Most of my life, I want to spend in my home. I want to wear dresses and aprons and prepare food and clean. I want, most of all to mother. I want to feel my children in my arms, to love them and hold them and watch them grow. I want to be pretty, dressed up and I want to sparkle. I want a wedding where I get a beautiful dress and there are flowers about and all eyes are on how beautiful I am for a moment. I want to settle down and live my life without the sort of job that requires I leave my house. I want to leave the work up to Halley.
But I don't think all women should have to do that. Being born with a vagina doesn't mean you're required to want those things. You can want a childless life with a fulfilling job, and wear only pants and never so much as touch a stove and that's okay. I like that feminism is about choice. Even though I want to stay at home and raise children, I want to have the option to get a job and get paid the same amount as any man, and more importantly, I don't want what choices I am making consciously to be forced upon every other person with female reproductive organs.
Sorry if this post seems bizarre and obvious, but it seems like women who happen to choose a life that would be okay according to gender stereotypes rarely go out of their way to dispel the myth that they agree with them.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Natural and Unnatural Childbirth
The tone of every conversation in society is acceptance. We want to accept people who make different choices than we would personally, and, on the whole, that is a wonderful thing. It's good when discussing religion, good when discussing gender roles and sexual orientation, and good when discussing all manner of small personal choices, like how to dress, what job to do, and what to do in your free time. But it's not so good when we discuss birth.
You see, I want to dispel the myth that supporting natural childbirth is about suffering. My support of natural childbirth is not because the women who experienced it suffered for their children, and, in fact, I really wish all women could experience completely painless labor. Most natural childbirth advocates do. The want for natural childbirth stems from the desire for the health and comfort of the baby. Many unnatural birth supporters seem to believe that birth is some sort of contest for women, and I've heard it compared to something with a scoring system with points awarded based on how natural it was or how bad it hurt. This is not true.
I support natural birth because I believe that a baby has the right to come into this world in the most comfortable, healthy way possible. I don't support it because I think women should suffer for their children.
You see, I want to dispel the myth that supporting natural childbirth is about suffering. My support of natural childbirth is not because the women who experienced it suffered for their children, and, in fact, I really wish all women could experience completely painless labor. Most natural childbirth advocates do. The want for natural childbirth stems from the desire for the health and comfort of the baby. Many unnatural birth supporters seem to believe that birth is some sort of contest for women, and I've heard it compared to something with a scoring system with points awarded based on how natural it was or how bad it hurt. This is not true.
I support natural birth because I believe that a baby has the right to come into this world in the most comfortable, healthy way possible. I don't support it because I think women should suffer for their children.
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