meeting up and women’s bodies

Michelle and I got to meet Erin – founder www.donotbequiet.com, lip contributor and PrettyUgly contributing editor – last night while she is in Canberra for a conference. I had a great time gabbing away with another loud North American (she’s Canadian). She also brought us some of her awesome feminist and lefty buttons, so you should check out her website and order yourself some buttons. (Then come back to the lip website and get yourself some lip buttons!)

I’m reading a book of midwives’ stories right now and finding it to be a bizarrely intense experience. I keep tearing up, either because the birth stories are so tender and beautiful or because annoying doctors keep getting in the way of a nice, natural experience. It’s really made me want to be present at a birth. I don’t want the pregnancy myself, but I’d love to be one of the supports at a good friend’s birthing experience. I’ve mentioned this to a couple people, one male, one female, who said that they thought it’d be disgusting and wouldn’t want to see a birth. Couple this with the oft-repeated statement that women don’t consider themselves feminist because feminists are hairy, and I’ve got to wonder what is up with a society full of women who can’t stand their own, or each others’ bodies – at least not when they are left natural.

What are you seeing when you watch a pregnancy? A vagina, a baby and (probably lots) of blood and goo. The blood and goo, not to mention the vagina, you’ve seen oozing out of your own body. That’s what your body is – that’s what it creates to nourish a baby. Why is it disgusting? I suppose we are very uncomfortable seeing other women’s vaginas ’cause that’s just not something we see very often, but that’s a shame too. Someone else’s isn’t that different to ours.

I just wish as a culture we were more comfortable with the goo, smells, hair, sexual bits and fats of our bodies. They are so inherently part of us.

Rachel