Women should be less polite and more assertive. If a âlactivistâ started to harangue me, Iâd respond that Iâd made my decision and to leave the room immediately or Iâd call security.
âMy husband calls them breast-feeding bulliesâ - The Washington Post
The thing, though? A woman who has just labored, possibly gone through serious surgery, and given birth shouldnât have to threaten every pushy person who refuses to listen to them and respect their autonomy with calling security. While Iâm a breastfeeding proponent and would have appreciated my hospital respecting my wishes regarding breastfeeding and would have kept the formula samples and supplementing discussions out of my room, I also believe that women who say, âNo, thanks,â should be listened to and left alone as well.
The problem on both sides is: medical professionals do not respect womenâs* autonomy or choices, and often doubt womenâs ability to make said choices for themselves at all. This attitude starts long before a woman even gets pregnant and is rife throughout the entire system of womenâs reproductive health. We are forced to have invasive internal exams and tests annually, with little evidence that it provides benefit for most women. We are forced to receive a doctorâs permission and a pharmacistâs sign off before we can access hormonal contraceptivesâand either can veto our access if their conscience says we should not be allowed to choose whether to use hormonal contraceptives or not, largely for reasons intended to police our morality, not boost health outcomes. When we become pregnant, we are barraged with lists of things we can no longer do, in some places can be arrested or have our children removed from our care upon birth because of things we do while pregnant. We are given limited ability to choose whether to continue pregnancy, even if our finances prohibit being able to have a healthy pregnancy and raise a child, even if the child has serious health issues that may mean it will not survive long after birth, even if remaining pregnant actually will have a negative outcome for our own health. Our ability to make choices regarding our own health and bodies is hamstrung at multiple levels by state and federal lawmakers, court systems, hospital policies, and doctorsâ, nursesâ, and pharmacistsâ consciences. Seemingly everyoneâs opinion about our health care matters more than our own.
We should not have to fight to be heard and respected. We should not have to issue threats that someone bigger, stronger, and in all likelihood, a lot more macho than we are will come forcibly remove someone if they will not respect our wishes. Especially for people who are charged with caring for people who are pregnant, giving birth or have recently given birth, or are breastfeeding, these people should be interested in providing respectful care where they actually listen to, trust, and respect the people making choices regarding their own health and the health of their own children. The fact that they donât is not because women are not assertive enough. It is because we live in a sexist society which believes women are incapable of making good decisions for themselves and must be bullied by institutions into doing the âright thingâ. This mentality has been one of the foundations of our society for pretty much as long as itâs been around.
* Recognizing that some who give birth and breastfeed are not women, but are dismissed out of hand along with women because hospital staff will still categorize them as women. Transphobic medical professionals is a whole ânother can of worms.
