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We are pleased to announce that The Drawing Board blog has officially surpassed 10,000 readers for the year 2016. As it is only August, we anticipate further growth right until the end of the year as we build our international writing audience.

Thank you for being part of our writing, social justice, feminist and activist communities. Without readers like you, these would just be unread words in cyber space. Instead, your feedback and support have nourished our skills and the home where they are honed.

We hope to find you reading and sharing your thoughts more and more as the year goes on.

In solidarity,

Nakita Valerio

Owner, Editor in Chief

The Drawing Board

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Last night at the AMPAC Women’s Safety Class, Strong Orange Violence Prevention instructor (and writer at The Drawing Board), Rachael Heffernan was putting forms of violence on a spectrum from “bothering” to “life-threatening”. Certain types of violence could fit on multiple places in the spectrum depending on a number of factors, including who is perpetrating the violence. She then brought up the subject of a perpetrator that is all-too-often forgotten: ourselves.

Whenever people take self-defense training or women’s empowerment classes, they are often taught about what to do when you experience violence or harassment from strangers (especially) and, less often, from people you know. Of course, the occurrences of violence (both physical and sexual) are statistically lopsided, meaning that you are much more likely to be violated by someone you know (family, friends, colleagues, mentors), but it still stands that all too many violence prevention courses focus on outward violence and neglect what happens when we internalize violence and direct it at ourselves. Statistics about self-violence (including negative self-talk) simply do not exist.

Before we go there, I want to talk about something else that Rachael brought up because it is an important factor in all of this, especially in “getting home safe” which is the mantra of the class. Very often, our ability to be assertive and stand our ground in the face of external oppression or violence is directly connected to how we value ourselves. Rachael put it best on the car ride home when she said that conceding to anothers’ whims (even if they violate our rights) because we don’t want to “upset them” or because “we can bear the brunt of the pain” is fundamentally flawed logic because it causes or is rooted in self-devaluation. The other person’s worth is deemed to be more than your own.

This is the first instance in which negative self-talk can harm you: in how you deal with harmful situations perpetuated by others. If you are constantly down on yourself, feeling you aren’t worth the time of day for anyone, you are much more likely to put yourself last, even when in life-threatening or dangerous situations. This is a common narrative we hear among victims of sexual assault, particularly when the aggressor is someone they know. Victims can admit that they swallow their pain and just want the whole incident over with, fearing they weren’t “assertive enough” so something like being raped is inherently their fault.

It is never your fault.

And the anxiety and self-rage that comes from feeling like you made a mistake in being assaulted can lead to further self-devaluing and the potential for future vulnerabilities in the face of both external and internal aggressors. This is what we are talking about when we say that people get caught in the cycle of abuse and do not know how to break out.

One place you can start is by stopping violence against yourself first. The way to do this is to recognize it as violence. If you view yourself as an aggressor, you can start to see how violence against yourself also appears on the spectrum from “bothering” to life-threatening. Some specialists recommend viewing your aggressor voice as an adult and your inner self, which it chastises, as a small child. This can help illuminate just how much we bully ourselves.

Bothersome violence might be how you look at yourself in the mirror. Thinking that you have parts that sag or have too much cellulite, or that the body you were given just doesn’t look like every airbrushed magazine or filtered Instagram pic you see online. It could be in how you hear yourself speak in a room full of peers. They are hearing the words flowing out of your mouth and all you hear is how many “ums” and pauses and poor word choices you make and if only you wouldn’t open your mouth in the first place, then you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Or it might be thinking about everything you said and did hours later, or days, or years. At the heart of these ruthless criticisms (which, by the way, we would be very unlikely to accept from anyone but ourselves) is anger.

And anger leads to rage.

And rage leads to more violence.

