Why I Never Want to Hear The Phrase “Birth Rape” Again

by Sierra on September 8, 2010 · 34 comments

I was going to post about the Tooth Fairies recent visits to our house, but writing this essay for the ‘Derby just took all the words out of me. I want everyone in the world to read it, so I’m posting about it here too.

Apparently some birth activists are calling traumatic birth experiences or unwanted medical procedures during labor “birth rape“. I am a rape survivor, and I’ve given birth in a hospital, where I arrived as an emergency transport following a planned home birth. Both experiences sucked, and there are dark memories attached to each that I’ll always carry. But they were not the same thing.

For starters, at the end of one I got a baby. At the end of the other, I got a nervous breakdown. In spite of the nasty nurses and difficult doctor, I remember one as the happiest day of my life, when I became a mom for the first time. The other was the worst, and I try to avoid remembering it at all.

Obviously, not everyone experiences it that way. The joy of having a child doesn’t naturally heal the wounds of being mistreated by a medical professional, and many women carry real scars from those experiences. Often, a doctor’s failure to respect a patient results in trauma to the new mother’s relationship with her baby and her body. Not cool.

Here’s a bit of what I had to say over at Babble:

I would never claim that a woman being subjected to medical procedures she did not consent to while in labor is acceptable. It just isn’t rape.

I’m not going to say that rape is so much worse. No one wins in a game of misery poker, trying to compare one trauma to another. A traumatic birth leaves real and deep scars. Birth can trigger traumatic memories and feelings for abuse survivors. Women with no history of abuse can be left with painful psychological wounds, especially if they are mistreated by a doctor they trusted to help them.

My problem is that by conflating a bad birth with sexual violence, we do a disservice to survivors of both experiences.

To help women heal after trauma, and to support the activists and organizations that work to protect us, we need to be having nuanced, honest conversations about these experiences. Throwing the word rape into a conversation about birthing practices is like dropping a grenade. It shuts down productive conversation.

You can read the rest of my (I think) very reasonable argument against calling traumatic birth experiences rape at Strollerderby.

I know a lot of you who read this blog are childbirth activists and advocates. I consider myself to be one. Have you seen this phrased used? Could you defend it’s use?

It just seems *so wrong* to me, as a rape survivor and a mom, to conflate the two. Maybe we can brainstorm some better phrases and spread them through our birth communities?

Tagged as: birth, homebirth, rape

http://notlikeacat.blogspot.com/ JM

I have seen the phrase used (“birth rape”) and it made me really uncomfortable. I am fortunate enough not to have experienced either rape or a traumatic birth, but I find the term “birth rape” discomfiting and offensive.

[Reply]
Sierra Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
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[Reply]
http://reproductiverites.wordpress.com/ Sarah

Wow, I haven't seen that phrase used before and I'm pretty disgusted by it. May as well throw a reference to Hitler in there too.

[Reply]
Sierra Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
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[Reply]
Polly

I agree with you. Both are violations, but are of very different natures. To call both things “rape” makes both rape and traumatic childbirth less important, somehow. Borrowing the term for a medical experience makes you wonder what else the word could be applied to. Not that being violated in any way is okay, but it dilutes the meaning to use a term so broadly.

And I am also a rape survivor.

[Reply]
Sierra Reply:
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[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

I was thinking that, and didn't quite want to say it. Thanks for going

there.

[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

Thank you.

[Reply]
Ellen

As a childbirth professional, I’ve seen the phrase a number of times, and it makes me profoundly uncomfortable for the reasons you give here; while I am not a rape survivor, I am a feminist and friend of many rape survivors, and I find conflating the two … problematic.

That said, I’ve heard a number of horrific birth stories that involve quite literal bodily invasion: episiotomies given without consent or warning, providers shoving their hands roughly inside women’s bodies, women forced into surgical birth against their will. I am frankly not in a position to tell these women they haven’t been violated, violently, in a way that the word “rape” evolved to cover. It’s not my trauma.

And while it’s true that most providers probably believe they are helping women, some are clearly on such an ego trip that they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a woman who is pregnant or giving birth. There are an awful lot of bad doctors out there traumatizing birthing moms, some of them quite deliberately.

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Sierra Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
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[Reply]
Nica

I've seen it used a bunch of times. I sort of understand the logic behind it, in a professional “I understand the internal logic of arguments totally alien to me” way–I think people who use this discourse work with a “desexualized” (in their opinion) defenition of rape, the one that says that “rape is not about sex, it is about power.” But in my opinion they take it literally in a way that misses the symbolic nuances of what that definition entails–the definition does not mean it is literally not about sex, at least not in the way “birth rape” people use it. Personally I find that an unproductive way to talk about birth trauma, and is not the kind of frame shifting I sympathize or agree with.

