Another Crime against Humanity by Men?

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I think animals do show signs of pain while giving birth, from what I've seen. I think what happened during the middle ages to women healers (witches) was traumatic and influenced western european culture as far as we lost a great deal of useful information on birth control, abortion, childbirth etc because so many mid-wife/doula/healers or whatever were inquistioned. I always keep my ears pricked for folk knowledge from other cultures, especially 'primitive' ones because one thing I am certain of is abortion/birth control/ etc has always been with us from the beginning of evolution and will be with us til there are no more females left... and also with that is plenty of knowledge on childbirth from the people who passed down the knowledge on abortifacient herbs, etc. Anatomically I don't think it's possible to give birth without some degree of pain but I do think that the take-over of medicine by male doctors from mid-wives (which is what the inquistion accomplished, among other things) really screwed up alot of things. I also think it's important to underscore that the demonization of sex and pleasure wasn't on the level/across the board, so to speak, it was done to restrict access to sexual expression to only certain groups and to control the sexual behavior of people who were not in those groups. The sex industry in constricted cultures has always been about allowing the over-class access to the sexual behaviors they need/want while forbidding access by legal sanctions to those people who did not have an 'innate' right to sexual expression like women and gays. It split womankind right down the middle into the madonna/whore paradox...I hope for the day when history classes will teach about what happened in realistic terms.

Unless there's a chance that problems like breeching might happen, if you'd rather squat, etc, it's usually okay. Many women are choosing to stay out of the hospital for the birthing, be it at home, at a midwive's home, underwater too.

miszt wrote:



Natural childbirth is not painfree, I had an extremely easy birth with my son and it still hurt like hell, and yes, animals do also feel pain during labor, I used to work for a vet and was there for quite a few litters being born, sometimes we had to help if any were breeched. Those dogs and cats were hurting!

Yes, we women were suppressed way back when, but we're not now. We make the choices for how we want to give birth. I'm not even going to get into the whole sex issue, I'd be here for a week typing.

Back to birth being pain free. Sure, I could've asked for a variety of drugs for the pain, not that they block it 100%, you'd have to be knocked out for that. Most women would rather be aware of everything and guess what? We don't mind the pain, it's worth it!

So while I apreciate your young male "opinion" about us poor women folk, keep in mind that we are quite aware of where we stand in society and in the matters of womanhood and motherhood.

Medieval and Renaissance Europe were Monotheistic, and they had midwives and squatting.



Animals squat too, and they don't need druids or pagans to tell them.



I'm no fan of religion or sexism, but Men during the Puritan period not being anywhere near childbirth gives them a strong alibi, regardless of what you may think of how they treated Women the rest of the time. In fact, even in those Puritan times Women gave birth squatting, sitting or lying down, and Monotheism didn't even do so much as recommend one position over another.



The evidence suggests that the practice of painful childbirth only came along when religion /declined/ in favor of science, midwives were shut out in favor of doctors, and knowledge was lost in the process.



Do you know what they called male witches? Witches. The inquisition was persecution on the basis of religion not gender.

Some other kinds of information was lost, but midwives continued into the 18th century, and their knowledge continued with them.



The inquisition did not accomplish that take-over, and had nothing to do with it. The medical industry did that all by itself.



I saw some info on medieval and renaissance sexuality. Something about a noble's wife screwing every "valorous" knight that came by. Valorous meaning tall, blue eyed and handsome. Some kings spending more time indoors with a favorite young male "hunting partner" than with the queen... and so on. Women wearing skirts as thick as a belt, men sometimes wearing no pants at all even in the royal court. What clothes they did wear, were used more to enhance their sexuality than hide it. Some priests had hundreds of children by different women.

Religion reacted to the flamboyant excesses of sexuality by attempting to dampen it, because it was interfering with getting actual work done, but it had about as much effect as teaching abstinence-only to lower the birth rate. Which is to say not much.



I'm not even sure what you're saying here, and I don't see how it's relevant to the topic, but I'll indulge anyway because I find it interesting. There's plenty of other jobs which are available for straight white males and just as stressful and degrading, but don't pay $300/hr. The sex industry is a service industry, trading time for money. Now that there are more busy women professionals looking for intimacy without hassle, the w4m escort industry is growing.