So much so that you might move along the spectrum from being bothersome to downright dangerous. Negative self-talk gives way to destructive behaviours. It can lead to eating disorders, to binge drinking, to excessive drug use, it can lead to self-medicating with food, it can lead to sex addiction or self-harm like cutting or burning. All of these things are dangerous behaviours that stem from self-rage, that stem from a feeling of anger directed inwards. It might be (and usually is) exacerbated by social isolation – but thinking we aren’t good enough might also cause us to retreat and vice versa.

Dangerous to life-threatening is a slippery slope. These behaviours can easily turn to suicidal ideation or attempts. The slow simmering burn of anger feeds the fires of depression, anxiety and trauma like nothing else.

So, what puts those fires out? How can we stop the violence against ourselves once we recognize it for what it is?

Firstly, realize that this is not intrinsically how your brain works. It has been trained to think this way and it can be trained not to. It is not an easy road, but it is possible and it has to be undertaken to interrupt those negative thoughts and actions while learning to replace them with positive and beneficial ones. It can be an uphill battle with poor self-image messages in society inundating us day after day, but by learning to dampen their voice and raising your own, among other powerful women, we can start to replace those messages.

Getting help is important. Seek out counseling or other mental health-care providers, and do not stop if they tell you that you are fine but you know you still hurt yourself. At my first session on University campus, I told my counselor that I had suicidal ideation in moments of rage which stem from a birth trauma I experienced and she concluded the session by saying that she won’t be seeing me again because I “seem to have it all together”. Another counselor I saw told me I am the highest functioning patient she has ever met and she didn’t know why I needed to see her, even though symptoms of PTSD regularly inhibit my personal joy and daily existence. Do not stop looking for someone to help you. There are problems with the system and how people access it, but continuing to ask for help is a sign that you are healing and removing the obstacle of isolation.

Be holistic in your approach and put your mental health first. Yes, before anything else. Before your family, before your kids, before your job, before your career. None of that matters if you are suffering daily violence and are at risk of hurting yourself. Everything else can wait. Yes, ladies, even your children. Lean on family, on friends, on childcare providers. Get to your appointments, get to the gym, make time to eat well and sleep well. Be shameless about this. These things are just as important for you as they are for your family. Stable mental health creates stable home environments and stability means that your children and spouses won’t ever have to face a day without you on this earth. Do not listen to the lies in your head that everyone is better off without you. That you always screw things up. Your family never, ever, ever wants to see a day on this earth without you. Ever. Just ask them: they will testify to that truth. And if they don’t, or your spouse tells you to jump off a bridge, walk out. You are worth walking out for. You are worth your own safety.

Even though it seems like I am just getting started, I want to conclude with this: be gentle with yourself. Perfection is not an ideal anyone should strive for. Fail and try again. Succeed and try again. Be gentle with yourself as you would expect a kind, loving parent (whom you may have never had) to be with you as a child. Be gentle with yourself as you would expect a respectful spouse (whom you may have never had) to be with you as a lover. Be gentle with yourself as a child intuitively is with their own parents. Be gentle with yourself.

This earth is vast. Its history is long. Its space is immense. Take up your rightful place on this journey and work towards being well. I am with you on that path and I know you are with me too.

This article was written by Nakita Valerio, owner and editor in chief of The Drawing Board. Nakita  is an academic, activist and writer in the community. She is currently pursuing graduate studies in History and Islamic-Jewish Studies at the University of Alberta.  Nakita was named one of the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation’s Top 30 under 30 for 2015, and is the recipient of the 2016 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as the Walter H. Johns Graduate Studies Fellowship. She has also been honoured with the State of Kuwait, the Queen Elizabeth II and the Frank W Peers Awards for Graduate Studies in 2015. She has been recognized by Rotary International with an Award for Excellence in Service to Humanity and has been named one of Edmonton’s “Difference Makers” for 2015 by the Edmonton Journal. Nakita is also the co-founder of Bassma Primary School in El Attaouia, Morocco.

For more information on mental health services in Edmonton, Alberta: click here. For everywhere else, please contact your local health service provider.

