs to reproduce, we all know that. Having kids can be incredibly fulfilling, and it’s great that so many of us do it. But the under-reported story is not only the well-adjusted, happy women who live fulling lives that don’t involve children at all, but a culture, still desperately lacking in celebrating women’s other creative acts.

Making it through the morning w/o losing it

Posted on December 1, 2010 by margotmagowan

10 Tips

(1) Load up the coffee machine the night before

(2) Get a good night’s sleep

(3) Get up 1/2 hour before kids

(4) Make kids pick out & lay out clothing the night before (one brilliant mom I know dresses her daughter in her “tomorrow clothes” before she goes to bed)

(5) Only one chance to make requests for hairstyles

(6) Cereal for breakfast, put out boxes on the table; cook only one hot thing. If they want something else, they can go to their food shelves.

(7) Parents, don’t start activities if kids will annoy you if they interrupt you including checking news or email (and if your husband happens to be a musician, no playing the piano or ukulele)

(8) If you have a sitter and multiple kids, it’s great if s/he has a driver’s license and can help with drop off

(9) Good-bye kisses for everyone

(10) Lexapro

In the night

Posted on November 30, 2010 by margotmagowan

So right after I blog about what a great sleeper I am and what great sleepers my kids are blah blah blah, a stomach bug invades my house. All three kids are puking. Always at night. The kids are on the bottom floor of our house, all three in one room; my husband and I are on the top floor, so we hear the whole sequence of events on the baby monitor: a cough, then a series of coughs, then a splash.

One crying kid ends up coming to my room to sleep with me. My husband goes down to sleep in her bunk. She is so psyched to get in my bed that even though she’s just been throwing up, she’s smiling ear to ear, her hands clasped in front of her. She burrows in next to me and then she throws up all over my bed, something brown and thick, possibly refried beans. I want to cry. But she’s already crying. So I change her clothing, my husband changes the bedsheets, we get a bowl for her in case she has to puke again. She keeps talking and talking, for at least an hour. She wants to know all about Santa. How can he stay awake all night? Does he really stay awake or does he nap in the sled? When she’s finally quiet and back to sleep, I ‘m awake for another hour.

Maybe I’ll delete my earlier posts and open that Preseco tonight.

Drinking and parenting

Posted on November 28, 2010 by margotmagowan

I have not read The Three Martini Playdate, but the title cracks me up. Even though it makes me laugh, drinking and parenting don’t work for me.

In Nora Ephron’s last book, I Feel Bad About My Neck there’s a piece called “What I Wish I’d Known.” I just reread her hilarious list, reprinted in an anthology called I Found This Funny edited by Judd Apatow. One of Ephron’s maxims: “The reason you’re waking up in the middle of the night is the second glass of wine.”

My last blog post was about sleeping. I love sleeping. Love it. I think it’s the best thing ever. I love my bed, I love being in my bed. I think a lot of parents fetishize sleep. Ephron is right, alcohol messes with my sleep, even just a little bit of it. When I don’t sleep, I get cranky. Then I yell at my kids and feel guilty and horrible.

Not only am I meaner when I’m sleepless, I’m less productive. I’m self-employed, and I need to be highly motivated to get anything done. I started a non-profit, and I can’t just show up for work and slog through. I’m also a writer, and I have little desire to write when I’m sleepless or hungover. I know lots of writers, incredibly famous and successful ones, have managed it: Hemingway (though he shot himself in the head) Faulkner, Mary Karr (though she got sober) But not me. Not with three little kids. Of course, lots of factors contribute to exhaustion. Some are just very easy to eliminate.

I’m sure lots of people can handle drinking a glass of wine or two–jeez– and many parents probably find kids less tiring than I do. I can’t imagine being a preschool teacher or kindergarten teacher, for example. I think I’d last about one hour. I adore my children, but they’re energy suckers. Or maybe something more symbiotic, less parasite sounding. My kids make me incredibly happy, but I need to choose very carefully what else I allow in my life or I wouldn’t be able to do much else but amble through the day.

Not drinking makes me happier, nicer, more patient, and more motivated. It’s very possible I won’t always feel this way, but right now it’s working for me.

In defense of candy

Posted on October 27, 2010 by margotmagowan

Across America, there’s a movement afoot. The New York Times reports that candy may not be as bad for you– or your kids– as you may think:

“I don’t think candy is bad for you,” said Rachel Johnson, a nutrition professor at the University of Vermont who was the lead author of the American Heart Association’s comprehensive 2009 review of the scientific literature on sugar and cardiovascular health.

