The disbelieving of women

[ismnotwasm]

Earlier this year, two male television hosts from The Netherlands decided to go through simulated labour contractions to have a small inkling of what childbirth might be like. The video, which shows them writhing and screaming in agony, went viral on social media, attracting many comments from men who, it appeared, had just had the realisation that childbirth was indeed rather painful after all. The two Dutch TV hosts are not the only men to have done this. The narrative seems to pan out in a similar manner each time -- the men begin their journey happy and intrepid, sometimes even cocky, and end up wracked with pain, expressing a newfound respect for mothers. The audience is delighted, and the videos make their rounds.

Yet, one question continues to bug me -- why did these men feel the need to 'experience' it for themselves before they could acknowledge the extent of the pain of childbirth? What astounds me is that despite the well-known fact of the agony of childbirth, a common theme of doubt lingers among these men. Before undergoing the simulation, Zeno, one half of the Dutch duo, wonders, "Do you think the pain will make us scream?" Another video contains a pre-simulation quote from one of the participants -- "According to women childbirth is the worst kind of pain there is. But did you know, according to men, women exaggerate everything?"

This, I believe is the heart of the matter. Disbelief, the curse of Cassandra in Greek mythology, is a curse that has fallen on, and continues to plague women today. Represented in popular culture as either unable to fully understand or articulate her own experiences, or scheming and manipulative, or else histrionic drama queens, or simply irrational, society has been conditioned to take women's words with a pinch of salt. The default reaction to anything a woman says seems to be to disbelieve her, unless faced with incontrovertible evidence.

If you are a woman who holds and expresses strong opinions, particularly online, you'll be able to relate to this -- the unceasing demand from men for us to present them with academic studies to back up our points. Now, not for a second am I denigrating the importance of using hard evidence in an argument, or the citing of one's sources. Yet, when men are constantly asking women -- and only women -- for sources during casual conversation, and in a challenging, sneering manner at that, something else is certainly at work here, and it isn't simply a passion for academic rigour.

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2013/10/the_disbelievin

[seabeyond]

1. nurse bob. he was my friend. so very cowardly and felt nuthin'. i am ok with that. street harassment

Last edited Sun Oct 13, 2013, 09:59 AM - Edit history (1)

the first really true thread on street harassment. hundreds of post thread. the number of men that declared us women exaggerating, didnt happen, they didnt see it. more and more and more and more women poured into the thread telling there experience with street harassment. not a single woman said... well hell, never happened to me. story after story. that it got to the point of men saying, .... wow, guess i am gonna have to think about, pay attention, reconsider, this.

yes. you are right

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. Men. Not for nothing but, there is a reason that childbirth is known as a miracle

[awoke_in_2003]

3. Is it a miracle...

when roughly half of all mammals can give birth?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. yep. still is a miracle. what?

you think miracles don't happen every day? they do.

[awoke_in_2003]

5. No, I don't...

don't believe in a god, either.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. good for you. I think that, in and of itself, is a walking miracle.

[pitbullgirl1965]

7. I agree.

The miracle meme smacks of gender essentialist feminism and anti choice rhetoric: both conflate being a woman = motherhood. Either way we're reduced to our reproductive organs. I'm already marginalized by society for rejecting the motherhood role.

That said: yes, I think we've all been Mansplained to, and it's maddening at best. However remember that when WOC tell us something that is said or done by us or in general is racist. I've seen racist remarks and plenty of Whitesplaining by other feminists.
Intersectional feminism or bust!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. the choice makes it all the more the miracle. Women have the right to choose

therefore are not reduced to their organs ... which in turn reduces the man to his organ.

I need this broke down better otherwise it is just too much BS for me.

We are human. Some of us are women and some of us are men.

are you saying that I have to be atheist in order to be feminist?

are you calling me a racist?

[pitbullgirl1965]

9. I was agreeing with Awoke in 2003

. Is it a miracle...when roughly half of all mammals can give birth

1. It's actually harder now for women to get abortion or birth control. The Religious Right has made a concentrated effort to make it as hard as possible, and in some cases impossible to get either.
So, yes, they are trying to control us and the whole miracle meme is something I attribute to Anti choicers, and gender essentialist feminism:
the same feminists who say women should rule the world because we're so nurturing and gentle because we bear children.
That is the same nonsense the Right Wing believes. I am more then my reproductive capacity, and I never wanted and don't have kids.
Besides all that: it's science and as Awoke said, nothing special because well everyone does it.

