From Capitalism back to Maori history

Whakahuihui Vercoe writes in Growing Up Maori ed Witi Ihimaera 1998:

One of the problems today is that people are not given the time and space to work out who they are, where they fit in society or what society's doing to them. So they are not making any contribution. Instead people are used like puppets to fit into what government is doing to us. We do not go to school to enrich or enlarge our lives or our understanding of life. We are pressured into understanding - by having an education, we are told, we will receive the commercial rewards of this world. We lose sight of the human-ness of people.
We talk about being poor today, but I grew up in a poor society with no money and no work. Everybody was unemployed. But people worked to sustain themselves, to grow their own food and to buy only the bare necessities of life. People were careful with each other and cared for one another. The old people never talked about costs. They talked about hospitality and put their effort into making sure their visitors were cared for. The cost was shared across the whole community, the whole hapu. Our society planted for the whole of society, not just for individual families. A percentage of your vegetables, your beef and sheep, were designated for the common good of the hapu.
Nowadays we don't do that. Today at marae meetings people talk about costs and pay for everything. It's not that we can't share nowadays but that we're pressured by the circumstances we live in to be self-sufficient individuals rather than to think about the self-sufficency of the total society.
As a country we're more concerned with our national debt and everything we do is geared towards paying off or minimising that debt. We have to maintain this ever-increasing concern, and, consequently, people suffer in the process and are not held in high esteem. We're destroying our society when we should be caring for one another. Human life is the cheapest commodity and now we haven't the wherewithal to sustain caring. We're driven to be individuals.
I believe the human spirit will overcome these things and that there are enough honest and sincere people - even politicians - who realise that we have to work together. We're also realising, slowly and painfully, that there was a contract made at Waitangi between two peoples that we would live in harmony, accept each other as members of a society and strive for betterment of this country.
It's unfair to blame politicians all the time. The people who control our lives are the financial pundits who control the economy and the whole international global money movements. We cannot live in isolation in New Zealand. We are influenced by international money markets and its financiers who call the shots.

Weather and food

The sky outside is blue and crisp, the rising sun its usual warm glow, just a few fluffy white things hanging around the mountain.

Like yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.

This is the weather forecast for today:
Cloudy with showers at first. However, rain developing this morning, with heavy falls and thunderstorms. Northeasterlies,gradually becoming strong,gusting 80 km/h in exposed places.

Every day for the next ten days has that grey raincloud hanging next to the forecast. And it's been like that every time I check the weather - chance of over 1mm of rain - 90 - 95%, chance of over 10 mm of rain, 50% - for the last two to three weeks. Which is why I've stopped obsessively checking the weather forecasts (apart from the fact that our grass is growing faster than the cows can eat it - as it needs to, the in-calf heifers are coming home next week.
We've in fact had around 4mm of rain total in that time. The three episodes of rain - 55mm + 26mm + 62mm was enough to bring us out of drought and green up the whole farm again, and about two weeks after the first lot fell the grass had caught up enough that the (dry) cows were getting fully fed without increasing their area.

Which makes our region very well off compared to some. The Waikato still have had very little rain - some areas have had heavy showers, others have had one passing shower and are desperate for more: Waikato rain update

Maize harvesting has eased the pressure for some - although yields were also down, greenfeed maize was harvested as early is mid-March for cattle feeding and every day now I see trailer-units full of sweet chopped maize heading off up the road - to feed someone's dry cows.
The forecast for below normal rain continues. Soil moisture deficits in many areas continue - we're not at field capacity yet, and word-of-mouth info from the Waikato indicates their drought is far from broken.
Looking back at March

Our milk production was down between ten and twenty per cent for the season. The cows are dry and awaiting next calving for another chance to prove themselves as top-class milkers.

Extreme weather situations are far from the only influence on food production and availability, and cost. There is a whole network of factors. Some of them I can see - the farming papers for example are highlighting the issue of whether farmers are going to plant feed wheat (for animals) or milling wheat (for human consumption) right now. Economically, it makes no sense to plant milling wheat with prices to the farmer in their current range.
How much area/fuel/time is the production of grain for bio-fuel taking right now?
According to the farming media, it's the primary factor in the grain shortage for both human and animal feeds.
Rising oil prices? It impacts more than just the vehicle-running costs and harvesting costs - just about everything you can buy has either a lower margin to the producer or a higher price, as the increased fuel price is absorbed by the industry. Everything not produced domestically has increased shipping costs.
When I consider the effect that politics and marketing have on food prices and availability I just get pissed off, so we won't go there. Who, after all, is the winner under a Capitalist structure?
Having farmed in two countries, I don't have enough loyalty to either to turn a blind eye to the in-fighting or underhand marketing tactics - of which both are guilty.