Johnson’s allies in her quest to redeem candy from its bad reputation include Candy Professor blogger Samira Kawash. She started her blog after a playdate gone bad: at snacktime, she brought out some candy for her three year old, and the other mom freaked out; her kid had never tasted sugar.

“It was clear to me that there was an irrational equation of candy and danger in that house,” Dr. Kawash said…From that train of thought, the Candy Professor blog was born. In her writing there, Dr. Kawash dives deep into the American relationship with candy, finding irrational and interesting ideas everywhere. The big idea behind Candy Professor is that candy carries so much moral and ethical baggage that people view it as fundamentally different – in a bad way – from other kinds of food…”At least candy is honest about what it is,” she said.

I’ve had many experiences like Kawash’s, where other parents have gotten nervous because my kids are allowed to eat candy. Not only are they allowed to eat it, they get to eat it whenever they want! And they decide how much to eat! My kids (ages 7 – 4) have food shelves they can reach on their own with candy on them. And yes, sometimes they eat gummy bears for breakfast or Reeses right before dinner, or oreos with their dinner.

But guess what– candy isn’t a big deal to them. My seven year old’s absolute favorite food is Korean sushi. And seaweed. She has close friends who are Korean and that’s the food they get but she doesn’t, the unavailable “treat” that fascinates her.

My kids don’t overeat sugar. On Halloween, they won’t be freaking out because they have bags of candy. There won’t be tears and fights and struggles for control, because candy isn’t forbidden and, as much as possible, I don’t control what they eat.

My kids have lots of “healthy” foods on their shelves too including nuts, carrots, sliced apples, hummus, kidney beans– my 4 year old’s favorite because she thinks they’re smiles. Hopefully I’ll get to the Korean Market that sells kimbap and add that to the home menu.

If parents would calm down about sugar, their kids would too. I think the best thing parents can do– especially parents of girls who get so many negative messages about food, hunger, and weight– is to relax around eating.

These aren’t my own ideas by the way. After I had my second daughter, I read an amazing book: “Preventing Childhood Eating Problems” by Jane Hirshmann and Lela Zaphiropoulus. I read it because I had an eating disorder and the way I finally got better– after years of ineffective therapy and programs and nutritionists, most which repeatedly told me I had a “disease” I’d live with forever– was to stop listening to “experts” and start listening to my body. I hope my kids are learning the same skills much earlier by tuning into themselves, and not me, to tell them what or how much to eat. You can read more about how I learned to do that and how I raise my kids here.

San Franciscans will be happy to know we have some powerful local allies in the movement to rehabilitate candy. Brian Campbell, co-owner of Russian Hill’s fabulous The Candy Store along with his wife, Diane, agrees that candy is an “honest food.”

“Candy doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t,” Campbell says, “unlike several of the highly-processed foods that line the aisles of supposed health food stores like Whole Foods.”

“Many people confuse corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup. Very few candies use high-fructose corn syrup, which is mainly used by the processed food industry as a cheap alternative to sugar.”

Campbell warns that, “Candy is often demonized because it’s mostly sugar and therefore is seen as a contributing factor to our national obesity ‘epidemic’. However, as noted in the article, the vast majority of our country’s sugar consumption comes from other sources, such as sodas. There are other countries, such as Sweden, that consume far more candy per capita than the U.S. – and you don’t hear much about the Swedish obesity epidemic.”

Now get yourself over to The Candy Store on Vallejo and Polk in Russian Hill, the best sweet shop in the city!

Leaked memo reveals ABC’s refusal to air Lane Bryant ad

Posted on April 23, 2010 by margotmagowan

Jezebel posts a leaked memo from ABC to Lane Bryant, showing that, contrary to its claims, the network did refuse to air the ad featuring a plus size model in her bra.

Fat girls wear bras too!

Posted on April 23, 2010 by margotmagowan

When plus size company Lane Bryant’s sexy TV ad was supposedly censored by ABC as inappropriate for “Dancing With the Stars” audiences, there were calls of hypocrisy. After all, TV networks don’t seem to have an issue showing lingerie ads for Victoria’s Secret (or even the much touted half naked extravaganza ‘Victoria’s Secret Special.”) Still, TV executives seemed to feel that fat girls shouldn’t show cleavage. Ironic, since big girls are more likely to have big breasts, but I guess natural is what’s offensive here.