2. Some people are transgendered.

3.An Atheist? No. I don't know where you got that from.

4.Am I calling you a racist? No. I don't know if you are, but I know that feminism and feminists have and still have a history of racism (among other things).
I've read some nasty stuff these women have said (Lena Dunham is terrible) about WOC and when WOC attempt to explain *why* that is problematic, or hurtful or yes racist, and explain about white privilege, they get the same crap from white feminists, that men give to us.

I read more blogs by WOC then mainline feminists blogs. I don't want to be a part of a movement that doesn't include everyone or worse, uses people as a stepping stone to equality.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. yes,

Last edited Sun Oct 13, 2013, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

nothing special because well everyone does it.

OK ... I need to think about that one. pretty broad brush is my first thought.

on the surface, it makes me sad.

by the way EVERYONE does NOT do "it" -- give birth that is.

I didn't do IT ... I had THREE miscarriages.

Life is special and holds meaning to those of us who choose for it to BE Special and to HOLD meaning.

but, I get it ... you are NOT special and you have NO meaning.

sheesh.

[pitbullgirl1965]

21. I apologize

I'm sorry for your miscarriages. For you it is a miracle, and it was dismissive of me. You must have been devastated. I'm not excusing it, I just get very defensive when I hear someone calling childbirth miraculous, the main reason is I hear it from anti choicers.

Did people brush your grief off? Telling you to get over it, or other thoughtless comments?
There is a term for that: Disenfranchised Grief.

I don't know if this helps you now, but maybe it will help anyone here reading this.

http://www.expressivegriefcounseling.com/disenfranchised-grief-alone-ashamed/

[seabeyond]

23. thanks for doggedly going on. i needed the little push that you shared,

to get to the better place in this discussion.

yours is an important perspective for all of us to remember.

[awoke_in_2003]

14. Now that I think about it...

I don't really remember hearing the term "miracle of childbirth" used very much until the rise of the religious right.

[MadrasT]

10. I tend to feel the same way.

I don't view giving birth as a "miracle" - to me, it is far too commonplace to apply that label.

I also do not like it when people make it a defining element of femaleness/womanhood. Plenty of women will never have babies, due to a) just don't want to, or b) their bodies aren't suited for it (unable to conceive or have medical conditions that make childbirth unwise or not possible) or c) do not have female reproductive organs at all.

[awoke_in_2003]

15. Yep, the term just sounds wrong....

I can see how it can be used as a club against those you mention.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

17. I never said anything about it DEFINING a WOMAN ... good god damn.

[MadrasT]

19. I don't believe I said you did.

I think I said I hate when "people" do that. If you don't do that then you are not in the category of "people" I am talking about. Geez.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

29. sorry, I took it personal. mea culpa.

[ismnotwasm]

11. The article is not about birth per se

But the pain that accompanies it, and why do men on occasion decide 'to experience' the pain of childbirth. While I'm not convicted men do this out of disbelief of the pain of child birth, however the rate of disbelief regarding rape and street harassment is a fact, so it's not a huge jump the author is making. (My male patients often claim that they've been told that passing a kidney stone is the only thing that comes close to the painful part of the experience of birth)

A healthy, normal wanted child can be considered a miracle if that is a women's choice. I put those qualifiers in because not every birth results in a healthy, 'normal' or even a wanted child. Often birth is not a miracle to women, but a terrible burden. A horror.

Reproductive rights are so very important. Women's autonomy in those rights are part of the package.

So is the need for women to be listened to and believed when they tell stories of rape and harassment instead of what is happening on-line today; in case after case women who speak out are threatened with rape and harassed even more.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. Thank you for putting it out there --

A healthy, normal wanted child can be considered a miracle if that is a women's choice. I put those qualifiers in because not every birth results in a healthy, 'normal' or even a wanted child. Often birth is not a miracle to women, but a terrible burden. A horror.