If this is an emergency, please get help by calling 911 or medical professional immediately.

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In personal solidarity with Alberta’s First Nations and Indigenous communities, The Drawing Board owner, Nakita Valerio, is raising money raising money in support of the Young Indigenous Women’s Circle of Leadership youth camp by getting sponsorship for a 5km run on October 8th, 2016.

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The money will be donated to the YIWCL to be used for basic operational costs of their 8-day intensive, Cree-immersion cultural camp. Recently, this camp lost funding and faces an uncertain future.

This initiative means a lot to me because I have learned that one of the first points of cultural erosion and social disorder is the erasure of a community’s history and culture. In my experience in women’s advocacy, I have also learned that incredible social change comes through the empowerment of women and the creation of safe spaces in which they can learn and grow.

I am doing my very small part to get fundraising kick-started for this very worthwhile cause and would appreciate your support of both my social justice and exercise efforts in the meantime.

Donors will receive social media shout-outs and other perks along the way.

Help spread the word!
IMAGE CREDIT: Artist Aaron Paquette – please visit his blog HERE and support local artists.

 

 

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I was approached by The Green Room (IFSSA) to share stories of my life at an event called OUTSPOKEN on March 29th. The event was an intimate gathering in a carpeted room of vivid colours, sparkling lights and star decorations hanging from the ceiling. There were four women, including me, gathered on cushions on the floor, sitting and facing a small audience of several dozen. The atmosphere was friendly and informal. It was a safe space – a “container” one woman called it- where words that are said are not be repeated, but are to be felt nonetheless: the residue of our affect being what we carry away with us. The beauty of just listening to stories lived by those among us, our sisters, immediately resonated with me, and the impermanence of it struck me. We just had right now to connect before we were swept into our lives again. The room became a liminal space, equalized and perfumed with communitas where we spoke and were heard: a lost art forged anew.

What follows is the story I told, for the first time, in a public space.

When I was first asked to speak about my story in womanhood, my first thought was “what does that even mean?” I was worried I would be participating in a discussion about normative femininity in which the dictates of some so-called essential female characteristic traits were expected to be invoked when I really only believe that gender is culturally prescribed and performed.

As a Muslim, I have a prescription and I engage with my performance of what “being a woman means” (for me) daily, but I don’t think this has any essential tenets beyond:

-being equal to men (which is an equally performative category)

-and having prescribed roles, but not necessarily traits or ways of being within those roles.

As Muslims, all of us are implored to swallow our anger or pride, to act justly, to seek knowledge and to be examples of peace and kindness for everyone.

So I won’t be talking about softness or intuitive motherhood, or the kinder, more nurturing sex. I will be talking about what happens when universalizing narratives suffocate individual stories of what “womanhood” really means, on an individual level – stories which are the reason we are gathered today.

Naturally, I thought of the moment that most people would associate with womanhood, (if we are to talk of such a thing) – so today, I am going to tell the story of my child’s birth in a series of vignettes and I hope, that in doing so, we see how damaging normative, essentializing womanhood characteristics can be, because for every trauma I experienced in that birth, each event making up the whole event, we can trace it back to what someone else thought my womanhood ought to be.

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

The bags were heavy, cutting through my fingers as they spun around and around. The sunshine exploded across the dusty street as I carried my groceries down the block to the front of my apartment building. Humidity fogged my glasses, perched over reddened cheeks, and wisps of hair poked out from my hijab, plastered to my temples.

My steps were slow and careful as my floor-length djelleba skirted the street at my ankles and my body lumbered and swayed under the girth of my swollen belly and two armloads of groceries.

Astafirghallah, God forgive me, I muttered under my breath as I stared at the staircase to my apartment building. Five storeys up. I’d have to carry these bags five storeys up, choked by my hijab, trying not trip on my djelleba, trying not to curse my husband’s name too loud for fear my neighbours might hear me.

