Radical Doula

A month ago I posted a story about how I was given a ticket on the NYC subway. It was allegedly for taking up more than one seat (even though it was 2am on a Thursday). The whole incident was ridiculous, including what I would consider harrassment on the part of the officer involved.

Well yesterday I had the great fortune of going to the Transit Adjudication Board to contest the ticket. After two hours of waiting, I spoke to a very sympathetic woman who dismissed the ticket. Also, a colleague of mine who happens to be on NYC Transit Riders Council was outraged enough to bring the story to the chief of the council, who is talking to the Chief of Police about the incident. I’m just happy it’s all over.

A recent NY Times article argues that human sexual behavior is a long drama whose script is written quite substantially in the genes. Author Nicholas Wade explains how science has made it crystal clear that sexuality, and sexual preference, is completely determined by genetics.

He focuses on the brain–which, shockingly enough, is a full fledged sexual organ–and explains that the two sexes have profoundly different versions of it. Thanks for clearing that one up for us, now I get it, men and women have different brains! Forget feminism and arguments about equality—let’s just accept it boys and girls, god made you different!

Apparently scientists, theorists and feminists have been wrong all along, at least according to one doctor from UC Irvine. The most infuriating thing about this article is the author’s blaise and sexist tone, which implies that “Oh wow! Now the mystery is solved.” Not only does he argue that women don’t really have a sexual orientation (while male sexuality is determined before birth), he also argues that homosexuality in men can be attributed to the “fraternal birth order effect”—having older brothers.

He also quickly dismisses all arguments about social and cultural influences on sexuality.

The most direct evidence comes from a handful of cases, some of them circumcision accidents, in which boy babies have lost their penises and been reared as female. Despite every social inducement to the opposite, they grow up desiring women as partners, not men.

What?!? Circumcision accidents? There have got to be better ways to try and debunk the social constructionism myth than that one.

His conclusions seem based more on his own shaky opinion than any scientific fact, and he only occasionally cites a handful of studies or researchers. He makes no mention of the existence of bisexuality, intersex or transgender people in his arguments, who could all through a wrench in his neat theory.

(I apologize that this is not directly related to the topics I usually cover here. I just had to write about this.)

True story: I am riding a particular downtown subway home, late on a Thursday evening (around 2:30am), all the way from one far-away borough to my home in another. Due to exhaustion and a long subway ride, I fall asleep. Because the subway is almost empty (there are maybe 5 other passengers in the car), I stretch my legs out across the seats next to me.

About five stops from my destination, I am awoken by a tall male cop telling me that “I can’t do that.” In my sleepy state of confusion, I quickly sit up, not knowing what is going on. The police officer then asks me to stand up and step off the train (this is not my final destination). I say with confusion, “Can’t I just go home? I’m only a few stops away.” He repeats, “Please step off the train.”

As I leave the train car and enter the station, I hear a series of gasps behind me, presumably other passengers who are as astonished as I am. The police officer then proceeds to interrogate me, without really explaining the reason I have been removed from the train. As the doors close and the train moves on, I sigh, knowing that this altercation has just added at least 30 minutes to my already long trip home. But my situation only gets worse, as I sit down on a bench and continue to answer the police officers questions: “Where are you going? Where do you live? Do you have identification?”

He begins to talk over his radio, and I still have no idea what is really going on. Three more uniformed police officers come over, and at this point I am surrounded. Now, let me just clarify that I was neither intoxicated nor doing anything more threatening than sleeping on the subway, apparently taking up too much space. Apparently this was enough to warrant the involvement of FOUR police officers.

The cop proceeded with what turned out to be a background check, to see if I had any warrants for my arrest or outstanding tickets. Since when does sleeping on the subway correlate with criminal behavior? I felt completely belittled and distrusted, being treated as a criminal for doing something that I was not even aware was a violation. I finally ask for clarification about what my crime was, and one of the other three cops standing around me shows me his violation book with a paragraph highlighted about taking up more than one subway seat. Never before had I seen anything of the sort listed.

After what felt like a ridiculously long amount of time (and reassurance that in fact, there were no outstanding warrants for my arrest), the cop gave me what he called a “summons,” which amounted to a $50 ticket or an appearance in court. For taking up more than one seat on a mostly empty train at 3am on a weekday. I asked if there was any type of warning for this, since it was my first offense. The cop gruffly responded, this is the warning, it’s either this or arrest. Apparently my offense was agregious enough to merit handcuffs and a lock up.

An hour later, I finally arrive at my apartment, frazzled and full of questions.

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I went to a reading yesterday at Bluestockings (awesome radical feminist bookstore) by the editor and some of the contributors to this new book called Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Comformity, published by Seal Press.

Not only was there an awesome crowd, but Rocko Bulldagger and Helen Boyd  (author of My Husband Betty) both read from their pieces about passing and gender. What’s very cool about the book is that it tries to talk about passing outside the context of gender as well as within it, including articles about ability, race and immigration status among other things. Oh yeah, and Mattilda Bernstein, the editor of the book, is also a radical rockstar.  (She even has her own blog about the book and tour)

Lynn Paltrow, the Executive Director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women and a pioneer in the reproductive justice field, has a great article in TomPaine today which eloquently clarifies why there needs to be more coalition work between abortion rights activists and birth activists.