At the end of the chain - right down there on the bottom - are the people who need the food.
A few days ago I was shocked - nay, traumatised - to drive through an area of town where the houses sported a four foot square lawn open to the street, at the front, and around three feet at the back between the house and the wall separating them from the next house. Traditionally a New Zealand town house is built on a quarter-acre section - sufficient to feed a family, if it were turned into fruit and vegetable production, space even for a hen house.
More houses in less area make more money for builders - a decade ago new house-owners were up in arms over the fact that the top-soil of their section had been taken and carted away, compromising their ability to garden. Now the builders-that-be have apparently decided lives don't need a patch of soil at all - only brick and carpeting.

I feel very lucky to have my quarter-acre section - no-one measures how much land is fenced off around a farm-house. I have enough.

Comment on the FLDS situation

April is warm, sunny and we're allowed to use water again (all restrictions were lifted over a week ago). Hence, I've been gardening.

Also going back to a livejournal I can access to see if there is any update on the FLDS raid situation.
I can't open all the links within this post, and my previous attempts to find information through google pretty much left me in the blogosphere - the news articles wouldn't load. The writer of this blog is LDS/exLDS and somewhat knowledgeable about the polygamist community.
Let's be clear: religious freedom does not supersede basic human rights. It does not override the basic (AND FIRST) principle of the United States of America, that being the freedom to life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness. How can you know happiness if you live in a cave of fear and lies? When you're not allowed beyond the "sacred" doors of your cave? When you're threatened with "eternal damnation" - which, let me explain how it's different in the Mormon/Fundy religion. It's not Hell with Satan torturing your soul, it's being cast into Outer Darkness. Or rather, your soul is destroyed, horrors! *eye roll* Freaking religion.

FLDS discussion
Psychologists define a participant in a cult in the following way:

People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from the leader;
They get a new identity based on the group;
They are subject to entrapment and their access to information is severely controlled


Gosh, what does that sound like to you? I can tell you this: there's no equivalent to a lapsed Catholic in this faith. You're in, or you're out. (And if you're out, you are dead to them. Sometimes literally.)

What is FLDS?
As far as I can tell, the pages linked above to religioustolerance.org are reasonably accurate.

So which group are arguing most strongly in favour of not disturbing FLDS people in the life they've created for themselves?
Guessed it in one. The LDS.

I'm LDS. When I first read of the raid on the blogs my first thought was 'no, you must have got that wrong'. I continued reading. Attempted googling (but the pages wouldn't load, and all I could get was the religioustolerance page). There's a lot of history here - LDS and FLDS share a common root; these are my brothers and sisters. I knew little about them, save that they had split off from the mainstream mormons and continued to practise polygamy, and that an LDS Elder I'd become acquainted with in Manti, Utah described the local commune as a 'happy, hard-working people, very relaxed'.
As far as possible, considering the number of links I've hit that won't load, I've tried to follow what's going on, and in so doing I've learned a considerable amount. Some of it good, a lot of it disturbing.
The whole situation is disturbing. Initially I wondered, "how could their religion have gone so far wrong, how did it fall so far from the actual teachings?" but when you look at it, when little snippets come up - are you horrified at women and children being 'taken from one man and given to another'? If I could be bothered, I'd find the scripture reference that sets out that law - it's in the Doctrine & Covenants. Spiritual marriages? Yeah, mainstream mormons have that too. Everything, from separating from the outside world to the ultra-modest clothing to the temple and its rites, to the rigid gender roles and training of children - it is all reflected in the church I was brought up in.

The FLDS have not fallen far at all.

Yet in that falling, the line has been crossed from border-line okay to abuse of human rights.
Do we know the extent of that abuse? No. It doesn't matter - we know that *all* who were part of the commune had their individual choice taken from them.

Experimenting with sex and having children as a teenager - even a young teenager - is not uncommon. Being forced into it - and there's no denying that the majority of these girls were forced into marriage and child-bearing - is horrifying as a thought, let alone reality. There is no comparison between the two situations.

Forget the FLDS ranch for a moment. In a society where children are supposed to be children for at least seventeen to eighteen years, being married and a mother at thirteen is beyond the pale. We *know* that thirteen year olds are little girls who aren't ready to make decisions like that for themselves.

This pdf file discussing early marriage was linked to indirectly via one of the carnivals
I don't remember which one.

Yemeni court orders marriage of eight-year old girl terminated because she had not reached puberty

Women's rights null under patriarchy

Women around the world suffer under male control, including being forced into early marriage and childbirth

The world doesn't know. Men don't know. Societies where early marriage is the norm *don't accept* that this is a basic human right abuse. Women learn to adapt. The fact that more and more girls go through puberty several years before entering their teens scares me - because I know that men will take advantage of it. Early physical maturity doesn't always accompany early emotional and intellectual maturity. The youngest age known for a child to give birth - is five years old! Who would rape a five year old? Too many. There are men who think this is okay behaviour.

Think about it. How many females were at the FLDS ranch? Maybe 300. Consider how those females are going to integrate into normal society if they are given that opportunity (I have a hunch that many of them won't be). Consider how long it's going to take them to overcome the abuse they've suffered, to regain self-esteem, to set aside the harmful teachings they've been taught since they were tiny babies.

How long? For most of them, it will never happen. All the life they've known is the extreme patriarchal system of their church. All their value system is smashed to pieces as soon as they encounter the 'real world'. There is no full recovery from the abuse that has already happened.

