Recording of 'Obstetric Violence: A Multidisciplinary Analysis', 18 May 2023

The speakers, Prof Sara Cohen Shabot, Dr Nicole Daniels, and Dr Rachelle Chadwick draw from feminist phenomenology and epistemology, reproductive oppression, and 'passion, pleasure and power' to explore issues related to obstetric violence

Recording: Obstetric Violence: A Multidisciplinary Analysis

Abstracts:

Professor Sara Cohen Shabot (Associate Professor at the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, University of Haifa)

'Obstetric Violence – A Perspective from Feminist Philosophy'

Obstetric violence – violence against women giving birth in medicalized settings – has been widely recognized as a phenomenon affecting numerous women globally and systematically, and as one that is in urgent need to be tackled and solved. Obstetric violence is not mere medical violence but constitutes structural gender violence. In my research, I have dealt with different aspects of the phenomenon from the perspective of feminist philosophy, mainly feminist phenomenology, and epistemology. I will discuss some of my insights on the subject in the present lecture.

Dr Nicole Miriam Daniels (Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of Witwatersrand and the Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town and Maternity Collaborative Lead on Usha Lesizalo at Percept)

'Passion, Pleasure and Power. Rethinking the Three P's of Labour to Transform Birthing Relationships and Experiences'

Traditionally the three P’s of labour are understood in medical terms that relate to the passageway (pelvis), the powers (contractions), and the passenger (baby). Instances of medicalised understandings o these concepts often focus on a deficit. For example, in the augmentation of labour to accelerate labour or intensify contractions, and the phenomenon of cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD) where the baby’s head or body is too large to fit through the mother’s pelvis. A similar deficit exists in relation to notions of obedient birthing bodies that deny or marginalise a wider spectrum of ways of being during labour and birth, including as ‘loud’, assertive, knowing, inwardly attentive, watchful, radiant, passionate, aroused, sensual, expressive, and self-reliant. Drawing on my experiences as a birth giver and doula I attempt to re-purpose passion, pleasure and power as conceptually exuberant terms that evoke births’ life affirming nature. Conversations, discourses and activism around obstetric violence is important and sorely needed. At the same time, there is a pressing need to remember what is essential and life affirming about birth and birth giving. So that we can tend, not only to the wounds of our current cultural experiences, but also those seeds that hold the promise of succulent fruits. 

Dr Rachelle Chadwick (Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria)

'Invisible Cages: Obstetric Oppression and the Question of Violence'

In this paper, I work with a methodology of discomfort to reflect on some difficult questions that have arisen from my work on obstetric violence. While committed to the political lexicon that is enabled by the concept of obstetric violence and the feminist activism that it mobilizes, I pause to pay attention to the possible difficulties, risks, and limitations of the term. After meditating on these difficulties, I suggest that a more extensive theorisation of the relations between obstetric violence and oppression might enable us to hold onto both complexity and precision in our ongoing efforts to formulate, define, and struggle against birthing injustices. Using the work of Marilyn Frye, Ann Cudd, and Iris Marion Young, I suggest that obstetric violence needs to be understood as part of a broader ensemble of reproductive oppression and offer some initial thoughts about these inter-relations.