[Reply]
Nica

I've seen it used a bunch of times. I sort of understand the logic behind it, in a professional “I understand the internal logic of arguments totally alien to me” way–I think people who use this discourse work with a “desexualized” (in their opinion) definition of rape, the one that says that “rape is not about sex, it is about power.” But in my opinion they take it literally in a way that misses the symbolic nuances of what that definition entails–the definition does not mean it is literally not about sex, at least not in the way “birth rape” people use it. Personally I find that an unproductive way to talk about birth trauma, and is not the kind of frame shifting I sympathize or agree with.

[Reply]
Sierra Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
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[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

Thanks for the insightful comments, Nica. I see the point about rape being

desexualized; about power rather than eros. I think, though, that expanding

the definition to include poor medical care is, well, all the stuff I said

above that you agreed with.

In her DoubleX essay on this, Amanda Marcotte talked about the distinctions

between the motives of rapists and the motives of bad doctors. I'm not going

to be as sweeping as she was in imagining that all rapists are sadists

motivated by a desire for power and all bad doctors are rude and

disrespectful, but I do think her point about motive is a good one: for the

most part, I suspect that doctors believe they are helping patients in these

situations, while someone committing rape probably knows he or she is

committing a crime.

[Reply]
keyne

[Second try. I typed in a long thoughtful comment and Disqus ate it.]

As a childbirth professional, I see the term “birth rape” often, and it generally makes me profoundly uncomfortable for the reasons you give here. I'm not a rape survivor but I am a feminist and friend to rape survivors, and conflating the terms feels wrong to me.

That said, I have heard many truly horrific birth stories involving actual bodily invasion — episiotomies done without warning or consent, doctors' arms shoved roughly inside women's bodies, women strapped down and forced into surgical birth against their will. These stories involve violence, and violation — not merely “bad medical care” — and I don't feel it's my place to tell these women that “rape” is not an appropriate term for what happened to them. It's not my experience.

(I also don't believe, as you seem to, that good motives are near-universal on the part of providers — particularly OB-GYNs. There are many truly bad doctors out there whose main motivation seems to be power-tripping, and they should be kept as far away from pregnant and birthing women as humanly possible. :/ )

[Reply]
Sierra Reply:
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[Reply]
Melissa

That's really messed up. Having had a horrible first birth experience that I dealt with the repercussions of for more than a year, I still would never call it “birth rape”. It seems more about sensationalizing something than actually dealing with a real issue. I personally felt like I had “birth trauma” I needed to work though, more like PTSD, which can be caused by all kinds of things, including rape.

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Sierra Reply:
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[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

Ellen,

Thanks for your insightful thoughts. I was hoping you'd weigh in here, and

am glad you did. Disqus didn't eat your comment, it just moderates them

because SOMEONE was trolling this blog and I felt I had no choice but to

moderate the comments.

Sierra

[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

Right. I can totally (horrifically) imagine having PTSD after a traumatic

birth, and there are some important overlaps in the experience of PTSD no

matter what kind of trauma sets it off. Many things can cause PTSD.

I'm sorry you went through that.

[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

By “good motivations” I simply meant that a terrible, power-tripping abusive

doctor probably believes that he's doing it “for the patient's own good”, in

the same way that an abusive parent who beats a child probably believes he

or she is “doing it for their own good”. Not that the motivations are

actually good, but the abuser probably *believes* that they are. It must be,

I pray, harder to imagine that sexual abuse is being inflicted for the good

of the victim.

[Reply]
RosaLC

I first saw this term yesterday on Jezebel, while I wad catching up from my weeks away, and basically, my reaction boils down to, “Oh great, let's reiterate that rape is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, and that a thing has to be rape to count as that bad.” Yuck.

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Sierra Reply:
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[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

EXACTLY.

[Reply]
http://childwild.com Sierra

EXACTLY.