I had had what some might call a perfect pregnancy, without complications and with plenty of sunny days spent writing in Moroccan cafes on the Mohammedia beach or evenings spent teaching my students at the English Center. My husband had left for Europe at the opening of my third trimester to finalize his permanent residency there.

As I lumbered up the stairs with my groceries, I could hear our earlier conversation replaying in my head, spiraling up those stairs with me.

It shouldn’t be much longer, he’d said.

You said that last week, I replied.

Why can’t you just adapt without me? he shouted.

The question cut through my laboured breathing as I took a break in front of my neighbour’s landing. I rubbed my purple creased fingers while my bags rested on the floor, touching the place where my wedding ring had been before I had taken it off from the swelling.

What did it mean to adapt? Especially to a place not your own, a land of your adopted grace where the language reached your ears in a garbled euphonious mess, the tea was always frothy and nothing ever made any sense. What did it mean to adapt? Especially alone, spending silent days chopping vegetables in the kitchen or singing You Are My Sunshine to the growing stranger in your womb. What did it mean to adapt when you went to doctor’s appointments alone, feigning understanding in three different languages, while this wholly mysterious process you were now tied to (a train you could not get off) would just continue beyond your control in a place where everything else is beyond your control too.

Adapting meant being quiet: accepting exile in stride. It meant exodus, like Mariam (May Allah be pleased with her), reminding yourself not fear but feeling it all the same. It meant swallowing that fear and putting a smile on your face so you mother can hear it on her end of the phone in Canada. It’s telling everyone you’re fine, when you’re not.

It is the triumph of reaching your door after five storeys in oppressive heat, the triumph of making it home again, that you did do it alone, but wishing you didn’t have to.

***

My doula arrived a few days after my husband returned from Italy. We met her at the airport and drove back to our place to unpack her bags and get her settled in. She’s a bubbly person who wears only black and has developed an anxiety about how many rolls of toilet paper you have in the house. She took our bedroom while my husband and I crammed into the spare, sleeping on two twin beds, only a few feet apart but separated by oceans.

We spent two weeks writing birth plans and going over the process so I could know what to expect. We spent our days watching marathons of our favourite shows, getting her to try the latest tajine at a local restaurant of experimenting with making couscous in my kitchen – a room where the cupboards held the moisture of the ocean and always smelled musty, and where an open window was an invitation for songbirds to snag your bread off the counter.

One afternoon, we went to the beach and she floated me in the ocean, wearing a long blue dress that disappeared beneath the lazy waves, my rounded belly bobbing up over the water line – a growing vessel. Layers of water within water pulling you the center and pushing you out again. The sky was clear that day and the sound of laughter carried over the waves from the beach, where kids (out of classes) played soccer with a broken Coke bottle and you could hear the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves in the sand as a police officer made his rounds, checking the marriage licenses of necking couples along the shore. I had put my head below the surface, my hijab protecting my ears from the cold bite of the water, and a bubble formed. A time of quiet and calm where I could feel the baby move in time to the sea’s rhythm and I wondered when I would meet her.

***

How could you?  I moaned as each contraction brought me up, way up and then crashing down again. I was vocal while labouring, my doula fighting back both laughter and sometimes tears at what came out of my mouth. It ranged from a long hellllooooooooo to proposing marriage to my husband again. Will you marry me? was interspersed with how could you leave me here?

In a chair with impossibly high arms in the spare bedroom, I laboured like a queen on a throne, feeling the shuddering and opening of my body while my husband read a newspaper in the next room. Opppppeeeeennnnnnn, I groaned to myself, wind rushing from depths I didn’t know I had and whistling through my teeth.

Outside the window, we were in a cloud as a fog rolled off the ocean and took over our block, the haze of the streetlights barely strong enough to cut through. The fog covered everything and the walls dripped as my body wrenched itself open in ways I had never imagined. In moments of rest, I thought, “Who has control over this?” And another contraction would hit as I called out to Allah.