Both pro-choice advocates and birthing rights advocates are challenged by decreasing access to services: the former struggles with the fact that 87 percent of all U.S. counties have no abortion providers; the latter struggles against policies at over 300 hospitals around the country that deny women who have previously had c-sections the right to even try delivering vaginally.

And both have been negatively affected by growing claims of “fetal rights.” While these are advanced as part of the campaign to outlaw abortion, they have begun to effect the lives of women who personally identify as “pro-life.” Christian fundamentalists have been told that they must have unnecessary c-sections to protect the rights of the fetus; pregnant women opposed to abortions have been arrested as child abusers in the name of fetal rights for things they did or did not do during pregnancy.

Read the rest of the article here.

It’s a tradition among the midwifery/birth/doula community to share birth stories, usually not long after you have participated in a birth. Everyone has their own process for sharing these stories, and the doula group I used to be a part of would have monthly meetings where doulas were invited to share. This process can be really cathartic for people, allowing them to process the experience and their feelings about it. Moms are also encouraged to share their birth stories with friends, family and their practitioners.

So I hadn’t planned on sharing a birth story just yet, but due to the cosmic nature of the universe and serendipity, I received an email this morning (only one day after starting this blog) from the father from my first ever official birth as a doula. He sent me a picture of their now 2 year old son, and told me they are expecting a sixth. I received this email with mixed feelings, because after a difficult 24 hours of labor, which ended with the midwife bringing in the obstretrical team to deliver the baby using forceps, the midwife disclosed to me that she did not think Barbara wanted to be having the baby. She felt that her mixed feelings about the pregnancy were demonstrated in her failure to progress in the labor, and that many of these feelings stemmed from her relationship with her husband.

So now they are pregnant again? I wish I could know more about how she is feeling about it. I also wish I could post the picture of their son here, because he is adorable (I even have a picture with me and the parents right after the birth) but that would be inappropriate and would be violating their confidentiality.

Read on for more of the birth story.

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I’m re-posting my feministing guest blog here, because it does a good job of explaining why I use the term radical doula, and why NAPW’s recent Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women was so amazing–and fit very well with the essence of what it means to be a radical doula. Thanks to Jessica Valenti for giving me the opportunity to guest blog, and as a result deciding to create my own.

During the pre-conference training organized by Be Present, Inc, I stood up and introduced myself as a radical doula. This was a designation that I came to assume for myself through an understanding that my beliefs (which seemed to me completely logical and altogether natural) placed me apart from a large part of what I have come to call the “birth activist” community (midwives, doulas and advocates who work toward changing the standards of care for birthing women in the US). This conference highlighted many of the ways my politics are a seeming contradiction: I’m a doula and I’m a pro-choice abortion advocate. I’m a doula and I’m a lesbian. I’m a doula and I may never have children. I’m a doula and I’m Latina. I’m doula and I’m not entirely comfortable with the gender/sex binary.

What was so groundbreaking about this conference was that it brought together two of my worlds, the birth activists (midwives, doulas, academics) and the pro-choice activists (policy people, advocates, organizers). I can see now how these two groups, the former of which dedicates its time to supporting women as they bring children into the world, and the latter that fights for women’s rights to not bring children into the world, don’t necessarily go together. The irony is that I never understood the contradictions that exist between them until Lynn Paltrow pointed it out to me—precisely because the two are really good about not mentioning the others issues. The midwifery conferences I have been to in the past never mentioned the issue of abortion—allowing me to erroneously assume that they were all pro-choice just like me. Likewise, the pro-choice conferences rarely mentioned the issues that face birthing women—so focused as they are on the rights of women fighting not to birth. So congratulations NAPW, you succeeded in beginning a dialogue between the two movements (as stilted and precarious as it may have been at times)—even just by creating a space where that dialogue was possible.

What this conference made entirely clear to me is that the activists from these two camps need to be in the same room, if not simply because the people whom we are fighting are one and the same. The people who want to take away women’s rights to abortion, contraception, and comprehensive sex education are the same ones who aren’t afraid to forcibly subject women to c-sections, limit the scope of women’s choices about how they birth or place the rights of an unborn fetus above the rights of a woman.

Check out the original and complete post here.

Hello everyone! After immense amounts of thought and consideration, as well as some peer pressure from awesome fellow feminist bloggers recently (special thanks to Julie and Milbydaniel) I have decided to enter into the feminist blogosphere.

I want to acknowledge the awesome bloggers who have paved the way and really made this medium something that matters politically, socially and intellectually. You all rock, and we amateurs could only hope to live up to the high standards you have set for us. Particular shout out to feministing, who was the first blog I ever read diligently.

So what is this blog going to be about? That presumably will develop as I do, but my initial idea (and dare I say niche) is to focus on the politics of reproductive justice activism from the perspective of a radical doula.

I just threw out a lot of terms that necessitate defining, which I will do here, with the caveat that some of these terms are new and developing, and I welcome the input of others to help broaden and refine their definitions. This blog is meant to be a conversation about what these terms mean, how we can actually live out our politics, and what are the relevant issues at hand.

PS I promise not to overuse the cheesy birth puns