Male? Wow, I hadn't noticed that. Nice catch.

Ghostpawn, forget about Renasiance/Medievl periods, they are irrelevant as the damage had already be done and the tradition set, Renassiance occoured some 8000years+ after Monotheism took hold and Women became legal Property of Men.

Spooky, read the artical

As for my 'opinions of you poor women folk'...for goodness sakes! What I am interested in is how Society has developed, and why it has developed the way it has, what where the causes and effects, Men and Women are actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, I can assure you I have no interest in 'setting women free', simply in know the truth, rather than just accepting 'societys traditions' as truth, esp as they are based in a system of lies that spans millenia. i find your reaction slightly odd, please read the artical, I think you will be intrigued

I have always read that the reason humans suffer more than animals when giving birth is that our brains are larger, so the head hurts more coming out.

I think this is correct, but I also think that it's not the end of the story. Social and political factors have probably made it worse over the years.

I think that perhaps you are very much mistaken in this monumental shift.

You do realize that when (and while) Rome rose to be a great power it was not monotheistic and its "free women" were not free but in fact subject to the rule of a pater familias (who had even the right to arbitrarily kill them) from birth to death?

Women were not equals of men in ancient Greece which also had a pantheon of deities. In fact I think if you actually gather all the facts together, you will find that cultures characterized by a pantheon of deities are about as likely to be oppressive to the rights of women, and to privelege males above them, as are monotheistic cultures.

Papa New Guinnea "Long house" cultures are in many instances more than merely oppressive of women (some practice ritualistic gang rape as part of ordinary marriage ceremonies for instance). They are not however monotheistic, nor (given their isolation) could they have been influenced by monotheistic religions or cultures.

I'm sorry, but this is a load of nonsense. Childbirth is excrutiatingly painful for humans, because our babies brains are so big compared with other species.

Men did not create the agony of childbirth, every single culture through history has left plenty of evidence that childbirth is painful.

And as has been pointed out on this thread, men have a great alibi. Through most of history they've not been allowed anywhere near the birthing area.

It is impossible to push something the size of a human baby out of your vagina without it hurting. I was well prepared for it, and I still needed stitches in my clitoris afterwards. Don't let anyone come out with pseudo scientific sexist anti men crap and tell you that childbirth doesn't have to hurt. Anyone who thinks that obviously can't remember the experience very clearly (a frequent coping mechanism when you've been through agony) or they've never given birth.

Ouch!

Clearly mother nature's a b***h to women...

Pandd, I would agree with everything you said, there was no distinct change, thats not what I am talking about, Monotheism was a tool which gave men allot of power and was abused, as where many other things before and after that

Mgran, read the artical, if you want to call those women liars, then of course that is your right

I read the article. I've also given birth, and assisted at the delivery of various family members. Giving birth was indeed one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me, one of the most profoundly beautiful of my life. It was also the most exquisitely painful thing I've ever had happen to me, and I've had teeth removed without anaesthetic.

just going to dash out a quick response to this because I have to go work, I can't even remember who I'm rebutting...their posts are bolded and mine are quoted, I'm too impatient to figure out the right way to do it.

Do you know what they called male witches? Witches. The inquisition was persecution on the basis of religion not gender.

the point was women healers were more likely to have knowledge on the fields that concern the female anatomy, those being pregnancy, birth control, abortion...forgive me for assuming that to be obvious




The inquisition did not accomplish that take-over, and had nothing to do with it. The medical industry did that all by itself.

yes it did. it laid the groundwork for the medical industry to take over by scaring the bejesus out of women and enforcing silence about knowledge that had been handed down for generations. It was gender terrorism as concerned women accused of witchcraft and it had far reaching implications.



I saw some info on medieval and renaissance sexuality. Something about a noble's wife screwing every "valorous" knight that came by.

you are drawing conclusions about entire period sexuality based on reading about one person's conduct? and that of a noble, which is the top few percentiles of the population?