Multiply that out. Does that begin to give an indication of the severity of abuse women suffer? Did you know that in third world countries around the world girls are often unable to attend school? That betrothal in the pre-pubertal years is still common - that polygamy is common, that arranged marriages are the norm - even within families that live in first-world countries.
Within those communities are the words 'human rights abuse' ever uttered? I don't know. I'd guess probably not.

edited to add Early marriage

Also, for those discussing the issue on other blogs - FLDS woman are human too, intelligent women who may well one day read your words. What I was reading last night was sickening, talking over the people involved like what - curios? Animals in a zoo?. Some of those words were attacking, some dismissive, some mocking, some pitying - you don't need to be involved in that.

The cows walked out of the sky

Considering being someone else

Odd thoughts juxtapose with each other - like leaning over to shake the sawdust out of my bra and wondering what it's like to be male and working in a dusty area. Following on from earlier contemplation of "all that will change someday, soon."

First point - I don't know how to be anyone other than who I am. Sometimes someone comes on the farm and turns a tap on for me and I blink but they're standing on the ground? *jealousy* and sometimes I do it and they look at me halfway up the rails and blink* and say "wow, you really are small, aren't you?". But I've never known what it's like to use tools designed for my size, to reach taps designed for 'normal' (read, males) folks without standing on tiptoe or climbing. I've never not known that if one works with hay or sawdust or through vegetation over one's head, there is a requirement to lean over after and shake the dust out of bra, or put up with the scratching and poking.
So what happens if you don't wear a bra and don't have cleavage? Presumably the dust goes in at the neckline and comes out at the bottom. What if you're one of those guys who wears a shirt tucked into their jeans? Do the scraps rub a red line around their waist?

I guess the two thoughts are linked. I have to get used to being ugly again. Last year I cut my hair, knowing that I would let it grow back and eventually start plaiting it again. Ever since cutting it I've regretted it, as hair-ties just aren't enough to keep it into control.
But there's a pay-off. For the last few weeks I've revelled (alone on my farm) in being Teh Hawttest as that same silky mass that so irritates me is windblown into romanatic styles, and every glimpse of a reflection in stainless steel or dark plastic proves that I'm not just *feeling* gorgeous (or in fact, I'm feeling like me but there's some HAWT chick taking over my reflection).
It's time. It's long enough to plait and ignore, time to remove the hassle once and for all, time to say good-bye temporarily to being teh Hawt (temporarily since I can always take it out of the plaits and wash it and go to town for the experience of being adored - not that I will; it tends to piss me off when I realise how differently people react). With the plaits, I look odd, to say the least - odd in the way your great-great-grandmother looked with her severe frown as she waited for the camera to do its stuff, with her long hair pulled tightly into plaits and wrapped round and round her head. It's not teh Hawt - it's a look you have to get used to, before you appreciate that this too, is beautiful.

So this is a big thing. I walked across the paddock yesterday certain that I was ready to make the commitment to return to looking 'odd' instead of 'hawt'. And the thought occured to me that soon 'hawt' won't be an option. In spite of what the flatterers try to tell me, I do look my age, every year of it. I estimate I've got maybe four or five years left, and then I'll be in a place where people's faces don't light up when they talk to me, where there are no worshipful glances in my direction ever. If it seems hard to break into a conversation now, 'when I'm an old woman' I won't have the advantage of drawing attention simply by existing.
It's been a source of anger throughout my life rather than anything else - my looks have been used as the reason why I shouldn't go outside, used as the reason for harassment, I've been accused of 'getting ahead on my looks', of being favouritised.
But facing the future without that privilege - well, that's something to seriously think about. In five or ten years time I may be much more aware of just how much of a privilege my genetics bestowed on me.

*blink - I don't know if everyone does it, but when I see something my mind initially disbelieves, I shut my eyes. Unconsciously. And then noticed it when I started writing stories and all the characters did this.
And how pathetic is it that I mis-spelled 'teh' and had to go back and fix it :-)

The only thing gorgeous in this photo is the mandolin :-)

A pointless post about animals and fungi. And a listening chair.

Jes is 'helping' me cut macrocarpa.

The thing about google...

Three minutes...

That's a pretty good time. I considered posting about something I've caught the edges of, logged in, brought up the posting page - three minutes from deciding to log in, I am able to convince the screen to accept typing.

Amy's Brain Today makes some excellent points on plagiarism in this post

The same points were brought up a while ago, over in the thread at Women's Space which finally led to the Coming Together blog carnival. It's good guidance.

I'm simply asking to be respectfully excused from frequent linking and googling around the subjects of my posts for reasons of connection speed. ...still waiting (as in, in aproximately five minutes I will pull up a link for the blog carnival to place above)

*taps fingers*

Oh come now, this is ridiculous. I didn't ask you to prove my point quite this thoroughly.

FFS!




