You are welcome, so welcome. It is much worse to have to live it than write about it, I'm so sorry. Reason WILL return one day, I know it, because we women will not stand for this, they might get away with it for a little while, but we will win in the end. xxxxx
I am so sorry that you are not able to practice anymore - that makes me so sad. I LOVED my midwives when my children were born, they were brilliant, kind, empathetic, knowledgeable, everything you need from a woman helping you give birth. That is absolutely shocking about the untested medical interventions - I was a newborn hearing screener some years ago and informed consent was required for us - for an untested medical intervention, omg - it really is madness. Inversion is the word, isn't it.
Fabulous expose of the Midwifery Council's 'white saviour' perfidy, Sarah. Dr Judith McAra-Couper tweeted some time ago that there was a "journey for Pakeha to make, where we lose nothing and gain so much". What exactly do Pakeha gain, I wonder, by losing the word 'woman' from a midwifery Scope of Practice? What do Maori gain from it, for that matter? And what does it even mean in the letter where it says: "centred on a continuity of care model with women in the context of the whanau at the centre, a model which international evidence demonstrates is the best model of maternity care"? It's barely comprehensible. I'd like to see this "international evidence" - I wonder if it would be more understandable than that nonsensical sentence? From what I understand, midwives are very sensitive to a woman's culture, and interact with her accordingly. I doubt if they need some sort of pesudo-Maori lens put over how they practice, and a lens that can't even say the words 'woman' and 'baby'. Sounds pretty culturally insensitive to me, actually, no matter what the culture. Unless it's the trans 'culture', of course, and then that seem s to override everyone else's culture.
Thank you Katrina! Yes, white saviour perfidy! You're so right, it is nonsensical, it actually took quite a while to parse the whole letter because it was so mangled - I had to keep going back to figure which phrase went with which to get the meaning. She writes like she's just done a line of coke in the toilets and rushed out to do her funding proposal just afterward. I wanted to say something about the 'international evidence' bit too, like, is that right? There's an international body of evidence on whānau centered women? Really? Where? Whose whanau? Just one whanau or everybody's whānau? It's so ridiculous. No such evidence exists, there is not a cohort of intellectuals on the other side of the world studying whanau and how great it is when you make sure women are called that. 'Dr' Judith (I've decided that I'm going to mentally strip these 'doctors' of their PhDs, because they don't deserve them anymore and they're not real doctors anyway) and her journey, what did she gain? In reality, nothing, she lost her way and her fitness to practice imo, and shamed herself forever, but in practical terms, I've been wondering if she was the Project Manager, and got the $200k - I don't know though. And of course, she spent her earlier career being the white saviour midwife of Bangladesh, so she's well into patting herself on the back for being the most bestest and helpiest, most enlightened of them all. Lucky Bangladeshi women! Lucky wāhine Māori! Lucky us, to have such an example to follow! Lol can you tell I've spent too long glaring at her picture? We all lose if this goes through, but I don't have to tell you that - and you're right, most midwives are awesome, and they don't deserve this either.
I whole heartedly agree with your insight here. I was a midwife until 2020 and escaped this madness just in time. I have given feedback to the council over this time and raised my opposition to the changing of language to eradicate women and babies from the scope of practice. This has quietly happened while the profession also happily promoted untested medical interventions to pregnant mothers abandoning all notions of informed consent and the Bill of Rights. I am distraught to see the names of women I once respected as mentors and colleagues engaging with this nonsense. I will never return to practice and submit to the tyranny of the Te Whatu Ora. The use of a beautiful language to invert all that is good, wholesome and true is just another nail in the coffin.
as someone who had four wonderful homebirths with the help of amazing midwives twenty something years ago i feel enraged and worried for my sons and daughters when the time comes for them to have children here. what is going on is against nature and is a violation of everything good about what it is to be human. my blood boils.
Yes I had my children 20 something years ago too, when midwives had barely won the fight to even be there, I just can't believe that the Council fell for this - midwives!!! You'd think that the one group of holdouts would be the leaders of the midwives! I really, really believe that the language we speak is the mechanism that spreads it, but not just socially, like an actual hijack, a computer virus, in the brain, and until you stop speaking it you can't see the evil once you're in too deep. I'm dying to prove it, with a neurolinguist, a real one, with an MRI machine. But first, stop them! I totally agree, it's against nature. What's good about us will win, it must, it nearly does, but it's always so awful on the way.
they use language to colonise our minds. it's so wrong. what you are doing in speaking out and finding things out is so necessary. you are a warrior for the rest of us. thank you.
You were right to highlight these words in their incoherent funding application: " with women in the context of the whanau at the centre. " It is not clear whether " at the centre" applies to "women" or to "the whanau." Funders would assume it was women at the centre, whereas the real intention was to put the "whanau" at the centre and to erase women entirely. They had no intention to centre women. The funding application was duplicitous. It is scandalous. Also the way they pretended to consult, and then completely ignored , or tried to misrepresent, the overwhelming negative responses they got.