ABC is now denying it ever censored the ad. Lane Bryant still claims the ad was censored. Either way, I’m having trouble leaping on the feminist band wagon burning up the blogosphere defending this commercial and demanding it be aired. Fat women should be allowed to be objectified too, dammit!

I had the same negative reaction when Mo’Nique hosted a fat girl beauty contest for TV. I didn’t think it was so awesome that large women were gaining entry into the world of the skinny, finally allowed to compete against each other so a panel of judges could decide who was the prettiest.

I was also bummed when “High School Musical” featured a fat cheerleader and everyone called that progressive and “so PC.” Cheerleaders are just bad for women. I don’t care if they’re fat or of color or have athletic skill. Being a cheerleader is the definition of being the sideshow, her role is to make the main event look good; she is not and never will be the star. Cheerleader obsession is like teen training ground for the perfect heterosexual relationship; it’s like wife school. The hot girl cheers on her talented guy, standing by her quarterback, loyally, faithfully, whether he wins or loses; her admiration is constant and her love is true.

www.salon.com

Another recent example of fake feminist progress is Angelina Jolie’s much touted role Salt, originally written “for a guy,” a guy like Tom Cruise! Scott Mendelson wrote about EW’s self congratulatory cover story on how progressive the movie is on his blog. Mendelson has this quote from EW:

“In the original script, there was a huge sequence where Edwin Salt (the original male protagonist) saves his wife, who’s in danger,” says Noyce. “And what we found in the new script, it seemed to castrate his character a little. So we had to change the nature of that relationship.”

Mendelson writes:

So, hidden in an article on how “Salt” is oh-so-empowering for female action heroes is this tidbit. The filmmakers believe that it was perfectly OK for the spouse to be rescued from mortal danger if said love interest was a girl, but not if the romantic partner was a man. Apparently, it’s great if the action hero is a girl, as long as she doesn’t have the opportunity to one-up any male counterparts or reverse the oldest cliche in the action-film handbook.

What a bummer. The supposedly feminist “Salt” remains safely within the gender boundaries of every classic Disney movie, and is it even possible to be “a little castrated?”

Update: Jezebel posts a leaked memo from ABC to Lane Bryant, showing that, contrary to its claims, the network did refuse to air the ad.

Second update: To the offended commenters, just like I tell my six year old, “fat” is not a bad word! Nor is “large” nor is “chubby.” People who are upset I used the word “fat” to describe the plus size model in the photo are reinforcing the values of a society that thinks one woman’s size is so preferable to another’s. And yes, of course size is relative, as is height, weight, age etc. Compared to certain groups of people, in various societies, the Lane Bryant model would not be fat or plus size.

Third update: Ashley Grant, the Lane Bryant model, says on ET she thinks her breasts were too big, bigger than the Victoria’s Secret models and that’s why her ad was censored.

I don’t watch “Dancing with the Stars” but seeing the clips on my TV right now, the costumes on those women look like my three year old got near them with her scissors; they’re missing whole sections.

While I was posting this story last night, Joy Behar was on TV with Pamela Anderson as a guest, showing clips of half dressed Pam doing splits, again and again, over her dance partner. If ABC censored big breasts during its cartoon hour, that would be one thing, but during “Dancing With the Stars” gives a whole new meaning to the term “double standard.”

VBACs sink to all time low in U.S.

Posted on March 26, 2010 by margotmagowan

The New York Times is reporting that Caesarian births, the most common operations in American hospitals, have reached an all time high in this country. A major reason for the increase is that many doctors and hospitals are now discouraging or even refusing to perform VBACs (vaginal births after c-section.)

About 1.4 million Caesareans were performed in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. The increases- documented in a report published Tuesday- have caused debate and concern for years. When needed, a Caesarean can save the mother and her child from injury or death, but most experts doubt that one in three women need surgery to give birth. Critics say the operation is being performed too often, needlessly exposing women and babies to the risks of major surgery. The ideal rate is not known, but the World Health Organization and health agencies in the United States have suggested 15 percent…

Repeat Caesareans are another part of the problem. They account for about 40 percent of the total and have become increasingly common in the past 15 years as more and more hospitals have refused to allow women who have had a Caesarean to try to give birth normally. Fewer than 10 percent of women who had Caesareans now have vaginal births, compared with 28.3 percent in 1996. Many hospitals banned vaginal birth after Caesarean because of stringent guidelines set by the obstetricians’ college, which said surgery and anesthesia teams should be “immediately available” whenever a woman with a prior Caesarean was in labor.