Great stuff: http://wordpress.com/tag/come-together-blog-carnival/ (that was 7 minutes btw - so I went and got an orange and peeled it while waiting)

And that's about all I have to say - reading posts with links should be fantastic, but in fact I have to park the mouse indicator very carefully at the side of the screen, otherwise on wordpress and livejournal the pop-up boxes (which take so long to load they don't work for me anyway) do their pop-up thing and obliterate the writing I was trying to read - in much the same way as my cats delight to do.
Making a point via video - again, I'm sure that's of great benefit to those who can access them. I can't. If I upload a photo here, I'm working in another window for the five or ten or fifteen minutes it's uploading in the background. Someone links to a news site - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. An increasing number of sites are no longer dial-up friendly.
I've been told I'm so far out of town that there's no possibility of improving my connection speed - as a 'country cousin' I'm lucky to be here at all.

Is this how our children are 'protected'?

Wikipedia CPS for those non US-ians (as I am) who may be unclear on the purpose of Child Protective Services

Transcript of a discussion between Gene Ashdown of the CPS and Flora Jessop

Jessop: So on what grounds do you pull children out of homes?

Ashdown: Uhh if they've been… If they report to us that they have been sexually abused and the perpetrator is in the home and there's good indication that they can't be protected there by the non offending parent, they're out of there if there's serious physical abuse to the point where its felonious we pull those kids if the children don't have any caretakers we remove them temporarily till we can find out what's going on umm..

Jessop: And the fact that ruby had told people, several people that she has been married and that she had been forced to have sex meant nothing

Ashdown: It wouldn't mean anything as far as removing her. I don't know that anybody… I don't know that, is that the case?

Jessop: Yes that is the case

Ashdown: That we have the names and phone numbers and the witnesses that will come forward and swear it out

Jessop: I told you that when we met that she had admitted to that

Ashdown: Ok she's admitted to that and maybe to some people I don't personally do that investigation we have really good staff that does that I think in terms of this case I don't know how many people there are I wasn't aware of there was anybody that could swear it out and would it even make a difference I can only tell you from my experience if the child says no that didn't happen if she told a congregation that I have had sex with my father when we go to talk to her and she says no I was just kidding I told all those people that just for sensationalism that's it its over

Jessop: Well that seems screwed up to me

Ashdown: Well, Flora I don't know what else to do, you could… if you haven't got a child a verbal child normally intelligent who will corroborate that she has been married or forced to have sex and there are people who she has told that she has had sex even if those people come forward she can always say I was just kidding I just wanted to see what they would do

Jessop: And it ends there

Ashdown: Pretty much

Jessop: And she gets placed right back with the abuser?

Ashdown: If that's what she wants, because she's got to help a little bit. We've got to have a little help Theoretically Flora, all that she had to do in that interview was say there's people outside that brought me here I don't trust them Thank you for talking to me Please help me, I've had this happen to me and this happen to me they tried to talk me out of this they gave me whatever to try to keep me from saying this Please help me she would have gone straight from there into shelter straight on

Jessop: And how many kids do that?

Ashdown: A lot. We have kids in shelter right now

Jessop: I did that and what happened to me?

Ashdown: I don't know

Jessop: I got turned back over to them to

Ashdown: You set and told a police man that you had been sexually abused forced to have sex and a member of the division of family services and they said that's interesting and they gave you right back to the people?

Jessop: As a matter of fact, Yes. I was placed back into Fred Jessop's Custody

blog counters

Having access to - ahem - a few other site meters besides the one here

I is officially pissed off.

Consistently, abandoned blogs and blogs full of nonsense get higher stats than blogs wif sensibul stuff.

And like, we're talking about *8* times more (multiplication, not addition)
That's even more annoying than the handful of people who turn up here every day hanging out for cow porn (now maybe if I just stopped providing it...?)
*recounts* Actually, it was seven times as many visits *glowers at wee bro*

Cheap electricity!

So I know I said I wasn't going to be back on-line today, but this was just a bit too bizarre (and besides, it'll stop anyone else trying to cold-call).

At home, listening to rain and wondering if it's going to stop at all today. The phone rang.

Male cold-caller: Is this Mrs Howard please?
Sophie: Yes
Male c-c (after an explanatory bit of guff): Mrs Howard, who bills you for your electricity
Sophie: I can't remember right now
(no doubt their invoice is in the pile of bills I was working through when he called but I mean seriously, it's about six syllables and it's an electricity company).
Male c-c: I see. Well, would you be interested in an offer that will reduce your electricity charges?
Sophie: No thankyou. That's usually more hassle than it's worth.
Male c-c: Okay. Tell me, when would be the best time to call and speak to your husband?
Sophie: *pause* Next eternity?
Male c-c: No, no; when is the best time to call when your husband is home?
Sophie: *enunciates clearly* Next E-ter-ni-ty
Male c-c: Ah, okay
*hangs-up*

Actually, I'm not too sure who hung up first. I was almost laughing as I put the phone down - the sheer arrogance: halted at the first post he pleads for 'upper management'.
Me, I know from past experience you *never* answer a question about your male partner by telling the questioner you don't have one. Hence the pause. Next eternity - that's church doctrine. Apparently faithful members who fail to find their partner in this life will be partnered up in the next as their reward. Also, faithful people struggling with SSA (same-sex attraction) will be 'rewarded' with heterosexuality in the eternities.

