Yet Another Example of Male Entitlement Bulldozing Over Women Without A Thought

I don't usually write about articles in the Daily Mail. Frankly, they are so misogynistic, racist, disablist and homophobic normally that it just doesn't seem worth even trying to unpack them. This article, via Leah Hardy, is about a male student midwife complaining about being prohibited from attending a women-only breastfeeding class run by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT). You did just read that right. Chris Butt is pissed off because the NCT put the needs of their paying clients above a male student midwife. Obviously, he has felt the need to go off whinging about this. Rather than drive up the hits the article recieves  and, therefore, their advertising revenue, I have just posted the whole link below. I can not access the original article that Butt wrote for Midwives magazine as it is subscription only.*

So, Chris Butt went whining to the press because the NCT wouldn't let him into a women-only breastfeeding support group. Here's the thing, many women wouldn't care about having a male midwife. Many women wouldn't care about have a man in a breastfeeding support group. But, these women do. They joined a women-only group for a reason. We don't need to interrogate each of them to decide which of them has a Patriarchy-approved reason for choosing a woman-only group. They did. Now, their choices need to be respected. It's not like the NCT banned him from all their groups; just the woman-only one. And, yeah, as a midwife, he will get to see lots of women naked but these specific women don't want him too. So, why should his desire to be in a women-only group trump the desire of these women to access support in a women-only environment? 

Frankly, I can't think of anyone I'd rather not have deliver my baby than a man who doesn't get the need for women-only support groups. By putting his selfish desire above the wishes of a group of women who aren't even his patients, Butt is demonstrating a distinct lack of empathy which I've always thought was necessary in the medical profession. Does Butt not understand that a large percentage of domestic violence starts during pregnancy? That these women-only groups are sometimes the *only* place a woman has to access support without the violent partner being involved? What about women who aren't allowed to be in the presence of men they aren't related to? Shouldn't those women be able to access support too? Or, victims of sexualised violence who feel uncomfortable around men? Thankfully, the NCT said no but we shouldn't even be having these discussions. There is nothing wrong with women-only groups. The fact that some men think there is says more about male privilege than it does about anything else. 

And, doesn't it strike anyone else as just a little bit creepy that this man is demanding the right to access a women-only breastfeeding group, even though, the NCT had offered him an alternative group that men could attend. I mean, why?

* If anyone has a copy I could view, I would be extremely grateful. 

• Chris Butt, 30, has been refused entry to sessions because women are 'sensitive to men being present. 
He is one of only 132 male midwives out of 20,000 in the UK

By MARTYN HALLE
PUBLISHED: 01:51, 7 October 2012 | UPDATED: 14:04, 7 October 2012

A student training to be one of  the country’s few male midwives  has been prevented from attending breastfeeding classes – because he is a man.
Chris Butt, 30, who is in the second year of a three-year training course, tried to attend breastfeeding classes run by the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) near his university. But since last summer he has been rebuffed several times by local branches that have refused to allow him to attend certain sessions after claiming some women are ‘sensitive’ to men being present. 

Mr Butt, who is studying at Bournemouth University, has had the backing of his course tutor and the head of midwifery at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, where he is doing his on-the-job training and has delivered five babies on his own. 

The Department of Health encourages women to breastfeed because  of the health benefits, and midwives play a key role in educating new mothers. Britain has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. Even so, members of the NCT in Southampton objected to Mr Butt’s presence at the women-only class despite the fact he is a health professional – but said they would have no problem with a female midwife. The NCT said he was invited to attend more open classes in which the male partners of new mothers also attend. 

But Mr Butt – one of only 132 male midwives out of 20,000 in the UK – has criticised the situation in an  article for Midwives, the magazine of the Royal College of Midwives. ‘I didn’t believe for one minute that I would be turned away from breastfeeding groups,’ he wrote. ‘Do the facilitators of such clinics think I practise midwifery in some magical way where I don’t see intimate parts of women’s bodies?  Do they think I stand behind a screen as a baby’s head is crowning, shouting out advice on when to breathe?’ 

Mr Butt originally agreed to expand on his comments in Midwives but said he had come ‘under pressure’ not to say anything further. The NCT denied it was against men attending breastfeeding groups. A spokesman said: ‘He wanted to attend a women-only session, where there were no break-out rooms available if the women attending felt uncomfortable with a male presence. ‘We also offered him the opportunity to attend an antenatal breastfeeding workshop.’ One breastfeeding counsellor in Southampton said: ‘Chris has to understand that some women are sensitive to a man’s presence.’

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Dearest Vagina, Once Again I have Failed You.

Dearest Vagina,

Once again I have failed you. I have previous form for neglecting you. I neither shave you nor vajazzle you. I refused to purchase the completely bizarre "smoothethegroove" in order to make you look more fuckable to men who are stupid. Unfortunately, and I think this goes without saying, I will also not be buying the 18 Again cream which is supposed to make you "tighter" and resemble the vagina of a virgin. It doesn't matter if the cream is made of the natural ingredients of "gold dust, aloe vera, almond and pomegranate". You will not experience the pleasure of the cream anywhere near you. 