I didn’t wish for death or oblivion then, as I knew Mariam (may Allah be pleased with her) had beneath the palm tree. That would not come until later.

***

The doctor was looking at me and screaming for me to push. I did not know how long I had been there, how long she had been screaming at me, her hands making a slicing motion as she threatened me with a C-section.

My legs were locked into table stirrups. The left one kept falling down and a nurse kept strapping it back in. The same nurse who had kicked my doula out of the room and injected me with Pitocin against my will to speed up the contractions. Everything was in and out after that until this moment of pushing. At some point, I had been cut, a vacuum used on my child’s head, the stomach I had been so careful not to bump into anything – jumped on by the nurse. Snapshots amidst blackness.

And suddenly, my husband’s hand in mine and his voice from somewhere far away: “She’s telling you to push.”

“Oh, I see,” I replied calmly, not realizing I was screaming.

I set aside the images of this doctor telling me to shut up and let her do her job. I put aside her rage when I had ventured to ask what she was doing to me, as if my baby was coming from her body and not mine. I put aside my own tears while her slices silenced me.

I found a tiny light inside myself, closed my eyes and pushed down on it. The first push was exploratory and the light got brighter. I found the place my strength comes from. I snapped my eyes open, locking them with this doctor, hearing her laughter in my face a few weeks back when I said I had a plan and a doula. I pushed down on that light and it got brighter. My eyes never left that doctor’s face.. She would not rob me of this.

I birthed in rage. And the light got brighter and more blinding. I felt the sway of my husband to my side as a nurse caught him and pulled him out of the room, on the verge of fainting. The light filled the room and a sound emerged from it that has no description: animalistic, but musical; the sound of being a part of creation, of ultimate hereness, of right now.

And before my husband’s feet passed the door’s threshold, my daughter let out a cry and the light dissipated across the room.

***

I don’t know when I laid my head down but the next thing I remember was the nurse massaging where a baby had been, a baby who was now crying across the room. There was a woosh and a splatter at the sound of my blood hitting the floor. It sounded like the ribbons of water on the pavement when the Berber women washed away the evening dust.

The sound of my blood hit the floor in time to my voice, soothing my whimpering child. You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.

Someone asked my husband my blood type.

A negative, he replied.

Allah! was all that came back.

***

When I woke up, I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t breathing. All I wanted to do was take a nice, deep breath. But I couldn’t. I started counting the seconds, trying to track how long it had been, trying to remember how long the human brain could be deprived of oxygen before it became a vegetable.

Sounds of the room flooded into my ears. My eyes would not open. Someone was between my legs, sewing me up.

I’m in surgery, I realized. I’m awake in surgery.

Why haven’t I taken a breath yet? I ask myself, forgetting the breathing tubes down my throat.

Is death coming? Oblivion?

I hear my heart racing on the monitor, impossible to find spaces between the beats.

And in this space, I remember Mariam, leaning against the palm tree, crying out.

I mourn the life my daughter will have without me and in my head, I say my shahadah.

La ilaha ill Allah, Muhammadur rasoul Allah

***

Someone is holding my hand. I can feel soft hair on the knuckles. It is a strong hand and it keeps trying to let go but I am grasping at it. I have to hold onto it.

What did you eat for breakfast?  he asks.

I don’t understand, I reply.

His tone gets more urgent. Just tell me what you ate for breakfast, sister.

Why are you asking me this? I reply in broken Arabic.

He starts firing questions to nurses and looking under my eyelids at my pupils. I realize he thinks I am Arab and can’t understand why I am barely making sense.

Brother, I’m Canadian. I’m not Arab. I’m alive. I squeeze his hand.

He chuckles, You’re alive, sister.

Allahu Akbar! What’s your name brother? Don’t let go of my hand.

Abdul Aziz, he replies as he wheels me to my room to see my daughter.

The slave of the Mighty One.

The One who provides, without discrimination,

The One, who when Mariams leans on the palm, rains dates upon her for sustenance.