I have a suspicion that if the teachings of the mormon church appear way-out or 'surreal', then when I talk about compulsory heterosexuality I don't mean quite the same as someone without this experience.
This *is* compulsory heterosexuality and multiplication. Who I am in this life, I'm told, is not who I'll be in the next if I'm a good girl.
It almost makes you want to go and break every commandment in the book just to convince that loving Father that you really, really don't want to morph into the supportive wife and loving mother that is your expected and *only* destiny (if you's a good girl).
So yeah, if Mr 'I can sell you cheap electricity' wants to speak to my husband he better look towards next eternity - and be well aware that I'll be doing all in my power to circumvent that promised future.

hydrangea in swamp

Hydrangeas aren't a garden flower here - they're growing along the edge of the creeks and gullies on farm, a gorgeous splash of colour amongst the greens/browns/yellows/russets.

"Sit. Stay!"

Isn't he obedient? (getting a posed photo from this boy is a chore and a half - he's getting better)

The internet is for cow porn

I woke up this morning with the irresistable urge to google spider porn, and just lookit what I found!
(apologies to those of you who have problems with more than four legs/eyes attached to one animal)

Cow Porn is so harmful to the ecosystem that there are moves afoot to create a support group for wannabe quitters. No consensus has yet been reached on the naming of this group.

Looks like a Beltie in the foreground there - a Scottish Native

Page five, Polly, try harder

The ultimate resource for images of Internet Dairy Cows

A young site with ambition to take over the industry - twilight cattle images

udderly cool

And because it's girly: a milk cow wearing pink
(and baby blue)

cats love computers

That archive list is scary. I is an old person.

has some of dese too:

Harsh reality

Almost every woman I know personally has been sexually assaulted or raped, and I know hundreds of women.[...]
Most of us never told anyone we were raped because we rightly feared we would not be believed, we would be blamed, we would be ostracized or shunned in some way, we would become the butt of jokes, we would be thought to be, or made to be, sluts, it was too much information, it tainted us, it dirtied us somehow. Our fear was appropriate, because we saw what happened when occasionally our womenfolk did tell others they were raped. We saw what happened to them. Or we feared telling anyone because we grew uarg all of the jokes about rape, seeing cartoons about rape, or being told it was impossible for a woman to be raped.

Heart: Surviving rape is a whole world of maybe but maybe nots

We have lived in a silence, unaware of the many that share so much with us. Our experiences, our thoughts.

Maybe if I had done something different, been somewhere different, said or thought or believed something different.

I read those words, and others by other women who know, and I remember thinking them. I remember how many years it took to convince myself that I *hadn't* had the power to prevent what happened, and should stop blaming myself. I can tell myself that, and still the thoughts recur - if only this, if only that. Some of them I've long laid to rest. The 'if only I'd got him out of my life before he crossed this, that, the other boundary' self-blaming ones, because I've never forgotten the extremes I went to from the very first time I met him to try and keep him away from me and out of my life.
I've since read the stories of women who begin in a similar situation, and end up in a long-term abusive relationship or married to their rapist. I feel very lucky.

Which is possibly a good time to drop another link I came across a while ago: Why Woman Stay in an Abusive Relationship

Let's not be silent any longer
I clicked away from The Burning Times onto a news site where the first headline informed me that a man accused of rape is writing his memoir. The national papers must be pretty damn short of filler for all the space they give to rapists to inform the nation they 'never harmed anyone'.

This is part of the 'silencing'. Speaking out is an act of bravery in the face of the rape deniers - but it is our truth, and truth cannot be hid or buried forever.

edited to add: In Solidarity - our truth

Spidy

My car is as clean as need be, until someone else is looking at it.

"I donated you a spider," I informed the garage owner. "It was on the fuel cap." I'd seen it drop to the ground and scurry away, a big round creature.

He thought about this. "You know what you should do," he said. "Train them to pull the car for you. You'd never have to refuel again."

Because all the cool folks is talking about cows

Blog against Sexual Violence Day: When the rape doesn't stop

A woman's body is Not for Sale This is a beautiful piece of writing by Rebecca. Please read it before continuing.

at any price.

Last month Abyss2hope blogged about a young woman who had been serially raped over a period of months

I've been wanting to write about this, to write something about what it's like, about how a girl can be in a situation where rape is part of living. When people deny that rape is rape if it happened more than once, when people say the girl must be a liar if she reports assault by several men at different times - they deny the reality of many girls and women.
People know that incest and CSA is like this - but when you're an adult, it's not CSA.
People know that prostition is somewhat like this, but it's not prostitution either. Yet I wasn't even sure how to begin talking about it until reading Rebecca's post this morning.

"I was raped again last night. I'm not ready to deal with it yet."
A seventeen year old wrote that sentence, nearly two years ago now, in the last entry on her blog. Her story was a rightly horrifying one. But she wasn't alone.

