Doug and I were discussing the question of having a doula the other morning. For those of you who haven’t encountered the term yet, a doula is a birth attendant who is not a midwife but is there as physical, emotional and spiritual support during the birth. The word comes from the Greek and apparently used to mean "woman of service".
The astute amongst you will have noticed I’ve been fairly circumspect in my definition there. Usually, people say a doula is "a woman who acts as a birth attendant" and say "physical, emotional and spiritual support for the mother during the birth". This gender specifity is what occasioned our recent discussion.
To some extent, Doug would like to be my doula during this birthing. Another pregnant friend’s partner has expressed similar desires. My instinct, however, says that a doula should support the *parents* during a birthing, not just the mother. A doula, apparently, helps to birth the mother in the woman. I feel that a doula should also birth the father in the man (I’m assuming here for a moment that we’re talking about a male-female parenting duo here, because that’s our situation right now).
Why should a doula only be a woman? Doug and I agree that I would want a female doctor for a pap smear and that he would want a male doctor for testicular issues. Why? Because they have "the right plumbing". An interesting biological prejudice. By the same gut sense, I feel strongly about our doula not only being female but having given birth herself. Logically, though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Every birth is different. Why should one woman’s experience of a four-hour labour followed by a difficult crowning and a tear, for example, give her any insights as to how to handle a birth that turns into an epic 36-hour labour but with no problem during crowning?
There’s also an odd sense we both have of a double standard of feminism/essentialism overlaid here. We hear the ‘women-centred’, ‘women-power’ tone of a lot of the natural birthing literature and we can’t help but hear echoes of either an atavistic dream of women’s control of birthing in a distant imagined pre-patriarchal time (which nonetheless excludes men and is sexist in its own way) or a swing past equality towards separatism that simultaneously demands space for women to control their own lives at the same time as accepting an essentialist notion of woman-as-ultimate-feminine-vessel.
It creates a sense that woman-as-mother is the fulfilment of a woman’s purpose and is extraordinarily problematic for women who choose not to birth or are unable to conceive.
At the same time, I understand it very much as a reclamation of birthing practice after the interventionist and disempowering experiences with Western medicine and male doctoring.
I’ve never been particularly comfortable with the goddess-worship motifs of some neo-pagan women’s groups. For me, the cycles have always been about balance: yin and yang, female and male, the green man and the goddess. And yet it’s hard not to be swayed by a sense of connectedness through the centuries to all other women who have gone through this process. I think that’s where we often get caught up in this and because men have not been allowed to discuss their emotions and spiritual responses, we have neglected to create and allow a space for men to feel that connection to all fathers through the centuries too.
Both Doug and I are very comfortable with and aware of both the masculine and feminine energies that reside within us both. That he is a nurturer and I a protector is undeniable.
Obviously, a lot of this is me just thinking out loud. I have no conclusions as yet. What are your thoughts?