The disappearing VBAC is a disturbing trend. I had two of them. When I tell people this, they’re surprised. More and more, I fall into an ever-shrinking minority.

I was not a typical VBAC candidate. I usually follow doctors’ recommendations. I’m not a risk taker with my health or my kids health. I’m not a natural birth advocate either; I love my epidural. I opted for VBACs only because having a c-section was so awful.

Before I had my first baby, I didn’t even understand why having a vaginal birth was preferable to a c-section. Frankly, both exits sounded bad.

At my birthing class, there was a lot of talk from the teacher about how to avoid a c-section, but not to be disappointed or feel like failure of it didn’t happen. I didn’t get what the fuss was about. Why would I feel like a failure? I thought the empathic concern was a San Francisco hippie thing. I felt like– who cares how she’s born, as long as she is OK?

So my big mistake with my first baby was that when my water broke, I didn’t know it. Apparently, water breaking is not usually a sudden dramatic splash like it is in the movies (in fact, nothing about giving birth for me was fast or dramatic like in the movies.) Generally, the doctor breaks the bag of waters when you’re in the hospital, after you’ve been in labor for a while. But if your water does break, you need to go to the hospital immediately because your baby loses that boundary of protection against infection.

Spokane Publishing

Pregnant woman

About 30 hours into labor, my baby was stuck. My temperature was rising which indicated the baby or I might have an infection. When my doctor recommended the c-section, I took her advice– lying there, exhausted and drugged, I wasn’t in the mood to argue, and like I said, I don’t tend to argue with doctors anyway. When my doctor sat down on my bed and told me very seriously that she thought I needed the operation and I felt like– fine, whatever, just get this baby out!

The problem was the recovery. It was horrible. I was in intense pain for weeks and slight pain where the scar was for months afterward. Somehow, I didn’t fully understand that recovering from major abdominal surgery would be really slow and painful. I couldn’t be there for my baby at the level I wanted to be. She was colicky, and the only way to calm her in those early weeks was to bounce her for hours in your lap while sitting on one of those of giant exercise balls, but because of the incision, I couldn’t bounce. There was a lot I couldn’t do, or couldn’t do easily, and that lasted a long time.

Tests of the placenta came back weeks later to show neither my baby or I had had an infection. Obviously, no one knew we were OK at the time. I probably would have done the same exact thing, except hopefully, been more aware of water breaking and also delaying my epidural because the anesthesia supposedly slows down labor, though no doctor would confirm that for me. The cost of the c-section and 4 day hospital stay it requires, covered by my insurance, was $50,000. The point being hospitals make more money and avoid more lawsuits when they preform c-sections.

After one c-section, at my practice/ hospital, you’re allowed to schedule another for the second pregnancy, but I chose to try a VBAC because the recovery from the operation had been so hard. I waited much longer for the epidural. It was a long labor, but an easy birth. I pushed for just twenty minutes. Within hours, I was sitting “criss cross applesauce” as my daughter would say now. I felt happy and energized. The next day while my baby was having some standard tests, my husband and I walked a couple blocks to get a Jamba Juice. My nurse was pissed when we returned; I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital, but it didn’t occur to me to ask permission because I felt so good.

The early infanthood with my second baby was a completely different experience than with my first. Right away, I was taking her out on walks. I felt calmer, happier. Part of that may just have been the second baby is less of a shock, you’ve been through it. But also, of course, I just felt so much better. I understood in a way I hadn’t before something basic: women’s bodies are designed to expand and contract with the pregnancy and birth. Even if the whole process seems alarming to someone who’s never had a baby, as it certainly did to me, we heal pretty easily and quickly. On the other hand, getting your abdomen cut open and stitched back up, is a serious physical invasion and feels just like that.

The cost of the VBAC was about $15,000, covered by my insurance.