As time moves on, each triumph comes to me like the sweet chewy flesh of a date, a hard-earned delight that fills your mouth with joy for a moment in an ever-changing and endless stream of a life that will never be the same.

Like the time I crawled up those same five storeys on my hands and knees, taking an hour to reach my apartment door, shaking. Still triumphant.

Or the time, six months later, I raced up them two by two, skidding through my front door with a bouncing baby on my hip.

***

What does it mean to adapt?

It means finding that light within you, that space where your strength comes from, and pressing on it, even in the face of those who try to dictate what you are made of, and then letting that light fill the room.

It means embracing the exodus and the resiliency you earn because of it.

In that moment, before the dates fell, when the doctor placed my daughter on my lap for the first time, I closed my eyes, heard the sound of Mariam’s bubbling stream below me, and slept.

 

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You may have noticed by now, but the women of The Drawing Board have accumulated considerable professional and academic successes in the form of accomplishments and awards. And we shamelessly celebrate these events every time they arise. While there is a lot to be said about online issues of contributing to another’s depression or low self-esteem when we celebrate our own successes, it is important to realize that publicizing these facts goes beyond mere celebration: they are acts of political defiance and feminist resistance.

Every time I have been inclined to share a success, I have been hesitant for a variety of reasons. In Islam, we are encouraged to thank God first (which I do, alhamdulilah) and to avoid showing off in front of others. Additionally, Muslims are taught about the dangers of the evil eye – or jealousy that comes from unexpected sources. The other reason I hesitate is my personality. For anyone who knows me personally, they know that self-confidence has only come with a lot of work in the realm of self-development and, even then, only recently. When you don’t think highly of yourself, and don’t want to think highly of yourself (as an ascetic practice) it is difficult to see the benefit of announcing your accolades publicly.

But there are a few reasons to do it.

Firstly, as Rachael has reminded me, people who are successful are often entangled in numerous projects and initiatives – so much so that they can forget to take the time to recognize what they have done. For people who are particularly focused on the betterment of their community and other altruistic work, it can be tragic to fail to realize how far you have come and the difference you have made.

For activists and academics in particular, this is especially important. Our communities (along with artists) tend to suffer from mental illnesses disproportionately. Additionally, activists can be focused on how much more work we have to do, and will push to make change tirelessly, not taking a breath in the meantime. The constant focus on the negative (on what is left to be done) can cast shadows over the light-filled ventures that activist projects can be for the communities they serve. And it can take away from the actual change initiated, making our work feel more like a performance than anything else. A moment of celebration or recognition can be the antidote to negativity before we put our nose to the grindstone again.

For academics, the focus on “what is left to do” is also ever-present, perhaps more so. In academia, you are constantly reminded of the greats who came before you, and how what you do will “never be enough.” Yesterday’s doctoral degree is today’s post-doc. A colleague of mine recently passed his candidacy and is now ABD (All But Dissertation) for his PhD program and when he made this monumental announcement via social media, he received some comments like “Don’t get too comfortable” or “Now the real work begins” when I personally think the only thing in order was a solid congratulations (which also came in droves). I can’t say how he felt nor what the others meant by those comments (he doesn’t even know I am writing this or thought about it), but I couldn’t help but feel like the reminders that others have “been there and done that” diminished the countless, likely sleepless, hours he had spent to get to that point. But that’s just me.

The second reason that it’s important to celebrate accomplishments comes to me from Liz. When I was really worried about posting that I had received the SSHRC for the coming academic year and to support my thesis research, Liz reminded me that, especially for women, the celebration of our recognition is its own form of social activism and feminist resistance. For me, celebration gives time and space to countless hours of work and tireless efforts. It means that long nights and juggled commitments have not been in vain. That slogging towards a better future can not only be recognized in the here and now, but ought to be. It is injecting a “good news” story into the prevailing narratives of oppressive patriarchy and can inspire others to pursue their dreams, whatever their inhibitions about them.

