When you Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock!
Sixty years ago, 20 000 brave South African women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest the pass laws. The pass laws insisted that all black South African men under the country’s Population Registration Act had to carry these ‘passports’ when outside their designated areas. Up to this point, black women had been excluded from carrying the ‘dompas’ (literally dumb pass), but the change in this law is what triggered this protest march. Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo! (When you strike a woman, You strike a rock!) Was the song that the women chanted after standing in silence for thirty minutes and leaving bundles of 100 000 signatures in the doorways for the then Prime Minister. (He apparently never saw the petition, he was away and the papers were very quickly removed before he could see them). Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo! (When you strike a woman, You strike a rock!) These words, first chanted in 1956, have come to symbolise women’s resilience and courage in South Africa. This march and these words made a big impression on me when I first heard about them as a girl and these words often float through my mind when attending a labour and birth and seeing a woman ‘s strength and resilience surface. Women will put up with a lot in life. See them go without, for their families, for their children, for their husbands. But push a woman too far and she will push back with a previously unseen inner strength . There is that point in labour; when a woman has reached that place where she seems to give in and the act of giving birth seems insurmountable. But then it is as if something inside her pushes her to stare Death defiantly in the face with a strength not even she knew she had. And that is why women are scary. Because we all have it. Wathint’Abafazi...
Read MoreUnder the Shade of an Olive Tree, Midwives Gather in Spain
Firstly, it’s bloody hot here at Da-a-Luz. That I have to say. Dry, sweltering heat that leaves you sweating at the slightest movement once the sun is up. Yummy food sourced mainly from the local gardens and surrounding farms, goat’s milk, cheeses, honey, pears, aubergines, watermelons, zucchini, olives and olive oil. So good. I sit, writing this by candlelight in the caravan I am staying in…the sun has finally set and with it a bit of cool and the sounds of the crickets descend. I have just returned from collecting water from the spring with midwife Fiona and student midwives Hannah and Jennifer…we also cooled our feet after a long day of neonatal resuscitation training. For the past week, midwives and student midwives have gathered on cushions under the shade of an olive tree, sharing their stories, fears, hopes, dreams and hopes of births for the women they serve. And themselves. One thing is clear: midwives are frustrated at the state of how births are run in this world. They are shocked and angry at the soaring caesarean and intervention rates. When was it that institutions became the places to manage and control this mostly straightforward and holy life event? What I have learned is this: – get a bunch of midwives together and they will find endless birth related things to talk about, debate and discuss, from the complicated to the ecstatic, from the outrageous to the most undemanding. Sharing techniques, pearls of wisdom and skills. And midwives do not seem to grow weary of this subject either. But midwives and midwifery students feel tired and defeated too. Innately, they believe in women’s ability to give birth to their babies, but many midwives are tired of fighting against the systems that constantly claim this right. But there is something truly magical and inspiring that happens when midwives are given the time to get together and share and support one another in this time old profession they hold so dear. It is as though the little spark of hope that sometimes feels that it may be dying is fanned by the love and strength of other birth keepers. If there is anything I can recommend, it is for midwives to regularly gather to share in a non-judgemental setting. At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. Safe, empowering, beautiful births for the mothers and babies we serve....
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