My third baby, because she was the third, was supposed to “pop out.” She also got stuck. After about fifteen hours of labor, my doctor was ready to do another c-section. Even though I had delayed the epidural again, part of the reason my labor had slowed was that the hospital was no longer allowed to give me the level of Petocin, a drug that speeds up contractions, that I had with my second baby. As the New York Times reports, many hospital policies have changed for VBACs, now only allowing the lowest levels of Petocin. My doctor wanted to give me more, believing it was safe, but the nurse refused, saying it was against hospital policy. Having my doctor and nurse argue while I was in labor made me anxious, as if I weren’t anxious enough already. So I was headed for surgery when my doctor’s shift was up. The new doctor came into the room, examined me, and said, “I think we’re ready to push this baby out. What do you think?”

I told her I thought I was going to have a c-section unless they could up my Petocin.

She said: “No, we’re going to push!”

We are going to push– ha! But like I said, I follow doctors orders so I said OK. I was thinking: this doctor is clearly insane. As she, my husband, and the nurse were all leaning over me, telling me to push I was thinking– where did all these crazy, bossy people come from? But an hour later, I had my 10 lb baby. Yes, surprise! No one had any idea I was going to have a giant baby, but there she was. Recovery was more painful than baby #2 but again, my body felt normal pretty quickly, nothing like the c-section experience.

It’s pretty amazing that how I gave birth was so dependent on the particular doctor whose shift I was on, the nurse, and the hospital policy. I think this happens to a lot of women; how they give birth is influenced by what state or country they live in or random timing like a doctor’s schedule. I’m surprised and disheartened by the massive movement of hospitals away from VBACs. More women, not less, should be attempting them; doctors should stop forcing women into something “safer.”

Obama’s tragic abortion concession turns bill into law

Posted on March 22, 2010 by margotmagowan

I know Obama couldn’t please everyone. I realize he had to make concessions to get his floundering health care bill passed. I, like many Americans, wanted it passed. But yesterday, when the pro-choice president announced his executive order, ensuring his bill would win crucial votes by promising there would be no changes to the restrictions on federal money used for abortions, my heart sank.

For women, access to choice is access to health care. Obama’s decision leaves poor women out of a new law that was supposed to protect them.

The AP reported:

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the order provides safeguards to ensure that the status quo is “upheld and enforced.” Long-standing federal policy bars U.S. aid for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. The order is designed to help assure the passage of Obama’s massive health care bill by winning support from a bloc of anti-abortion lawmakers.

www.siliconindia.com

President Obama

First of all, the faulty logic of the anti-abortion position alarms me as usual. The rape/ incest qualification makes no sense. If abortion is murder, why is it OK to murder the innocent fetus if the mother was raped or an incest survivor? Clearly, that’s not the fetus’ fault.

I guess this bad thinking implies that any other time besides rape or incest when a woman gets pregnant, it is her fault; therefore, it’s OK to legislate that the guilty woman carry the baby and give birth. But it remains contradictory for the government to put itself in the position of determining that sometimes it’s OK to murder a blameless fetus.

Whenever the reproductive rights debate strays into territory of how or why the woman became pregnant, or whether or not life begins at conception, it always becomes infinite and nonsensical. Instead, the reproductive rights debate should come down to this: the rights of the mother versus the rights of the fetus. The mother’s rights, the citizen’s, must supersede the rights of the fetus, as long as it’s dependent on her body for survival.

It’s not ethical rocket science. As a philosophy major in college, we were presented with a basic ethical dilemma (not unlike the latest Jodi Picoult movie): a child has a mysterious disease; the only way this child can recover is if the mother attaches herself to the child’s body for ten months. Can the government legislate the mother perform this procedure? Or father? Perhaps the cousin? Or second cousin? Maybe the best friend? Can the government legislate that one human give her spare kidney away to a human whose life depends on it? Obviously, it isn’t ethical for the government to intrude on these personal choices.

www.cnn.com

Anti-abortion Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan

No one wants abortions. There is a clear way to reducing them: empowering women. But Obama’s concession disempowers women far beyond even basic health care. It’s a tragic concession, because until all women have full reproductive rights, America remains far from becoming a strong and healthy country.

Here’s a piece I wrote for the Chronicle when Nader was running against Bush, about how people still don’t get that choice affects everything. Sadly, that cluelessness holds true today, just add “pro-life democrat” every time I write “republican.”

Ask a pro-choice person to explain casting a vote for a pro-life candidate, and the proud response is likely to be: “I don’t support candidates based on just one issue. I care about education, health care, and the economy too.”