Nakita Valerio is an academic, activist and writer in the community. She is currently pursuing graduate studies in History and Islamic-Jewish Studies at the University of Alberta.  Nakita was named one of the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation’s Top 30 under 30 for 2015, and is the recipient of the 2016 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as the Walter H. Johns Graduate Studies Fellowship. She has also been honoured with the State of Kuwait, the Queen Elizabeth II and the Frank W Peers Awards for Graduate Studies in 2015. She has been recognized by Rotary International with an Award for Excellence in Service to Humanity and has been named one of Edmonton’s “Difference Makers” for 2015 by the Edmonton Journal. Nakita is the co-founder of Bassma Primary School in El Attaouia, Morocco and the Director of Public Policy with the Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council.

 

 

 

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This article was written by Nakita Valerio, owner and head writer at The Drawing Board.

Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic information related to assault, rape and birth trauma that may be upsetting to some readers. Prepare yourself for what you are about to read, or abstain until you are able to continue.

Recently, there has been an online movement from survivors of birth trauma in which they are sharing their stories of disempowerment and assault at the hands of members of the medical establishment. These stories are extremely horrific and very graphic in their descriptions. Reading them leaves you with an unsettled feeling in your stomach and an aching heart as you empathize with their pain.

Clicking on these images will reveal highly graphic descriptions. Please be mindful.

I find these stories particularly relevant and powerful for me, as a survivor of birth trauma myself – and as someone who survives the effects of PTSD from that trauma daily. I am proud of these individuals, putting their stories up there for all to see, witness, read, digest… for everyone to stop for a moment and think about a continuing horrific phenomena which knows no global boundaries and has no face, is largely (if not completely) unreported and is all wrapped up in the politics of medical authority and the control over women’s bodies in particular.

There are few other times in an individual’s life which are more vulnerable than pregnancy and birthing. It is not an indicator of weakness to be vulnerable; rather, vulnerability is signified externally by the fact that their bodies go through enormous transformations during this period and the process of birthing happens in such a way that they are more likely to be marginalized in their voice, body and preferences than they would in regular circumstances. A birthing person may have their voice, preferences and body submitted to authorities who use their position to take over the natural process. I want to be clear when I say that in emergency instances, this is critical because intervention can mean the difference between the deaths of the mother and the baby or their lives.

However, such instances also offer the opportunity for serious abuses, particularly because the line between medical necessity and abuse of authority is highly ambiguous and can involve the collision of paradigms, worldviews and approaches to birthing that are highly incompatible. Without getting into that discussion because it tends to be too binary for me (either villainizing mothers or villainizing medical professionals), I want to talk about some of the terminology used in the campaigns for Birth Trauma survivors.

One such term that stands out is “Birth Rape” and it is often red-flagged as a term whose appropriate use is highly contested and may be considered inappropriate in birth-related contexts or others.  These issues can be found in discussion of (more) conventional rape as well and fit into general trends where victims are mistrusted despite the rarity of false allegations (dwarfed by the number of unreported assaults) and the paucity of cases that go to charges and then trial (not always resulting in a conviction). *Breathe* The testimony of women or queer individuals is often disproportionately disbelieved against that of their assaulters or rapists,  with some reserving “I believe you” status for specific demographics who may have been victims of rape.  This skepticism often takes the form of ethnic bias with white people being believed more than people of colour and even less belief being reserved for our indigenous brothers, sisters and two-spirited individuals.

There isn’t enough time in the world to go into the multiple historical narratives that are being enacted as tropes of rape culture in the criticisms of these skeptics and that is not my subject here today. I want to focus on why I accept the term “rape” to describe birth trauma arising from medical assault.

The main reason that I feel people reject this term is because they don’t understand the term rape. Rape does not mean “non-consensual sex.” Rape is a form of sexual assault which involves the penetration of various parts of one’s body against one’s will and without one’s consent. This penetration does not need to occur with an assailant’s genitals to constitute rape.  It can be carried out by violent force, coercion or abuse of authority. It is not “non-consensual sex”. It is not sex.

