Message in the Bottle:
- thoughts on #decolonizing & #depatriachalizing women's health care.
#Birthrape violence against women by medical authorities during childbirth is a global phenomenon, and something that effects all of us, either directly or indirectly.
The patriarchy creates the first wound in the mother-child relationship through the violent birth and the lonely lying-in period afterwards. The woman is discouraged, oppressed, emotionally blackmailed and physically abused. Because of this patriarchal approach in modern medicine, emotional, physical and spiritual wounds are created between the mother and the newborn child.
With colonialism this patriarchal approach on medicine and birth was forced on cultures across the world and till today, white supremacy in medical science dominates globally.
In rural regions of India there are still midwives who accompany pregnant women during and after childbirth according to traditional Ayurvedic concepts. It was like that before, only with #colonialism birth came into the hospitals. Indigenous midwives across the world have so much knowledge, practical expertise and wisdom - but the state does not support them and pregnant women are pressured to give birth in "safe" patriarchal hospitals.
All hospitals operate within a patriarchal hierarchy. And at the very bottom of this hierarchy lies the birthing woman, forced to stay on her back, so the doctor has better access over her.
No matter how much white supremacy and patriarchy tries to domesticate nature and women, no matter how much they try to medicinalize and rationalize birth and death, birth and death remain spiritual experiences in a human's life.
These days, so many pregnant women are being denied to bring their beloved ones inside the delivery room and families being denied to visit their dying elderly, because of the virus. Is this really how we want to welcome our babies, our new generation into this world? In a sterile, hierarchical, patriarchal and fearful environment, where everyone and everything is wrapped inside plastic?
~ The power has been taken away from us, we are here to take back our birth right
- thoughts on #decolonizing & #depatriachalizing women's health care.
#Birthrape violence against women by medical authorities during childbirth is a global phenomenon, and something that effects all of us, either directly or indirectly.
The patriarchy creates the first wound in the mother-child relationship through the violent birth and the lonely lying-in period afterwards. The woman is discouraged, oppressed, emotionally blackmailed and physically abused. Because of this patriarchal approach in modern medicine, emotional, physical and spiritual wounds are created between the mother and the newborn child.
With colonialism this patriarchal approach on medicine and birth was forced on cultures across the world and till today, white supremacy in medical science dominates globally.
In rural regions of India there are still midwives who accompany pregnant women during and after childbirth according to traditional Ayurvedic concepts. It was like that before, only with #colonialism birth came into the hospitals. Indigenous midwives across the world have so much knowledge, practical expertise and wisdom - but the state does not support them and pregnant women are pressured to give birth in "safe" patriarchal hospitals.
All hospitals operate within a patriarchal hierarchy. And at the very bottom of this hierarchy lies the birthing woman, forced to stay on her back, so the doctor has better access over her.
No matter how much white supremacy and patriarchy tries to domesticate nature and women, no matter how much they try to medicinalize and rationalize birth and death, birth and death remain spiritual experiences in a human's life.
These days, so many pregnant women are being denied to bring their beloved ones inside the delivery room and families being denied to visit their dying elderly, because of the virus. Is this really how we want to welcome our babies, our new generation into this world? In a sterile, hierarchical, patriarchal and fearful environment, where everyone and everything is wrapped inside plastic?
~ The power has been taken away from us, we are here to take back our birth right