Feminist Rant – What’s Wrong With the Word ‘Vagina’?

My friend, Eloise March, recently sought advertising space for her new novella. Close Call: A Doris and Jemma Vadgeventure is humorous feminist chick lit. On application, the site enquired about the word ‘vadgeventure’.

Close Call features talking genitals in an exploration of how female self-esteem is often linked to male opinion. Doris, you see, is Jemma’s vagina. Therefore, March explained, ‘vadgeventure’ is a made up word representing the adventures of Jemma and her vagina.

We can’t promote a book cover featuring the word ‘vadgeventure’, the site stated. Children use this site, you know.

Excuse me? Excuse me?

How is the fact that children use the site a reason not to feature a book using the word vadgeventure? Half of those children have vaginas.

Which raises a point. Little boys have ‘willies’. But what do little girls have? Setting aside the question of whether we should even make up cute names for children, there remains the fact that a ‘cute little name’ apparently doesn’t exist for women. Are girls not allowed to know the names of their own body parts? Not even euphemisms? What does it say to women that parts of their body throughout childhood should remain nameless?

I’m all for telling girls the proper names. They will ask, believe me, as they go through a stage where they point at everything and ask you what it’s called. And yes, she will eventually ask about her vagina.

But according to this site, children, including girls, aren’t allowed to have any exposure to that word, or any derivatives – even if they find themselves in possession of said organ. 

Ironically, the site defending the purity of childhood does promote and advertise books with covers exhibiting half-naked men and women, most of whom are perpetuating the unattainable physical ideal plaguing the self-esteem of teenage girls – one of the very issues Close Call tries to tackle. 

About Close Call: A Doris and Jemma Vadgeventure:

Twenty-two year-old Jemma can’t seem to get her life in order. Her track record with men stinks, and she constantly worries about getting fat and ending up a spinster at thirty. To top it off, she has to be a bridesmaid at her most-hated cousin’s wedding. She feels like her life is over, until Doris decides to help. Who’s Doris? Doris is Jemma’s vagina and she thinks more of Jemma than her own brain does. Doris is on a mission to save Jemma from herself, but is the task too much for one vagina to handle?

If you're interested to know more about Close Call, it's available from:

Amazon - http://goo.gl/7XtR2K

Smashwords - http://goo.gl/3jeQZY

For more about Eloise March, check out her website.

The Miranda Kerr Controversy – Drug Free Births

So this is my rant of the week. Apparently Miranda Kerr stated she was proud to have had a drug-free birth to give her baby the best possible start in life.

How. Dare. She. Can you believe her audacity?

Or at least, some mothers seem to think it’s totally outrageous and unbelievable for her to make such a statement about her labour. Some mothers think she is criticising mothers who didn’t have drug free births. Some mothers apparently think it’s OK to choose drugs, but not to not choose drugs. 

The most appalling comment I saw was from an Australian mother on an online forum, who stated ‘Perhaps Miranda Kerr should stick to what she knows, and limit her opinions to modelling’. 

Uh... excuse me?

So, being a model qualifies her to have an opinion on modelling... but being a mother doesn’t qualify her to have an opinion on mothering?

I don’t know if this was the result of ‘tall-poppy syndrome’, stupidity (OK, my favourite explanation for just about anything), or just insecurity. 

I support a mother’s right to choose her birth, and all too often in Western countries in particular, mothers are not sufficiently informed or involved in their own labour to exercise real choice. Often what is needed most is empowerment, and this kind of reaction from women is undermining our own efforts to empower our births. 

I wanted a drug-free birth. I didn’t get it, due to factors outside my control. I was induced (also not my choice) and my labour assessed as three times worse than the usual labour. I had overlapping contractions – that means no break between contractions, and I wasn’t even in what the medical profession considers ‘established labour’.  9 hours of incredible effort and unrelenting pain achieved pretty much nothing. 

I asked for pethidine (a mistake on my part, but by that point I wasn’t thinking clearly), fell asleep, and while I was asleep, they cranked the drip inducing my labour, which meant I pretty much woke screaming. I then asked for an epidural – which I didn’t get, because no anaesthetist was available. In the end, I had an emergency c-section with spinal block. I was so exhausted and drugged up when my baby was born I barely even noticed when my husband left to have her weighed. 

Is that the birthing experience I wanted? No. Was it the start in life I wanted for my baby? No. Is there any shame for me in it? No – because I knew what I wanted, what was best for all involved, and I tried. The things that happened were simply the natural result of the way my labour progressed. 

