Does the world need another white midwife?

I’m on a path to becoming a midwife, and I have encountered setbacks. The school I was going to attend was closed, so now I’m searching for another way. I’m still determined to do it, but I think I need to reexamine what I want to accomplish in this career. The basic premise, I guess, is that I want to help women. This is twofold: I believe homebirth with a midwife is better for women’s health, and I believe that the rite of passage birth offers is easier to accomplish at home. I believe in the power of women to birth unaided.

I see the role of a midwife in two ways as well; one is to be there in case anything goes wrong medically, and the other is to guard the space of the birthing woman and help guide her to the discovery of her inner power, if she needs it. The typical relationship of a care provider to patient is hierarchical, with power flowing one way. I see a midwife and her client as having a mutually beneficial relationship. The client is hiring the midwife only to do what she herself might be unable to do, like most other professional relationships. A plumber doesn’t have power over you, just because she knows how to fix your pipes and you don’t. And, if you cared to, you could learn to fix pipes and do it yourself.

As your typical white woman feminist, I got pretty excited by the prospect of helping women take back the power from the hospitals and the men in white coats and claim it for their own. I still see midwifery as a feminist pursuit, though all midwives do not act in feminist ways. Therefore I was kind of surprised when I read about how the homebirthing and attachment parenting movements are almost exclusively middle-class and white.

I don’t know why I was so surprised, I mean, DUH. Hadn’t I seen many, many conversations about racism on Motheringdotcommune and seen them disintegrate as hordes of white people completely deny not only their privilege but the existence of racism? Hadn’t I seen how people of color were completely marginalized on that site, and, really, ANY parenting site?

The last straw for me came when I started trying to advocate for natural birth on a general women’s message board. I got frustrated by all the people who denied that homebirth could be safe, or that interventions could be harmful. Then I took a step back and thought: these women are white, middle-class, educated and privileged. If they really want, they can do some fucking reading, do some thinking, and hire a midwife and have a swell birth. They have all the resources at their fingertips. And while I’m worried about white women becoming enlightened and having a fabulous birth experience, black women are dying because insurance coverage and prenatal care are shit in this country. Who should I be worried about? Who should I try to take an interest in, and whose situation deserves more improving?

If I truly believe midwifery care is best for every woman, then it should be available for every woman. Here’s another big “but” though—if I want to make this care more available for disadvantaged women, poor women, women of color, I need to listen and see if this is something they want. At this point, I feel like just another white woman coming in and telling them what to do, what they ought to want. That’s no better than the hospitals doing that. After reading Dark Daughta’s blog, I see that there are black women who want the freedom to birth as they want, and that they do want midwifery assistance. However, figuring out how I can respect that and offer my services is going to be difficult. I am still the oppressor no matter how much work I do. I wouldn’t blame a woman for not wanting a white attendant, if she wants an attendant at all.

At this point in my path, these are the things I see to do. I will become a midwife because I think we need more midwives in the world. I will continue to listen to women of color and see what care they want. For those who want it, I will offer my care. I will try to reach out to and serve as many families of color as I can. When I take apprentices, I will try to choose women of color who want to work in their community. I will share any knowledge I gain freely, and I will attempt to make my services as cheap as possible. I will try to find other midwives of color and work with them. I will challenge the stereotype either that only rich white people homebirth, or that only poor people homebirth.

Should I add another white midwife to the world? I don’t know if I ‘should’, but since I’m going to, I’m going to try to make her the most humble, least oppressive midwife she can be. I’m going to try to do as much good as I can without stepping on people’s toes. And I hope when I do step on their toes, they will call me on it. I’m a work in progress, and I’m listening.

It's not all about me

So, I’ve been told by my partner that if I have a blog, I really should start posting in it. I started out all fired up, but recently I’ve been doing a lot more reading others’ words and thinking than wanting to write. I’m sort of doing my own women’s studies course on my own. I’ve finally started dealing with my privileges (I know, about time!) and that means a lot of shutting up and listening. I’m hoping I’ll be able to make enough progress to be an actual ally and fighter in the battle against oppression. As I am right now, I’m fairly useless.

I’ve had an interesting journey so far in that I’ve naturally become a radical feminist, while still fairly brainwashed into being docile and conforming. Most of my progress, however, has been fairly centered on me—freeing my body and my mind from the patriarchy. I’ve worked through different religions and rejected them. I’ve struggled with (and still do) acceptance of my body and my sexuality. As a woman, I’ve examined the ways women are oppressed, but I’ve done it from the standpoint of a white, middle-class woman. Up until pretty recently, I’ve been dimly aware of my various privileges, but not really done anything about them, just accepted them. A few things have happened in the last year to make me start to open my eyes, and I’m grateful for it. I don’t want to go through life with blinders on. I want to help make the revolution happen, and there is no way white, mainstream feminism is going to accomplish that.

I can credit a lot of things to helping with this eye-opening, but the thing that really pulled it together for me was first, reading Dark Daughta’s blog (www.darkdaughta.blogspot.com), and then reading bell hooks’ “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center.” This book really pulled it together for me and laid it out: if women of color are the class that experiences the most oppression, it is them we must listen to to formulate and direct the movement. While I can relate best to mainstream feminism because it caters to people exactly like me, the movement itself perpetuates the kind of hierarchical, patriarchal thinking that we are trying to eliminate. While claiming to want to free all women, it has not focused on the poor or women of color who are suffering the most under patriarchy. The answer is not inclusion, where the white feminists who hold the power invite women of color to come in and participate in “our” movement. The answer is to move the margin to the center and listen to their theories, not insist that ours are right. It’s the same thing we’ve been asking men to do, to recognize that their privilege blinds them to the problems of the oppressed. True solidarity means acknowledging the right of the oppressed to dictate the movement, not the oppressor.

This means I’m starting to make the shift in how I read, who I listen to, how I react to what I read. I’m trying to change my reading habits, in books and blogs, away from white- and upper-class-centered feminism. I’m reading the words of the angry and asking myself why they hurt me. In order to progress on my journey, I’m going to get mighty uncomfortable, and that’s good. I also think I need to do a lot more processing before I start interacting seriously, because I have a lot to learn. I do hope to grow enough to be useful, and that it will be sooner or later. I’m determined to do it though. I will also give full credit to those whose words have touched me, because I’m thankful for them. For now, let this blog be a partial map of my journey.