Even political savvy supporters of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader aren’t that concerned with the threat to a woman’s right to choose, claiming its one issue among many.

But choice has never been a single issue. Reproductive rights don’t exist in isolation They have everything to do with women’s economic and political power, women’s access to education and health care, women’s status in society and women’s abilities to take care of themselves and their children.

www.nndb.com

Margaret Sanger

Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger once said, “If a woman doesn’t have the right to control her own body, she has no rights.” Choice is a political barometer, indicative of how politicians feel not only about the basic rights of women, but about the role of women in society, abut sex education, health care, welfare, poverty, the economy and the role the government should play in an individual’s life.

A position on choice indicates whether your representative will fight to get your kids vaccinated and to make contraception affordable.

Years ago, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, said that pro-lifers believe “life begins at conception and ends at birth,” meaning pro-life politicians are adamant about protecting the fetus but don’t care much about protecting the child once its born

His notion was rekindled recently when Prof Jean Schroedel of Claremont College came out with a survey examining the relationship between state abortion laws and spending on children. Her research revealed that the states that most severely limit abortion are the same ones that spend the least on foster care, parents who adopt special needs children, and poor women with dependent children. States with strict abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women. For example, Louisianna had some of the tougest abortion laws and spent $602 per child. Hawaii had some of the most liberal laws and spent $4,648 per child.

Schroedel also discovered that states with restricted abortion laws consistently accorded lower political, economic and social status to women.

www.iisd.ca/images/wsphoto.htm

Naifs Sadik

Her findings support the work of Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations World Population Fund. Sadik has been instrumental in turning the debate over how to limit population growth into a campaign for women’s rights.

She is widely credited with bringing attention to the correlation between over population and the status of women. When women are educated, when they achieve economic independence, when they have access to good health care, when they are valued in society for their intellect and their accomplishments, they have fewer babies.

Unfortunately, pro-life politicians still don’t seem concerned with improving the status of women. One classic example is presidential candidate George W. Bush. Look at his record as governor of Texas.

Texas women had a higher than average chance of living in poverty. The state minimum wage, earned by those in the female-dominated service and domestic workers industries was $3.35 per hour, totaling $6,700 annually for full time employment.

The percentage of women and children without health insurance is the second highest in the country.

Texas ranks 42nd in per capita welfare spending.

Bush made it more difficult for women to obtain abortions in times of crisis, but offered no preventative policy initiatives to reduce unintended pregnancy, no expansion of family planning or funding services, no comprehensive sexuality education program and no insurance coverage for contraceptives.

Texas had the second highest rate of teen pregnancy in the nation.

And the Texas system doesn’t promote sexual health. Texas law requires that sex education courses teach abstinence, but it does not require teaching contraception or HIV/ STD prevention.

Compare that to France where mandatory sexuality education begins when students are 13. Parents are prohibited from withdrawing their teenagers from this program. France’s teenage birthrate is approximately 6 times lower than the rate in the US; its teen abortion rate more than 2x lower, and overall AIDS rate, more than 3x lower.

www.sfgate.com

Governor Bush

Conservatives like to say, “The government that governs best, governs least.” What happened to this party? Now, they sound so much more like big government believers.

Many Americans wonder how they came to intrude so much into our private lives, legislating personal choices like whom we should sleep with or pray to.

The reason is because if politicians aren’t going to help to provide access to health care, contraception, STD prevention, access to child care and sex education, and economic autonomy there is nowhere to go but blame pregnancies on loose morals and loose women.

If Republicans acknowledge that women have reproductive rights, they’ll have to acknowledge that women have other rights as well. For Texas, that would mean reasonable funding for family planning and welfare, a higher minimum wage, insurance to cover contraceptives, real sex education and access to heath care.

Pro choice isn’t one issue and it isn’t one choice. Pro-choice means women have the choice to graduate from college, the choice to borrow money to start a business, the choice to get a good job with a fair wage, the choice not live in poverty and keep their kids out of poverty. Choice means that women get to be autonomous citizens, just like men do- with the power to determine their own destinies.

Pro-life candidate George Bush understands better than anyone that choice isn’t just one issue Before heading to the ballot box in November, Americans need to realize pro-life is really only pro-birth.

The Republicans’ concern for mother and child is severed with the cutting of the umbilical cord.

Reel Girl

Imagining gender equality in the fantasy world

Category Archives: Health