Miranda Kerr chose a drug-free birth for the same reasons I wanted one – she was just lucky enough to get it. I don’t think there is any criticism of women who don’t have drug-free births in stating the reasons you chose to have a drug-free birth. The point is choice. Women need to be empowered to make informed choices, as far as their labour permits (emergencies, of course, deprive us all of choices). 

And to make a choice, one needs to be informed. 

So to all the women vigorously defending their right to have births with drugs – yes, you have that right, but there is some information you should know when you make that choice. This is not to say drugs may not be an appropriate choice for you (as they unfortunately ended up being for me) but the choice needs to be made in the context of all the relevant information. 

So here are the valid reasons Miranda Kerr chose to have a drug-free birth:

• Breast-feeding may be affected by the use of drugs during labour – here is an article that talks about the limited studies available in this area, and the difficulties in interpreting data. More research is needed.
• The use of drugs during labour can prolong the labour and have other adverse effects on the mother – this article lists them, and it’s a significantly long list 
• There are no long-term studies into the effects of drugs on babies, but animal studies don’t show promising results. I always find it astounding that we use drugs when we don’t know what they do to us or our children! Even recent studies on the effects of newborns are unreliable because they compare epidural babies with opiate babies. Uh, hello, shouldn’t we be comparing babies from drug labours with babies from non-drug labours, not two different kinds of drugs? You can read more here 
• The fact is there is no maternally administered drug that has been proven safe for the foetus. WTH?? Read more here. 
• The cascade of intervention – the more interventions you have, the more likely you are to need more. So having an epidural increase the risk of a forceps or vacuum delivery (greater risk for the baby), episiotomy (long-term bladder control problems for mother) and c-section (greater risk for mother and baby). More information here.

I had ALL seven of the outcomes listed on the first three levels as resulting from induction.

So, I’ve used drugs. I didn’t want to, but it was just the way my labour went, and I used them knowing the above because I felt I had little other choice. An induction is, itself, an intervention which starts the cascade of intervention, and mine cascaded badly. I knew that, but I didn’t choose the induction. It was the reason I didn’t want an induction. But that choice was taken from me. 

But I support women who want drug-free births, because they have good reason to want them. And to women who want to shout them down, belittle them, and grind them under the heel of their collective boot – I say, do your research. Find out why they want drug-free births. Then think about if maybe you do, too.

This World Will Not Change Me

So it’s past overdue for me to write another blog post and I just couldn’t find the inspiration. Or maybe the energy. I’m anal enough to write potential topics down when they come to my attention, so I have plenty of things to rant about. But I just don’t want to.

I can see the shocked looks of the people who know me. It’s rare that I get off my soap box. It could be new love… but it’s not. I’m still happily married to the man I fell in love with five years ago. 

I think I’m just tired. But of what?

Of the debate about whether self-publishing is better than traditional publishing. You know what? It really doesn’t matter. We can talk about the percentages until the cows come home. We can talk absolute dollars until the cows come home. Everyone can choose the model they prefer. And if you don’t want to traditionally publish, that’s great! I won’t have to vie with you for some publisher’s attention. You are, in effect, improving my odds. Thanks. 

What I do care about is quality. Get it right. But I’ve ranted about that before and if you missed it you can get it here. 

I’m tired of bad drivers. I regularly drive up and down Heathcote Rd in Sydney between my parents’ house and my house. It has a 100kmh zone that someone invariably drives 70kmh in and it is single lane most of the way. It’s an hour drive between my house and my parents’, with a baby in the backseat, and of course an hour back, so my time is precious. Shit or get off the pot. 

Unfortunately an all too common sight on Heathcote Rd due to drivers who drive either too fast or too slow

I’m a little bit tired of social media. Not Twitter so much, I have a mad Twitter addiction. Facebook, yes. I’ve never liked Facebook. Its lingo of ‘being friends’ is corrupting the meaning of the word. Just because someone is in your Friends List does not make them your friend. When you read Friend on Facebook, you should mentally translate this to ‘Contacts’. They might be your friend, but some of them will be acquaintances or just contacts.

Facebook is really a tool for reconnecting with and keeping contact with people you lost contact with. These people are not your friends. If they were, you wouldn’t have lost contact with them, would you? And you don’t need Facebook to keep in contact with your friends (except maybe the friends you've made online). You have their phone numbers, remember? It’s mostly only useful for keeping your friends in the loop for things you might otherwise wait months to tell them. And don’t get me started on how Facebook has influenced the trend for people to ask ‘Can I be your friend?’ What are you, five??

