Posts by Danielle
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And I've always thought 'blue monday' was highly overrated.
This shall not stand!
(Oh, Simon already said it. Carry on, then.)
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Tell me why it means so much.
Jackie, I find it weird too. It's a bit like a wedding day, isn't it? Some people approach it as though if you do that one day the slightest bit 'wrong', you've buggered up some intangible karmic wotsit and have to spend the rest of your life freaking out over it. When it's actually the relationship between partners which matters, not the wedding day; and it's the ongoing parent/child relationship which matters, not really the birth.
(I am the only pregnant person in the world with no 'birth plan', incidentally. I'm not quite at 'don't give a shit' level, but the extent of my planned instructions are something like 'give me the good drugs; try to avoid something terrible happening; my husband is in charge of the iPod'. And I'm certainly not trying to place any 'it's a miracle and I am overwhelmed with love!' expectations on myself, either. I think I might be having an adverse reaction to The Baby-Related Internet, which is The Land of Proscriptive Judgeypants.)
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Pasteurisation doesn't entirely rule out listeria, I understand, which can grow in fridges.
I would like to point out - with some resentment, as cold smoked seafood and deli meats are some of my favourite things, particularly in summer - that listeria infection rates in NZ average at about 25 per year, and only 5 of those infections are related to pregnancy or newborns. There are over 60,000 births in New Zealand per year. Which means that your chances of contracting listeria are... well, I failed maths in sixth form, but they are *infinitesimal*. I cannot work out why I have received something like *five* brochures on this issue, unless they just want to make every pregnant person as paranoid as possible.
(In keeping with this illogical paranoia, I've given up practically everything I love to eat anyway, and spend most of my down time panicking about whether or not I washed a lettuce leaf enough. Sigh.)
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I'm pretty sure twilight sleep was out of fashion by the 60s.
My mother had it! In 1974. But she was in Venezuela, so I don't know if that counts.
ETA: Huh. This article says that it was beginning to be questioned by the 1950s but the practice continued until the early 1970s. So Betty's experience was reasonably normal and my mother was a bit of an outlier.
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When Joan smashed that vase over her husband's head
That was a surprise and a half, wasn't it? We had to pause and rewind that one. Craig, I don't blame Betty for being unsure of leaving. Really, what are her options?
"Too posh to push"... finally has some data behind it
So it's probably a massive media exaggeration. Oh, what's this? Yeah, it's my surprised face.
B, if childbirth is like long-haul air travel, I suppose that solves the 'to drug or not to drug' question. I can't even get on an hour-long flight to Wellington without serious prescription tranquillisers and a gin and tonic.
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immensely powerful experiences
OK, I am probably extra sensitive to this right now, but can a sister just get this baby safely out of her without having to live up to some nebulous ideal of How The Ladies Will All Feel while doing so? It's a bit... woo. :)
I'm pretty sure I was a woman before I had my baby.
Word up.
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the unique and beautiful relationship between mother and child
Russell, you might as well come out of the closet: you're actually a hippy, aren't you?
ETA:
Time and caring are more important than the delivery mechanism.
I'm not sure of the statistics, but many mid-twentieth-century babies were exclusively formula-fed (because of SCIENCE! and PROGRESS!). I haven't felt particularly deprived of my mother's love for not being breast-fed.
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My husband, who has been on a letter-writing blitz, received an email telling him to 'watch this space' from Comedy Central, with a smiley. They said they had something 'exciting' to fill Colbert's slot. I'm assuming Colbert is dropped altogether and the Daily Show will take its place.
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It might be interesting to analyse why you seem to think you are privileged to decide what the discussion should be.
It's pretty obvious from my posts that I haven't decided anything about how the discussion 'should' go, Paul. I'm just noting a pattern to these types of discussions (at least, the ones I've experienced), and that it might be interesting/significant.
This matter does not need any more pseudo-academic tosh
Dammit, I'm not allowed to do that now? My whole world is crumbling!
Yes, it was deliberately limited to the mere millions of people like me. Other people can and are doing the theory.
But... Ben, I am honestly not trying to be antagonistic, but you said you didn't believe in 'people like you' taking any notice of the theory. I suppose I'm confused: what do you think the theory is 'for', then? Is it just to 'indoctrinate' people (apart from John Stuart Mill)?
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Did Danielle say that rape was exclusively a feminist issue? No, she did not.
No, just to reiterate: I certainly bloody did not. I also think Emma's stories about the negation of sexual assault on males and the prejudice against her brothers are very sad and wrong, and I hope those assumptions are changing.
(I would like to note, however, that discussions about this on the interwebs almost invariably will start with rape ---> women/feminism and almost immediately divert themselves to "but prison rape!" ---> men. This thread was like a textbook case. It might be interesting to analyse why that is - why there has to be an immediate 'but also men!' before the discussion even gets going. Because I'm sure we all agree that statistically, rape and sexual assault are gender-imbalanced.)
Yeah, the feminist movement is not immune to various kinds of erasure, including failing to acknowledge the varying concerns of non-whites, different classes, and as mentioned above, the fact that rape is not solely a women's issue. I do believe that feminism helped bring it to the fore as something that should be addressed on a systematic basis, not just blaming it on individual fucked-up behaviour.
Yes, this. Why can't I just write this? Or what B Jones writes. Or something. :)
I guess that leaves me with hegemonic discourse so I can serve as a whipping boy, or silence.
Gah. Ben, your *feelings* on this aren't meaningless, and I've enjoyed reading them. My point is more that I think your 'non-theoretical' theory about 'this is how you do feminism when it comes to work and parenting' for people in our relative positions (I'm including myself as privileged here, since I could conceivably give up work) is really limited. It doesn't address underlying social structures at all. My main issue with your point is that this shit, like, *really needs theory*. No matter how uncomfortable that might make some people.