Weirdly, I like you just the way you are: having birthed two children. I don't want to "feel like a virgin" either. I like being me: a woman whose body has changed and developed through age and experience. I know this means I will continue to fail the Patriarchal Fuckability Test. But, really, when have I actually passed the PFT? And, who really wants to have sex with a man who is only aroused by the anorexic body of an only-just-not-quite-a-teenager? An adult male who dates 18 year olds has some serious psycho-sexual issues they need to deal with. Who really wants to have sex with someone like that? Who wants to be with a man who only wants to marry a virgin?

So, you will remain unshaven and unvajazzled and without your own special wardrobe or creams. You will just have to remain you. After all, isn't that the point of every Disney Princess movie ever? Or, something like that. I'm sure.

SGM

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Turns Out Freeing Your Muff is Actually a Good Thing

I may actually have laid down in shock after reading this article in the Independent suggesting that, contrary to pornographers and other over-entitled male narcissists, pubic hair probably serves a purpose. An actual purpose which isn't just to annoy men who watch way too much porn [which, between, not so good for sexual performance]. Okay, it's only anecdotal evidence by Emily Gibson identified as a family physician and some director of a random student health centre at a large American university, but, still, its a discussion about the harm caused by the pornographication of women's bodies rather than a celebration of vajazzling.

The removal of pubic hair, and the gluing of sparkles, is about forcing women to fail in striving to meet the extremely harsh Patriarchal Fuckability Test. It's just another way to make women feel shite about their bodies [on top of the whole being too fat, too old, and too smart shite]. We need to get over this idea that vaginas and vulvas are intrinsically dirty and need to be shaved and plucked and douched and bleached and cut and glittered to make them worthy of the All Mighty Penis.

Gibson may only be able to prove that pubic hair can decrease abrasion and injury caused by friction as well as protection from bacterial infections and not that pubic hair can decrease the transmissions of STDs but the point is women, in positions of power, are asking these questions and getting major international newspapers to carry the articles. Women are taking back ownership over their vaginas and vulvas; from pornographers, plastic surgeons, and men who aren't very good at oral sex. We need to start normalising and celebrating the differences in women's bodies. Because we do our children immense harm by allowing them to grow up thinking menstrual blood is disgusting and childbirth makes vaginas unfuckable. We need to start recognising that labiaplasty, like female genital mutilation, is a harmful cultural practise as outlined by the UN. We need to start loving our bodies.

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Misogynistic Advertising Walk of Shame: @BittyLabs "Reclaim Your Wife" Awfulness

It's a company that sells baby bottles by telling men that women's breast belong to men. Because, God forbid, a woman use her breasts to feed her child. You know, like every other freaking mammal does. Nope, even in the first few precious months [or years!] women are expected to remain nothing more than fucktoys for their husbands. It's the one time in your life that you should feel proud and beautiful about your body which gestated a child for 40 odd weeks and then birthed that baby. No women should be made to feel worthless for not passing the Patriarchal Fuckability Test but targeting a new mother is just pathetic.

Alright, it was "just" a twitter campaign, but, come on, who actually thinks this shit is appropriate? Who thinks men are this stupid? And, if you do happen to run into a man who thinks this is funny, you probably shouldn't be reproducing with him. Jealous, infantile arsewipes do not make good men. Nor do they make good fathers. I can pretty much guarantee you any man that finds this funny will be out the door within a few years, won't pay any maintenance but will feel the need to ruin your child's life by pissing about with access visits.

These are the actual tweets Bitty Labs sent out:





Just in case you've missed the obvious "women are nothing more than fucktoys" reference in the first tweet, they conveniently sent out a second one to appeal to that subsection of extremely stupid arsewipes. This is such an epic social media failure that I genuinely can't get up the energy to email them to complain. Anyone who can tweet this wouldn't be bright enough to understand my critique of the capitalist-patriarchal anti-woman bullshit they are propogating.

So,they've made a half-hearted attempt at an apology but, let's face it, this is still a piece of misogynistic twaddle:

Ladies, We’re really sorry about the twitter campaign run last week. It was a huge miss understood [sic] and resulted in offensive messages. It was taken down yesterday. The messages had nothing to do with putting a husband needs before the baby’s needs, it was more about having a little extra time for the rest of the family. Obviously the whole campaign was poorly executed. We apologize deeply for this miss understanding and assure you, from now on the campaigns will be closely monitored before they go out. Thank you for a second chance.

Really, if you aren't going to bother apologising properly, there's really no point in bothering. It just makes you look like an even bigger nincompoop.

Oh, and not to put to fine a point on it, but the name Bitty Lab itself is pretty much the definition of misogynistic nastiness.

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