I’m very tired and depressed about how much writers get paid. Not because I was hoping to get rich and famous, you understand? I’m a lawyer by day and I get by all right. Of course it would be nice to get paid lots to daydream, but it’s not necessary. It’s just sad that we pour so much of our time and energy into something that is both an art form and a contribution to culture, for little monetary reward. Is literature so poorly regarded? 

Don’t even think about what a writer earns from the sale of one book for months or even years of effort as compared to what a rap artist makes off one song that took maybe twenty minutes to write. You’ll just depress yourself even further. Is rap music even art? Culture, maybe. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say art. Artists of visual arts might even feel the same. Often art doesn’t gain real value until the artist is dead. That must suck something shocking. 

Starry Nights by Vincent van Gogh. He was virtually unknown during his lifetime, but a van Gogh sold in 1990 for $82.5 million ($144 million in today's dollars). He appears 5 times in the list of 17 most expensive paintings ever sold. 

I’m tired of the endless unethical (and often ineffective) marketing practices I come across. I’ve ranted about this before, but I’ve come across a few new ones, including people taking money to write false reviews and people who constantly pester you to read their blogs, leave comments, like their books etc. but who never take the time to read your blog, comment, or like your book. For that matter I object to ‘liking’ each other’s books, pages etc. without having read the book or having any clue as to the quality of the product you are promoting. More on that in my next post…

Which leads me into bad reviews and Amazon. I’m still tired of that too, though I’ve come across a few new suggestions to solve the problem, including weighting readers reviews to make them more meaningful and giving authors some kind of ‘higher rating’ if they have professional editors work on their book. I’ve also heard Amazon is taking steps to improve their systems. I look forward to it. But it’s not today, and today I’m tired. 

I’m tired of clients who call me at the office and want to know stupid things like why they can’t get copies of their original documents certified as true and correct copies, only to be told they didn’t take the original with them. Well, how do you expect someone to certify it’s a true copy of the original if you don’t show them the original? I've suggested that we implement a stupidity surcharge...

I’m tired of the kind of stupidity that has people calling maintenance about a lack of hot water only to discover they turned off the pilot light for their own hot water system. I am definitely tired of the kind of stupidity that has people entering asbestos-filled houses after being locked out by the landlord for their own safety. Natural selection, perhaps? There is a reasonable chance this person will kill themselves out of their own stupidity but probably not fast enough to have any evolutionary benefit for the population. It’s always possible with that kind of stupidity they’ll do something else to speed the process along a little faster…

I am also tired of news stories about a parent who has a reversed over their own toddler in their own front yard, severely injuring them or killing them. It seems like lately there has been one of these every week. Before you drive your car anywhere, make sure you know where your own child is!Worse are the stories about child abuse, children beaten, killed, starved and tortured. There is something wrong with people who perpetrate these horrible crimes. It's not like there is a grey area here, people! It's just plain wrong. These stories make me want to cry. 

I’m tired of contradictory policies like these. In Australia, real estate agents rank single mothers the worst tenants, and therefore at the bottom of the list for rental properties. Because, what, single mothers are automatically bad people? My friend is a qualified accountant with two children going through an unfortunate divorce due to no fault of her own, and because of that she can’t find somewhere to live? Single dads are great, though. They rank ahead of single mothers. He must be a star!

On the other hand, I am told by my cousin (who has a son out of wedlock with a woman he no longer has a relationship with) that recent legislation means he can’t have his son overnight until he is three, because of fear of abuse by the other parent. So single dads are stars if they have custody of the kids, and single mums are not, but those single mums are better people than the single dads who don’t have custody of their children, because these poor guys are star candidates to abuse their kids…. Yeah, like all that makes sense somewhere? 

I guess what I’m really saying is I’m tired of all the stupidity, ignorance, immorality and depravity (or, in some cases, all of the above) in the world. Not everyone is like this, but it seems I’ve been over-exposed to it this week. Or maybe it’s the last month. No matter what I do, it seems to be a drop in the ocean and nothing ever changes. 

Garth Brooks

On days like this I try to remind myself of ‘The Change’ by Garth Brooks. 

‘And I hear them saying, you'll never change things, and no matter what you do it's still the same thing, but it’s not the world that I am changing, I do this so, this world will know, that it will not change me.’

It would be nice to change things. It would be nice to make a difference. But if nothing I do does make a difference, then I can at least be true to myself and not allow the world to change me.

Well, world, you won’t change me. Consider yourself on notice. 

No matter how tired I get, I'll never be that tired.