"These men would turn up at my home, uninvited, on days when I wasn't at work."
Louise Nicholas in Louise Nicholas, My Story

I remember being angry because of the sheer callousness with which I was being used. I remember thinking the word 'whore' and wondering why the bastard didn't just get himself a rubber doll since he obviously didn't want to relate to a human. In those days, I'd been socialised into the belief that 'whore' - someone who sold sex - was the lowest of the low.
I knew that no-one I told would believe it wasn't consensual, because it was happening too often to possibly be unwanted - no-one I could tell was there to see me fighting.
All I remember of that time is the anger and fear.

Women get trapped into situations like these, for too many reasons. The disbelief of those around them. The rapist's knowledge that he can get away with it. The failure of our laws, society and socialisation to give women tools to defend themselves (I'm thinking anti-rapist fire-arms here, for the ultimate protection of all women).

Being raped once is bad enough. Rape as a fact of life - is reality for way too many.

If you can't/won't do anything about it - at the very least, quit denying that it happens!

Why I worry about my sister

Some of these links may be triggering
More than a traumatic birth

The treatment these women received was enough to make them suffer to their very core, and do irreparable damage to their psyche. And yet the doctors who committed the act still practice, and the cycle continues.
Upon graduating from medical school, young doctors take an oath to protect their patients, and treat them with respect. In order to practice in this country, they are pledged to gain informed consent from their patients before providing treatment. Despite these oaths, they are causing such harm to women who deserve their utmost admiration and kindness.

This is why women choose to call it Birth Rape. Yes, it is used to shock. It is used to bring attention to something that is so significant, and yet never talked about.

The F-word - Not a happy birthday
Threatened, intimidated, bullied, violated: this is hospital birth as many mothers experience it. Amity Reed reports on the little-recognised crime of birth rape

The first two comments were from people who had no idea that childbirth was commonly associated with being mistreated/bullied/violated. I was surprised that they had no idea.
Why?

Well, I've encountered discussion of this topic often on the internet, but it wasn't internet stories that convinced me hospital births could be a majorly bad idea.

It was Mrs A, who told how the nurses had slapped her during childbirth. Who also said that she'd been shouted at and told to 'stop pushing, he'll arrive in the corridor'. She related her indignance of being treated 'like a teenager' when she was a woman in her forties having her third child. She's in her eighties now.

My mother is in her fifties. From her I've learned that stitches *hurt*. That being shaved feels horrible as it's growing back. That enemas are standard procedure (my child mind said 'ugh!'). That she was put under intense pressure to be surgically sterilised after every birth until the third "I think they gave up on me at that stage".

I visited Katie with her newborn and she told me how she 'behaved like a bitch' because she didn't want the nurses to touch her, but they told her it had to be done anyway (putting a monitor on her stomach).
That was her third birth. She 'slept through her second', terrified of repeating the trauamatic long labour of her first. For months approaching the third she was unable to relax, expecting once again the nightmare of her first delivery.

S had a planned caesarian while I worked for her family because a late scan showed the baby moving into breech position. An un-induced birth had never been an option given to her 'because of medical problems'.

A told the whole congregation after her birth how frightened she'd been because she'd been told that she would have to be induced if she went a week overdue and she didn't want to be induced - she went into labour naturally at five days over.

V had every baby after her first by caesarian because the doctors told her too much damage had been done first time.

J watched my boss assist a cow to calve. He told her "she's bellowing like that because of the labour, not because of what I'm doing,' and I thought to myself - she wasn't making a cheep till you stuck your hands in there and started pulling the calf. I applied lube liberally and caught the calf as it emerged, and J was enthralled, telling us how much better we were at delivering babies than the hospital. "Don't ever go there," she told me. "They just go snip snip." J was in her late forties with three teenage sons.

I visited my boss last year and he showed me the photos of his two new grandchildren, both born by caesarian. In every photo of one of the children his daughter lay, unmoving and expressionless, in the hospital bed.

B had her son by caesarean. "Every time I had a contraction his heart rate dropped," she told me. "The nurses said they had to get him out quick. I was a wuss." She thought her own anxiety had caused the problem and hence, the caesarean.

K, L and M have told me about two separate births, two little brothers, born in their mother's bedroom.

G told us about her experience in a natural birthing centre, finding herself a comfortable position on hands and knees. "It didn't hurt at all," she said in wonder. Her sister laughed. "You're lucky then. That's not normal."

There are good experiences out there. Overwhelmingly, I hear women talk about feeling ill-treated, or having to stand up aggressively for themselves against the medics. I know women who wouldn't contemplate a birth outside hospital, because of the fear that things might go wrong.