In this day and age: To bring into this world a full term, healthy, WANTED (by both parents) baby IS a freaking miracle.


Women DIE giving birth and children are stillborn also, commonplace .... VERY commonplace up until the last century.

I can not believe that it is being said that birth is commonplace. but, then again I also see miracles where other people see "nothing special". I think everyone is special and has something to offer.

[ismnotwasm]

16. ...

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. I just come at this from a very different perspective

just drawing breath is a miracle to me.

every fucking heart beat is a flipping miracle to me.

to see a stroke patient recover.

the ability to swallow food and it go down the right way is a miracle.

the human body, even one with "defects" -- the way it works, moves, rests, thinks, .... all of it.

a MIRACLE.

every day, at work, I see miracles happen.

[KitSileya]

20. Many men chose not to believe women's lived experiences.

It happens quite a lot even here on DU, where whenever you have a thread about harassment, for example, and women chime in with how they don't like being approached in public, there's always several guys chiming in with "but what about the menz" wah wah wah. They don't believe women when they describe being cat called and how it makes them feel, they don't believe women when they describe how they circumscribe their lives in order to feel safe (and they certainly don't believe women when women tell them that they don't feel safe anyway, even with them, if they are strangers) and they don't believe women when they describe the pain of childbirth. They don't believe women's own lived experiences...because these are women who tell these things, and they don't respect women enough to actually believe what they are saying. These women must be mistaken, must be exaggerating, must be hysterical, must be irrational....

Many men believe women are less than men, and therefore their voices aren't to be trusted, is the tl;dr version of it.

[pitbullgirl1965]

22. Agreed!

And then you get the "tone" argument. "Well maybe if you were less strident/said it nicer, whatever, I might consider listening to you!
At that point you know they're not going to listen, so I just leave or tell them to f**k off.
The hell with being nice!! I'm not nice. I'm kind. Nice gets you run over.

I'm going to make a post about how one man finally got it.

[seabeyond]

24. and then... a man steps up and says exactly the same, exactly same tone and all becomes .... quiet.

and the world listens. and he is brilliant in his insightfulness.

lol

[pitbullgirl1965]

26. :banghead:

I know, it's maddening. The only good thing is maybe they'll finally listen to us.

I just posted about this on the main board. *fingers crossed*

[redqueen]

25. I imagine that many of them simply think that those who complain should be more like the handmaidens

You know, the women who chime in to say that they like it when a man lets them know that they're still measuring up to the patriarchy's beauty standards ... the women who say that all the women complaining about being sexually harassed should really be grateful, because when they get old and are no longer so boner-pleasing, they'll miss all that attention from men. It's pathetic as all fucking hell, but there is (sadly) no shortage of those types to set a vomitous example for the chauvanists to point to as an example of how women should all respond to their harassment.

[pitbullgirl1965]

27. My god women who hate other women

I used to be like that: a "chill girl" who bashed other women to be cool with the guys. I don't know what made me change either.
Some so called feminists are the worst too.

[SheilaT]

28. It has been my observation that men are often

far more afraid of pain than women are. This despite the fact that they are the "manly" gender.

I know far too many men who won't even consider donating blood because they're afraid of needles. Really? You claim you can go off and fight a war but you're afraid of a needle?

I once suggest to a colonel of some kind (forget the exact rank as this was a very long time ago) that he could take the public bus from National Airport in Washington DC to Ft Belvoir. He reacted in horror, telling me the busses weren't safe. I pointed out that I, a female, about a foot shorter and more than a hundred pounds lighter than he was, rode the public busses every day. They are perfectly safe. You're supposed to be protecting me in times of war? And you're afraid to ride a public bus? What is wrong with this picture?

Childbirth is not easy. For some women it's a whole lot more painful than for others. This is not about the right to choose, that's a totally different discussion, but about believing women when they tell you that it hurts. It does. Period. Some women find it more worthwhile to endure, some want as much pain relief as possible, some find that afterwards the memory fades away, some are never willing to do it at all. Every experience is individual and unique.

But notice, the men who try to simulate it, very quickly come to the point where they give up.