When stories are told about:

  • doctors who inject women with unnecessary drugs against their will thereby making them less in control, less coherent and more submissive
  • doctors who uttered violent words or performed violent acts on them including swearing at them, berating them, hitting them, jumping on them,
  • doctors who threaten women with C-sections unless they “shut up” (or perform them when they don’t!)
  • or doctors who violently and unnecessarily penetrate women’s bodies with their hands, arms or medical instruments

they are met with reactions that this isn’t rape or that rape is “too serious” an allegation to be related to birthing. I just shake my head. This lack of comprehension hinges on the idea that rape is still somehow about sex. And since birthing is supposedly not a sexual experience, then it can’t be called rape when things go awry, right? These people fail to realize that: non-consensual penetration is rape. There are only sex and birthing on one side, and rape on the other side. There is no in-between.

A contingent reason this is such an issue is because of the stigma attached to challenging medical authorities. The decision about medical necessity is placed entirely in the hands of doctors. And while this is not without some good reason (since they are highly specialized and trained professionals after all), the possibility (and often reality) of transferring total authority over one’s body to other people is deeply problematic. There are a myriad of factors that go into how a medical doctor treats a birthing woman including: personal history, personality, their own abused/abusive pasts, misogyny, ego complexes and much more. Doctors (like all scientists) are not impartial observers as narratives about them would have us believe. They are humans too and they must be humanized – for it is the dehumanized who will perpetuate actions that, in turn, dehumanize others. Doctors carry themselves with them everywhere they go and how they treat someone in such a position as birthing says a lot about their own ethos and attitude.

Do they want to just get the job done or are they willing to spend as long as it takes to ensure a healthy and just birth? Do they not care about the lasting formation of memories that are created for the woman (and her child) in these unique moments? Are they sensitive to the power that they wield and therefore approach such a position with due sensitivities and adequate communications?

Skeptics about birth rape also tend to question if such allegations can actually be brought to criminal charges. Ideally, this would be the case. However, with the current state of affairs, where victims of “typical” sexual assault are rarely believed and therefore rarely report, the added dimension of placing doctors above their patients in terms of authority makes the possibility for criminal proceedings unlikely. Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible. We have a long way to go and the first step towards this is in normalizing these important narratives, in listening to the people they happen to, in believing them first and foremost.

My best friend is an OB/GYN in Cairo. He told me that he had a patient once who came into her birthing experience with a plan and a support team. Internally, he was annoyed because he felt that she was stepping on the toes of his authority and that she might make things difficult for him if things went awry by making too many demands. This friend has an ethos of non-attachment and ego-slaying that I strive to emulate daily. He swallowed those thoughts and gave the woman the space to explain her desires and preferences in a calm manner, without having to make demands that might put someone else’s (ie. his) ego up in arms automatically. The entire time, he continued to check in with her about her plan, letting her know gently where things would have to be altered and changed, leaving her with her power: to digest and understand that these changes were necessary. In other words, he established trust.

This is what is lacking in birth rape. Trust is never formed in such cases. It is annihilated and this is the deepest trauma one can experience. It is the same trauma felt by survivors of rape, by survivors of sexual abuse, by survivors of any form of abuse. For what is being abused but one’s trust? One’s trust that their personhood and dignity will not be violated whether by violence, by penetration, by words or by all three. What is trust but a piece of love placed into the world, sometimes horribly violated?

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I applaud these individuals for sharing their stories and have been inspired to share my own story publicly as a result. In the end, this experience is just as authentic as anything else and by speaking out about what happened, we might connect the many, many others who have lived through it and are resilient survivors as well. There are a lot of us. May our strength light our paths to a more compassionate and safe future together, and may we strive to respond to the violation of our love placed in the world, the violation of our trust, with justice and more love.