If it wasn't for one thing, I might accept these stories at face value and believe that birth was a particularly dangerous process and that the medicalisation of childbirth was truly for the benefit of both mother and child. Instead, I have a major problem with even begining to accept that idea.
I work with breeding cattle. Some years I've been responsible for the birth of three hundred and fifty calves in a twelve week period, some years I've overseen the calving process in less than a hundred and fifty cows.
Last year I 156 cows in my care calved. Out of the first hundred I assisted three calves into the world. Out of the next fifty, again, three were assisted - one of those a schistozome calf (genetic deformity).
Unless an inappropriate bull has been used, it's normal to assist 5 - 10% of births. Usually the reason for assisting is a malpresentation, or a still birth (an already dead calf doesn't actively try to jump out of the vagina the way a live one does). Sometimes milk fever is a factor, because calcium deficiency weakens muscle tone and hence, contractions.
How do I reconcile the fact that 95% of my cows birth safely in the paddock without any assistance at all, with the fact that perhaps 95% of women having babies go to the harsh medicalised environment of a hospital 'just in case something goes wrong' and up to 30% of those end up having caesarians while many of the remainder come home with a story of something 'having gone wrong'.
I've never in my career given a cow an episiotomy. The only vulval tearing I've ever seen was one cow who backed into a steel post during an assisted birth - the birth didn't cause it. One cow. Out of thousands.
You might say, 'well, women aren't cows'. Women often do say that.

S said her husband (a dairy farmer) said to her while she was in labour, "the cows do it all right."
"They've got four legs," she snapped back. "I've only got two and they don't work."
I didn't realise till much later that an epidural probably caused the lack of mobility. We've twice had the vet out to give an epidural to a cow - two out of several thousand. In both cases, because the cow was straining hard against a malpresented calf that needed to be pushed back into the uterus and repositioned for birthing.

The practises that were common when my mother gave birth are less normal now, and have been shown up for what they are - a convenience to the medics while of little value to the mother. When my mum went to hospital she would be given an enema, shaved and expected to birth lying on her back - I think in those days they may have used stirrups. Because birth obviously is such a damgerous process, women would be cut to enlarge the exit and ensure further ripping along the cut line (did I mention something about having never seen a cow badly ripped - tiny abrasion-type tears which heal within a day or two are normal) then re-stitched after the birth.
I have to say that while reading "Desert Children" I couldn't get western childbirthing procedures out of my head. How many women have suffered FGM if unneccesary episiotomies are added to the deliberate mutilations inflicted upon women and girls in the name of culture?
I don't recall whether a mother could have the assistance of a husband, friend or doula with her at that time, or if that change happened later. I do know the practice of whisking baby away and only allowing the mother short spells to see and feed her child was still normal.
Katie had a small room with Lily, when I visited. There was no separate nursery. Why should it ever be otherwise - to separate a mother from the child they've carried for nine months?

While I would hope to never have a child, I decided long ago that I was never going to darken the doors of a hospital without very good reason, if I did. It was a combination of being very familiar with the birthing process, an innate distrust of doctors, and stories like these that led me to that default decision.
Why do I worry about my sister? Because I'm certain as she takes advice from the people around her and her husband and in-laws, that she will be pressured into a hospital birth.
I have a good idea just how badly hospital births can go wrong (and a reasonable idea what can go wrong in an unassisted birth and when medical intervention might be needed - just as any good midwife or doula ought to have). I don't want that for my sister. I don't even want her to find herself going through a life-changing process in a strange environment among uncaring people.
For our mother's generation, hospital birth was the only and the right option. And so our mothers who have known the system and accepted it as normal often don't approve of the more 'modern' options of home birthing or natural birthing centres.

This is an issue we need to talk about: Debs, at The Burning Times, opens discussion

I'd like to see medics back off from childbirth altogether except for the few situations where they are truly needed. That's a hard line, not a universal one. It's true - and more worthy of discussion - that changes withn the system could do far better for women, without revolution. The early half of this century saw a steady progression towards the ulta-medicalisation of childbirth as the old midwife system was outlawed, hygiene procedures improved and at the ultimate, women were wooed by the promises of sleeping right through the labour and birthing process. Childbirth moved from homes into hospitals, and the practice of midwifery almost died. More recently, while lay midwifery has still been banned training has been provided to allow midwives to practise legally, and hence I think, the proportion of home births has increased.
When a home birth is transfered to hospital for complications, the midwife is subject to investigation and the newspapers make a field day of the incident.

Obstetrical rape: because it's not only during childbirth that women are abused by medics. Debs relates her own experience

In memorium: Barbara Seaman One woman makes a difference to women's health rights

By Heart of Women's Space - Ina May Gaskin, lay midwife

Just how ridiculous can a medical mindset towards birthing be?

Doctors convicted for medical rape - more from Hoyden About Town This is a good blog to explore for a knowledgeable view on this issue.

It's no doubt because of goings-on like the above that mothers-to-be find advice and comradeship in communities like naturalbirth and unassisted childbirth.

But perhaps we should be talking about the responsibility of medics to make hospitals a safe place for women, to be safe medics, to foster basic respect for women.

From last calving on my farm, one of my cows photgraphed through labour to new calf, unassisted The experience of childbirth when you're a dairy cow is quite another thing of course - this ain't the post to start discussing the buying, selling and forced breeding of bovine females.