[Reply]
Cassaundra

I am also a rape survivor and am also a survivor of several traumatic births (some of which i would call birthrape, some of which not) and i LOVE the term birthrape. nothing else conveys the sexual nature and the extremely damaging intensity of a birth violation. birth is as much a part of sex as conception is, doctors know that. don't kid yourself, plenty of them ARE sadists. also, plenty of sexual abusers DO think that they are doing what is best for their children by having sex with them. clearly, knowledge of the workings of the rapists brain is not common knowledge based on the comments. but that doesn't matter because no-one except the survivor gets to define their experience. nobody gets to be the rape police and say, “you were raped, but YOU weren't” whether because the victim was wearing the wrong clothes or in the wrong place or thinking the wrong thoughts or was the wrong age or the wrong standard of attractiveness or knew their assailant or was on a date or “liked it” or he “didn't kill her!” or he was her relative or boyfriend or DOCTOR. the only person who gets to decide whether she was raped is the VICTIM. Birthrape is real and if you don't like the term, TOUGH. survivors heal by telling the truth about their experiences, it is powerful and empowering and healing to call a rape a rape. there is no extenuating circumstance that makes a rape not a rape, including a medical license or the fact that it happened in a hospital. telling women they aren't allowed to name their experience, that they don't know how they feel, that they should mince their words or “be nice” is offensive. if you don't like hearing the word birthrape, work to make sure it never happens again, don't chide victims for using language that you can't handle.

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Sierra Reply:
September 9th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Cassandra,

Thanks for speaking up. I’m saddened to know such terrible things happened to you, but grateful to you for sharing your perspective. It’s a lot to think about. I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with this phrase, but I can respect your take on it and your use of it.

Again, thank you.

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Star

“My problem is that by conflating a bad birth with sexual violence, we do a disservice to survivors of both experiences.”

THANK YOU. This phrase does a huge disservice to rape survivors. Women who experience birth trauma (most often) end up with a BABY at the end, whereas women who experience rape do not have such a positive ending. It’s terribly offensive to see women who had a negative birth experience use this term.

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Lh

Although I likened my birth experience to being raped at first I was unable to call it that because it felt so dramatic. I didn’t want to be dramatic. I didn’t want to call my baby’s birth “rape”. But now I admit it. The intense guilt and shame of not being appreciative of her birth as well as the actual memories have destroyed me. I would like to point out some things. 1. sexual rape can result in a baby too. does that make it better? no. I would think it would make it worse. saying the difference is that “you get a baby at the end of it” is sickening. It’s as if saying being raped is ok as long as you get a big enough reward at the end. For those of you who have been raped ‘sexually’ would you be any less victimized if I gave you a baby at the end of it? It is absurd. By way the baby isn’t necessarily welcome after the experience. I think everyday that I wish my baby would have died. 2. sexual rape isn’t about sex and birth rape isn’t about birth. sex has nothing to do with rape except that it involves the same bodily parts. period. 3. Even ‘consenting’ to procedures during birth doesn’t make them OK. women are most often coerced through fear to consent. my doctor felt it necessary to relate to me the story of a woman the previous year who died in the lobby in my condition. If someone holds a gun to your head and then asks for permission to have sex is it no longer rape? of course not. In fact in my imagination the victim loses the slight satisfaction she might receive from getting to fight back. At night I dream and dream and dream of getting to fight back. Dream of what it would have been like to kick the teeth in of the doctor. to smash the monitors. to swing at a nurse with the iv stand. But I had the gun of severe preeclamsia to my head. Now, seven months later I have the trophy I brought home to remind me of the experience everyday. I change its diaper. rock it to sleep. pretend to love it. I have to love the product of my birth rape because doing anything else is dispicable.

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Mm99 Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:13 am
As a fellow preeclampsia survivor, get some therapy please! Preeclampsia and the drugs used to treat it have side effects including a feeling of unreality and removal from life, leaving a person much more vulnerable to PPD and PTSD following a birth experience and your anger and dreams and pretending to love your baby will get better with therapy. Find someone who specializes in PPD or PTSD and go to a few sessions. Once you talk about this in a safe place, you will begin to emerge from the shadow of it and place it as a memory rather than a continuing situation that you can’t seem to escape.

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Sierra Reply:
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:27 am
This is so interesting and useful. Thank you.

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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EOJ422OHLXIYXDRTXIXNC46M6A Kat

It seems to me that lately rape has become the “it” thing. I’ve been reading a lot about the rape camps that happened in WWII and Bosnia..Now, birth rape.
It’s really feeling to be like rape is just the cool and hip thing to talk about. Wh

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Ben

This may sound weird, but I’m a 13 year old who randomly stumbled upon this website, and I understand everything these posts say. Strange if you think about it.

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http://childwild.com Sierra

Thank you for sharing your story!

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