#mary lou singleton

[thearbourist]

The DWR Feminist Quote of the Day - Mary Lou Singleton - Sex is Biological Reality.

The DWR Feminist Quote of the Day – Mary Lou Singleton – Sex is Biological Reality.

https://thewitchofwentworth.tumblr.com/post/129713198478/leading-midwifes-deleted-comment-displays-trans

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[chiripepe]

On Contact: Female Erasure with Maya Dillard Smith and Mary Lou Singleton

Published on Jun 25, 2017

The debate over gender identity pits the trans narrative against radical feminists who insist that those born female require unique forms of legal protection and physical spaces where they can build consciousness, battle oppression and achieve equality. On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges delves into this debate with: -Mary Lou Singleton, a midwife, nurse practitioner and lifelong women’s liberation activist -Maya Dillard Smith, a legal scholar who left her position as head of ACLU of Georgia over President Obama’s directive for public schools to let transgender students use the bathroom of their choice   RT Corespondent Anya Parampil looks at the economic realities and violence that plague women and girls.

Chris Hedges is working at RT now? This is the only radical feminist perspective on this issue I’ve seen on a news show.

[womensliberationradionews-blog]

WLRN's Motherhood Edition is out! Hear compelling analysis of radical feminist family health issues, birthing and motherhood from Marylou Singleton who is a midwife, herbalist & member of WoLF, the Women's Liberation Front. In addition, hear Jai Kalidasi talk about her experience as a radical feminist mother of 6 children and more in this hour-long program!

We rely on your comments, likes and sharing to get the under-represented voices of women into the femisphere. Please follow us on soundcloud and like, share and comment widely!

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[female-realities-blog]

And women’s labour is made invisible all over the world. I mean, the world runs on the uncompensated labour of women. And that’s part of sex-based oppression. We have to be able to discuss that. In midwifery this is so important because midwifery is a place where women have authentic power. This is a woman’s tradition. It’s women’s work to give birth. You can’t think of a more woman-centered profession and reality than the place where we focus on gestation, birth, and early mothering. That’s all about women. And to come in and steal that power and say, “That doesn’t belong to women, that belongs to individuals. This is an individual thing. There’s no such class of people called women who give birth.” That’s being taken from us. Now it’s just something that individuals do. And we need to look at what we lose when that happens.

Mary Lou Singleton, “Are We Women or Are We Incubators?”

[female-realities-blog]

"Who gives birth? The answer used to be: females. Today, it’s considered politically incorrect to say that it is women, specifically, who get pregnant and become mothers. Thus, in the name of inclusivity, a number of women’s reproductive health groups are changing their terminology in order to degender the language of birth. Several organizations now refer to “pregnant people,” “pregnant individuals,” and “birthing parents” instead. Feministing writer Jos Truitt recently demanded we “Stop saying and stop thinking that abortion is a women’s issue.” Well, okay then! Degendering women’s issues — I mean, “people’s issues” — is way progressive. But what are the costs of doing that? What are we losing in erasing women from the language of such a fundamental aspect of female bodily reality? Mary Lou Singleton, midwife, feminist, and reproductive sovereignty activist recently addressed this question, along with many others, in an open letter to the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA). The letter asks MANA to reconsider the revision of their core competencies to remove all references to women and mothers. I recently spoke with her about these events and her upcoming actions at MANA’s annual conference. Susan: So explain to me the controversy with MANA. Mary Lou: Last year, MANA issued new core competencies for midwives. This is the document for midwives that says what basic knowledge they must hold for competent care. The old-school competencies were very much woman-centered and centered around the Midwives Model of Care, which promotes “a midwife for every mother.” The word woman was in there over and over again, because the word “midwife” means “with woman.” The new core competencies reflect changes in our culture. The transgender community approached MANA maybe 10 years ago and nothing came of it then. In the last few years, however, they were successful in convincing MANA to revise their core competencies and erasing the words “woman” and “mother.” There’s one place in the document where they reference the trademarked Midwives Model of Care and the word “woman-centered” is there, because that’s a trademarked phrase where they have to leave “woman” in. The rest of the document now says “pregnant individual,” “birthing parent,” and “birthing individual.” In several places the term “mother-baby” is used, but even “mother,” by itself, has been erased from the document. So essentially, we’ve taken this quintessential female process of gestating and giving birth, which is something biologically that female members of the species do, and we’ve erased all reference to people of the female sex. Susan: And what is the problem in doing this? Mary Lou: Well, many of us who are people based in a biological understanding of the world, who are very concerned with the biocide all around us, the collapse of all the living systems around the world, feel that this is going along with that trend to further and further disconnect us from the biological world, as well as furthering the trend of erasing from our language the reality of what it means to female, the reality of biological sex, and the reality of sex-based oppression in a male-supremacist world. Susan: Why is it important to talk about sex-based oppression in terms of political language? Mary Lou: My driving goal in life is making the world a better place for girls and women. It’s about female liberation from male supremacy. Everything I do is an attempt to liberate females from this global system of male-supremacy that is oppressing female people all over the world. As someone who is a biology-based person (I am a deep ecologist), I believe in life and I believe we are creatures among creatures on a living planet. To me, “female” means the members of the species who reproduce, who produce eggs or ovum, and who are (as mammals) capable of gestating and birthing young. So to me, the definition of “woman” is an adult human female — an adult member of the female sex. As someone who is interested in female liberation from sex-based oppression, it is incredibly important to me that we use language that describes that sex-based oppression. The system called patriarchy developed and continues to exist because when power is transferred through males, males have to control female bodies so that they can know who their children are, so that they can pass power to their children. So the root of all patriarchal oppression is the control of female biology."

[lapimpinelaescarlatta]

“So long as we have private property and a system that passes power through male lineage, males have to police and control female bodies. This is why we have systems where women don’t have legal control of their bodies. Women are viewed as state regulated incubators and it’s considered a worthy subject of debate whether or not female people should be forced to give birth against their will.

The erasure of women from the language of birth is further destruction of female power. Whether or not an individual woman chooses to reproduce, female biology is powerful. It’s what brings the members of our species here. And if you control the women, you control the population.”

mary lou singleton

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2015/10/13/are-we-women-or-are-we-incubators-an-interview-with-marylou-singleton/