Cow won't stand up after calving

Hey - you probably reached my blog yesterday and didn't find the answer here and kept on going.

First guess - she's got milk fever. If she's five years old or over, this is most likely. It's calcium deficiency, you need to give her calcium (if you're so inexperienced you need to google to find out why she's down/what to do about it, call a vet to supply and administer the calcium).
If you have other cows that age, keep a close eye on them as they approach calving. If they look at all wobbly on their feet and are within 24 hours of calving, give calcium (it can't be used earlier than that or may predispose to milk fever, google 'hypocalcaemia' if you need to know the reasons why). After calving, give calcium orally for as long as the cow apears to need it - until she is strong on her feet, or three to four days after (see vet for dose).
Even if there is another cause for her being 'down' treat as for milk fever. It's usually a complication.

Other causes: Difficult calving may cause calving paralysis. Anti-inflammatories may help. Otherwise just nurse her, keep her off slippery concrete, let her rest if she is having trouble walking. The ankle of one of her hind legs will usualy be knuckled under, or a whole leg may swing awkwardly. Time heals. In some cases the cow may be unable to rise at all due to calving paralysis - that sucks.

Acute mastitis - check her udder. She'll be sick, ears down, possibly high temperature.

There are a number of other reasons, but those three are the most likely. Apart from one - look at where she's lying. If her back is downhill of her legs, she ain't gonna rise unless she's a supercow. Physically roll her over (so her back is uphill of her legs) or pull her onto flat ground.

I did that to 153 night before last and now she thinks I'm her bestest friend.
Calving is a stressful time. My 153 has an underlying condition that means she might not survive to calving, and if she does, might not last for long after calving. The reason she is weak enough now to find herself lying downhill with her legs up is that she has a damaged liver, from eating poisons. Cows like her can go down after calving.

Then there's grass staggers (hypomagnesaemia), bloat (milk fever can induce bloat), severe acidosis (grain feeding?), various old others that only a vet could tell you.

Blogging about rape

I don't want any survivor to feel as alone as I felt after being raped. I don't want the loudest voices to be of those making excuses for the sexually violent.
Marcella Chester

Marcella blogs at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open

Why do I like this blog? This could be one of those 'list a hundred reasons' exercises so I'll start with the most obvious.

As a survivor, Marcella finds the words to describe what I can't say. Rape is not a unique experience and rapists are not unique - not all survivors can speak safely about what happened, but we can recognise our own stories in others.

As a survivor, Marcella knows that rapists are not monsters and that they don't look or behave any differently to normal people. In blogging this, she helps me (and probably many others) to acknowledge a past that couldn't exist in the minds of those who have been taught that rape is the act of a monster, not a normal person.

As a person with a dedicated blog she approaches the subject from a wide range of angles. Sometimes the discussion is about men in general, and what they can do to stop rape. Sometimes it's about the victim's experience. It's about acknowledging trauma. Reporting the news. Discussing needed change. Discussing socialisation. Considering legalities, and going beyond to what recovery really means, what impact rape has on all involved.
Acknowledging rape deniers and the harm they do - but beyond that, also discussing the conditions that create denial as the norm. Her complete failure to 'take sides' is refreshing - the only hard-line is that rape is wrong.

In a culture where females are commonly attacked for speaking out, her dedication is a feat of strength - I honestly don't know how you do it, Marcella, but I'm very glad you do.

Abyss2hope is also the home of the bimonthly Carnival Against Sexual Violence and will once again co-ordinate a Blog Against Sexual Violence Day this year, on 3 April 2008.

Speaking Out

against pornography

Why do men lie?

When it's something that doesn't matter, or shouldn't matter. Like masturbation or watching porn - accepted, normal activities in this day and age. Fantasising - everyone has sexual fantasies, so they say (they don't, but just try and convince those who do and claim the right to fantasise about random wumman minding her own business that not everyone does it and you'd think from their reaction that you'd just said horses regularly fly around the moon).

Which face does he show you, which does his friends see, which is his own?
And then you know him a little longer and the face crumbles into the dust from which it was formed, and then you learn about the other faces, the ones he knew you wouldn't like.
Or thought you wouldn't like.

But lies don't matter now if you're trapped.
Matter to him. But to you it's the double betrayal, when he goes back on his word on one thing, proves himself a liar in another, and denies it all at the same time - rapes you while insisting he isn't raping you because you really want it.
But last week he promised he'd never touch you.
The week before he told you he's never touched himself save for washing and demanded an assurance from you that you'd never done so either.

The fabrication crumbles, yet he accepts that loss and carries on, blatant while still denying - denying his own actions even as they happen, his own words as soon as they are said. Turning the hurt he causes back on the victim "it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't pulled away".

They lie about things that in their world-view are normal and approved.
Surely not because they *know* it's wrong??

Spiralling tighter into defense of the wrong, does anyone see? Cobweb vibes, can they be hid? Spiralling into the depths in defense of the indefensible.
But see the coloured silk, the singing lines, the cobweb vibe.
Watch the golden reeds emerge, the golden hair that won't stay hid.