I'm not even sure what you're saying here, and I don't see how it's relevant to the topic, but I'll indulge anyway because I find it interesting. There's plenty of other jobs which are available for straight white males and just as stressful and degrading, but don't pay $300/hr. The sex industry is a service industry, trading time for money. Now that there are more busy women professionals looking for intimacy without hassle, the w4m escort industry is growing.



it was relevant to the post I was replying to which was talking about religion demonizing sexuality...if you are unclear why that is relevant it's probably because you don't understand it's impact on the culture you are living in because you are surrounded by and and see it as normal. There is a reason that prostitution is called the world's oldest profession, religion has never restricted sexual access across the board, it has always underwritten sexual oppression of disenfranchised groups like women and gays, which was my point, and allowed extracurricular sexual expression for the overclass, whether it be gender, religious or economically based...*that is why the sex industry operates underground*...so that over-culture can have the luxury of pretending to adhere to standards they are setting to keep others in control or oppressed, while getting their kicks on the side...the problem is that as a criminal endeavor it forces the most desperate people to take it up, and then they get prosecuted. In essence, when you have an over-culture of fake piety you have to have a black market for sexual expression, and that is BS, because those people that support themselves by those means are automaticaly stigmatized, unless they lead lives of secrecy/ Read about religious polygamists (it's only the husband who gets extra partners), for example. I strongly feel prostitution should be decriminalized but to say it is trading 'time' for money is utter hooey, it's trading the use of someone's body for money. My argument vs decriminalization being that a culture which has legal abortion is hypocritical to defend that practice based on privacy issues while having the sex industry oppressed. There is plenty of 'hassle' that goes along with the sex industry, it's the amount of money in proportion to the acts performed that makes it a desirable endeavor.

Mostly me, and I think we agree for the most part and we're just quibbling over a few details.




I agree totally. Given the flavor of the thread I just wanted to point out that it wasn't a crusade against women, but rather against any opposition to the authority of the church. The resulting effect on women's health is the same regardless of how many men also died.




Do some research. Midwives were strong, respectable women who earned a good living and were neither scared nor silent. It took a whole century for doctors to take over childbirth, because the midwives fought hard.

Witchhunts as gender terrorism? Maybe in the English world, but not everywhere else. Here, it's faster to just quote this:





I gave more than one example, and there were many more where I saw those. Do you think peasants could keep their women in check any more than nobles could? I don't. I'm not saying that they were all perverts, just that they had their fair share despite what the church or anyone else was saying.



I wasn't sure at the time exactly what you meant by "constricted cultures", but I think I figured it out. As for the culture I'm living in, just because something is "normal" doesn't mean it's rational or that I agree with it. A lot of the time, people do things that used to make sense within a narrow context without re-evaluating whether it still makes sense.



Agree on the effects, not the intent. I'm guessing that Monotheism was in a population war with the other Monotheism, and thus sought to encourage reproduction and discourage anything distracting from it. Especially after the Black Death killed 30-60% of Europe's population, which even with extreme measures took about 150 years to recover. Then they forgot to undo the extreme measures or why they implemented them in the first place, which is typical of humans throughout history, resulting in the effects you listed above.



Sorry for any misunderstanding concerning "time for money". I meant convenience and availability, not "social time" as some providers call it, as being what customers pay for relative to other options such as casual sex. Obviously the provider's body is important to the transaction, and decrepit homeless drug addicts aren't as desirable as healthy athletic individuals who take good care of themselves. The market forces involved also seem to suggest that most customers want a "girl friend experience" rather than rent-a-corpse, and are willing much more per encounter for the difference this makes to them. Independent escorts (a large part of the industry) can and do choose their customers, and set limits on what they will and won't do.

Some recent studies that include middle and high class escorts in addition to street hookers found that most of the problems (including drugs and violence) are at the low end and have more to do with socio-economic class rather than the sex industry itself. Other "street people" get similar addiction and mental health problems and are victimized at similar rates regardless of whether they beg, steal, sell drugs or pick up recyclables. Only 2% of customers are ever violent towards sex workers.

Major hassles that can't be resolved by good business practices include social stigma, relationship issues (hard to keep a bf/gf while screwing for a living - most providers are single for this reason), second career when looks start to fade, on top of the usual issues with running a business such as marketing, dissatisfied customers, getting paid, balancing work with family or studies or a day job, etc. Like any industry, it's not for everyone.