I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
Why Do Doctors Hate Women?
photo credit: Wonderlane
OK, so that’s a slight exaggeration, but it sure seems like it some days.
The Unnecesarean shared this sign on Facebook, taken from the Aspen Women’s Center. Why they call it a Women’s Center I’ll never know.
Read that very slowly. They care about women, and so they’re going to strip away anything evidence based that will off you a better/safer birth. You know, because they care. The same way the Tobacco companies cares about smokers.
And then I read this post about choice at my friend Jill’s blog. Specifically women choosing to drive hundreds and thousands of miles just to have a birth that doesn’t involve scalpels.
The more I think about it, the more Orwellian, the more totalitarian, it seems. Women are literally fleeing their hometowns to avoid unnecessary surgery. If this were put in any other context, people would be horrified. But because it’s Cesareans – or perhaps because they’re women – people just assume that the doctors know best, or that the women are being unreasonable. It’s frightening how easy it is for us to brush this under the rug.
What does it say when women have to escape, have to run away in order to do something as normal as give birth? What does it say when women are treated like children, talked down to, insulted, lied to, and handed letters telling them what the god-head doctor will allow or not allow. When all you want to do is give birth and you’re doctor is more concerned with telling you to sit down and shut up, what is that if not hatred?
I don’t know. Maybe some doctors are drawn to the profession for the wrong reasons?
All I know is that Mr.Dork (who’s in pre-med) has seen how docs treated me during pregnancy/birth and seen how that affected me and he knows better. Plus he knows I’ll kill him if he acts like an asshat to his future patients! lol
Seriously though, I don’t know why some doctors are such jerks. You’d think the ones who have wives who have given birth would understand a little better.
Wow I would have been out- I am a strong believer in the Bradley Method- helped me deliver 2 kids drug free
How sad that someone that should be so educated can be so stupid.
Susan Lindgren´s last blog ..Good, Better and Best
Summer Reply:
October 19th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Same for me. I loved my Bradly class and used that method for all three.
Wow! Goddess forbid a woman should want to participate in giving birth! No, no, no. Let’s just lay there while everyone else does all the work. We’re just an object – a means for populating the world. We don’t actually have a right to plan how that whole process will go.
:::shaking head:::
Ok, sarcastic me is done. Now I want to go to the Aspen “Women’s” Center and slap some sense into people’s heads.
Wendy Hawksley´s last blog ..Silence & Brooding
I strongly believe that for every doctor who got into the obstetrical field with the intent of helping women and perfecting the art of gynecology, there are three more who got into it because they are sadists and want to hurt and punish women. It would sound crazy if it weren’t so true! How else do you explain things like this? (Oh, and thanks for the nod!)
Jill´s last blog ..Choice
That sign almost killed me. Seriously, added so much fuel for my birth work. Are you kidding me? They actually have the balls to put that on a sign. Are women still going there?
Banning doulas! Is it a joke? Did someone photoshop that.
Goddess help us all. American women need to wake up more than ever. We are empowered and educated in so many ways and yet we will walk by that sign and open our legs (or have them opened for us) in a facility that openly acknowledges they don’t respect our right for support, education or choice in any form.
Wake up doctors b/c your world is about to change. There is no way my daughters and nieces are dealing with bull crap. No way!
(Thanks for getting me all riled up!)
Summer Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
I wish it were photoshopped, but I’ve read comments from women who live in the area and say it’s true. Isn’t it sad, so few women even research and try to learn about birth. It’s one thing if you educate yourself and choose the heavily medicalized style, but so many just follow along blindly. Trusting the doctors to know and do everything.
Wow! A womens center? I’m so glad to live in a country where Drs. are not invited to the delivery room unless you request one or something goes wrong.
The sign does not exactly say that they care for women. It says that they care for the unborn baby.
All these pro’s and con’s of different deliveries. In three weeks I’m up for my second cesarean, because the nearest place I could go for VBAC is 900 km away. I’m alright with it. It has its advantages as well.
Without Dash´s last blog ..Why do women have sex?
The sign, and the whole modern approach to birthing, are seriously skewed. I am very fortunate that we have a more hands-off approach in Britain, and you can have a home birth on the state health care system. I would have been so much more terrified of birth if I was condemned to the interventionist approach of some doctors.
Cave Mother´s last blog ..A Gift I Want To Give
This bears directly on the mind-body problem. ,
This sign makes me crazy, but at least this practice was honest about how they intend to treat women–as a vessel of the unborn child. I think that’s crass and arrogant–but if a woman then chooses to go to this practice, she’s been forewarned.
As a doula, I have seen plenty of caregivers nod and agree to a woman’s birth plan and then do as they damn well please “for the health of the baby”. Over and over and over again. And I sit there as their doula, knowing they are being led down a path of interventions “for the health of the baby”. I spend the rest of the labor not offering emotional and physical support, but trying to get the parents to ask for information about ALL their options and trying to get ALL the risks and benefits discussed. As a father recently commented: No one is more concerned about the health and safety of the baby than the parents.
For heaven’s sake, don’t you think you’re reading a lot into that sign? Couldn’t it be that the doctors meant what they said – that if an emergency came up, they would do whatever was necessary?
Sure, there are doctors that are control-freaks, but there are also many many caring, cooperative doctors. Sometimes birth plans have to be changed because of complications. Would you really insist on keeping your birth plan even if a trained medical professor was seeing complications that indicated a much riskier birth? I would rather know that a doctor is prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure me and my baby are healthy – and I would choose a doctor whose judgement I trust.
I don’t understand how people can get all worked up by a sign. If they don’t like the policy, can’t they go elsewhere for their care? Unless this is a government-funded clinic, aren’t they legally allowed to make the policies that seem best for them?
angelawd´s last blog ..10 Ways to Fight Poverty in your Hometown
Summer Reply:
October 31st, 2009 at 10:00 am
No, I don’t think so. The sign doesn’t say if an emergency comes up they’ll do whatever, it says that even a normal birth is going to be controlled and any choices you might have are going to be stripped away. It says they are going to ignore evidence based medicine in their efforts to force patients to their whims. It says they don’t really care about the mother involved. This sign didn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s just one example of many of doctors stroking their egos and paychecks. Most doctors are control freaks, the few that aren’t have to bow to the wishes of the control freaks in order to cover their own asses.
Why get worked up over the sign? Because you let one doctor take away your rights and then another will do it, and another, and another. And pretty soon we’re back in the twilight-birth days handing over thousands of dollars to a doctor who decided your birth was an emergency because someone three doors down sneezed. If you let them know you are willing to stand up for yourself, and for the women who have never heard of doulas or Bradley birth and haven’t researched their birth options, and fewer of them will try this bogus garbage.
Jill, I don’t know whether the ratio is 3 to 1, but I had an OB/GYN tell me as much when I asked him (I was 19 at the time) why a man would go into that specialty. His almost exact words were: “Some really love women and want to help them, and some hate women and want to hurt them.” It was chilling to hear at the time, and to remember now. (I think this doc was one of the former, but obviously I wasn’t an OB patient).
Star Reply:
October 31st, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Oops, hit the wrong reply button. This was supposed to be in response to Jill’s comment above.
Star´s last blog ..On Feelings, Choices, and Feminism