Naomi Wolf's book "Misconceptions" was mentioned in another thread, and I felt strongly enough about that book to start this as a separate topic.
I've now read this book twice, and was shocked and disappointed both times by Naomi, a supposed feminist, and her seeming helplessness and lack of determination throughout her pregnancy.
She makes three excellent points in the book: One, that "What to Expect When You're Expecting" is a load of patronizing garbage; two, that public playgrounds in the US leave a huge amount to be desired (they're not even fenced in for the childrens' safety); and three, that postaprtum depression is not talked about enough.
For the rest of the bok, though, I just wanted to tell Naomi to wake up, stop whining, and do what any normal woman with half a brain would do: a little research.
Naomi goes to a doctor when she learns she is pregnant. This doctor, apparently chosen for his prestige factor rather than because Naomi felt comfortable with him, does not instantly divulge to Naomi the practice's C-Section rate, a number that Naomi and others like her seem to think is incredibly important, when in reality it's fairly arbitrary and useless in determining your individual chances for a c-section. Naomi seems to think there is some dark conspiracy in the fact that there's no law that says this number has to be divulged.
Although Naomi has both a college education and internet access, she has never heard of natural childbirth, nor does she bother to read any pregnancy books other than "What to Expect." She spends no time searching for any birth alternatives for herself, despite the fact that she is somewhat uncomfortable with her care throughout her pregnancy. She seems to think that asking about c-section rates makes her a hawk, a real sharp cookie, but does not bother to ask any relevant questions about what might lead to a c-section, who would perform it, who would make the decision to perform it, etc. Again, Naomi is so determined that The Evil Medical Patriarchy is hiding something important from her by not telling her how many c-sections they perform (and how many epidurals women in their care require-as if that has anything to do with ANYTHING. Most women WANT epidurals-doctors don't force them on women, so how many women at a particular practice choose pain relief means NOTHING) that she doesn't bother to find out anything relevant at all. She then blames the medical establishment for her own ignorance.
She ends up with a c-section, and describes her terror during the procedure. Again, because Naomi has sailed through her pregnancy, seemingly paying little thought to what she actually wants from labor, what actually happens in labor, and what she can do to help the process along, she has also not paid any attention to-not even skimmed-the sections of "What to Expect" that deal with c-section. So Naomi's terror, while still a shame that she felt it, can really be blamed on Naomi and not on her doctor.
Now Naomi has more things to whine about in her self-absorbed little world. The horrible unfairness of a medical industry that did not actively encourage her to leave it and deliver her baby elsewhere. The awfulness of having a healthy baby but of not knowing for sure if that baby actually could have been safely delivered vaginally. (Hey, the docs said she needed a section-but what do they know? She never really explains why the section was necessary, so we have no way of judging.) The shock of realizing that, hey, she LOVES her baby, and maybe havig children is a bigger deal than Naomi has ever claimed it to be, when they urge women to leave their babies with strangers because work is what's important in life. And how awful, how terrible, it is to have to have the nanny help you bathe the baby. How miserable Naomi is, with her in-home nanny care! How hard it is for her! The fact that most women-women feminist Naomi claims to represent-cannot afford such things does not occur to her.
Nor does it occur to her that most women do not have indoor play areas like the one she describes, where Moms sit on a balcony and watch as employees play with and supervise their toddlers. Naomi acts as if this dismal playground is just too, too terrible, to clinical, too draining on the Moms, never even thinking that to poor stay-home mothers, a lace where ther people will watch and play with your child so that you can read or chat with friends sounds like heaven-no matter how bright the flourescent lighting is.
Two things really stand out for me: One. While pregnant, it suddenly occurs to Naomi that perhaps-perhaps-there is something slightly immoral about a man spinning his sperm to create femal embryos, then planting six embryos into his wife, then, at 20 weeks, discovering that the wife is in fact pregnant with four babies, and so selectively aborting the non-girls. She is treated like she is insane by her friends for daring to question this. She is similarly shocked to realize that the fetuses in crack-addicted pregnant women are in fact fetuses, whop will become babies, and maybe she should have taken this into account when protesting the way the gov't took away welfare benefits from crack-addicted mothers. Not that she was right or wrong in protesting-but the fact that she had not even thought before about the babies growing in those crack-addict women was shocking to me.
Two.
When Naomi becomes pregnant a second time, she again goes to the most expensive, ritziest doctor she can find. "Exclusive," is the word she uses. Clearly she has learned nothing from the research she began doing after her first child's birth. It almost seems to the reader that Naomi is encuraging other women to go to midwives and have babies at home so that she herself will have an easier time getting appointments with Doctor Fashionable. It's good enough for us plebes to have home births, but not for Naomi, thanks. She'll lecture-sorry, "educate"-us on what we should do, but we certainly shouldn't expect her to do such a thing! What would the ladies at the club say? So naomi has another c-section and again blames the medical establishment and not herself for excercising her rights.
There are thousands of OB/GYNs in the US, each of whom has a different philosophy or way of doing things. It's your responsibility to research them and speak up for what you want-not theirs.