Those were my thoughts too, that it was duplicitous, and underhanded. It is always discomforting when people are saying one thing and doing another. The midwives I know are very sad, because it's creating division and confusion when midwifery as a profession has worked so hard to be here over the last four decades, and because they love their work. I am moved and disturbed on their behalf.
I suppose we'll have to wait and see. But I don't underestimate women in defence of our children and childbirth, those aren't among the things we'll stop trying to defend, as a class of people. Fathers too, in the end, but mothers especially. I think it also depends whether or not the majority of people know enough to make noise about it.
This humility, what a disgraceful word to hear in 2024 against women. We are humbled enough MC. What I do see is women in powerful positions using those positions to bully women into agreeing with a belief system they do not agree with and they may never have joined the profession if the scope had existed when they did.
Just noticed the relationship between the MC and the Health Quality Care Commission which is a signatory of the Rainbow Tick. https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/news/commission-proud-to-receive-the-rainbow-tick/ Were they to raise issues with degendering the Midwifery Council SoP it would endanger their membership of the scheme - a clear conflict of interest.
Thank you Jan! Looking at the HQSC I can't see a specific relationship other than the maternity early warning system, which I assume has MC participation somewhere - where are you looking? I've not had a good look at this Commission before. Very interesting.
So the Health Quality and Safety Commission is compromised in that they can't say the 'gender' aspects of the Scope are unsafe, because that will mean they're afoul of the Rainbow Tick rules...Thou must not utter the word woman, unless you mean man, etc.
Mandated cultural humility sounds a lot like performative self-effacement. Such expressions are chilling - they sound clinically benign but have sinister undercurrents like "final solution". Once a year the Pope washes and kisses the feet of criminals as a sign of humility... Perhaps that is the endpoint our inclusive overlords are intending for themselves? Will that be enough? How quickly oppressed have turned into narcissistic bullies.
Restated, mandated cultural humility could be "enforced servility"; I find it very menacing as a phrase; it certainly as you say has sinister undercurrents. I believe these ideologies belong not to genuinely oppressed people but the wealthy, who weep and wail and clutch their breasts (or their scars), and claim oppression for themselves. I think it's quite likely that if these delusional ideas are allowed to take hold much further, that actually bowing and scraping is a distinct possibility. They are delusional ideas, which means anything goes. And we will all be bowing and scraping to people who mostly had lovely top-of-the-heap lives to begin with.
Tangata Tiriti was a racist term in the 19th C and is a racist term now. The concept sounds like slavery in both versions. And nobody subjected themselves to the Treaty.
But the thing about the Treaty is that it's between the British Queen and New Zealanders. As I read it it gives all NZrs "all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects."
You are welcome, so welcome. It is much worse to have to live it than write about it, I'm so sorry. Reason WILL return one day, I know it, because we women will not stand for this, they might get away with it for a little while, but we will win in the end. xxxxx
I am so sorry that you are not able to practice anymore - that makes me so sad. I LOVED my midwives when my children were born, they were brilliant, kind, empathetic, knowledgeable, everything you need from a woman helping you give birth. That is absolutely shocking about the untested medical interventions - I was a newborn hearing screener some years ago and informed consent was required for us - for an untested medical intervention, omg - it really is madness. Inversion is the word, isn't it.
Fabulous expose of the Midwifery Council's 'white saviour' perfidy, Sarah. Dr Judith McAra-Couper tweeted some time ago that there was a "journey for Pakeha to make, where we lose nothing and gain so much". What exactly do Pakeha gain, I wonder, by losing the word 'woman' from a midwifery Scope of Practice? What do Maori gain from it, for that matter? And what does it even mean in the letter where it says: "centred on a continuity of care model with women in the context of the whanau at the centre, a model which international evidence demonstrates is the best model of maternity care"? It's barely comprehensible. I'd like to see this "international evidence" - I wonder if it would be more understandable than that nonsensical sentence? From what I understand, midwives are very sensitive to a woman's culture, and interact with her accordingly. I doubt if they need some sort of pesudo-Maori lens put over how they practice, and a lens that can't even say the words 'woman' and 'baby'. Sounds pretty culturally insensitive to me, actually, no matter what the culture. Unless it's the trans 'culture', of course, and then that seem s to override everyone else's culture.
Thank you Katrina! Yes, white saviour perfidy! You're so right, it is nonsensical, it actually took quite a while to parse the whole letter because it was so mangled - I had to keep going back to figure which phrase went with which to get the meaning. She writes like she's just done a line of coke in the toilets and rushed out to do her funding proposal just afterward. I wanted to say something about the 'international evidence' bit too, like, is that right? There's an international body of evidence on whānau centered women? Really? Where? Whose whanau? Just one whanau or everybody's whānau? It's so ridiculous. No such evidence exists, there is not a cohort of intellectuals on the other side of the world studying whanau and how great it is when you make sure women are called that. 'Dr' Judith (I've decided that I'm going to mentally strip these 'doctors' of their PhDs, because they don't deserve them anymore and they're not real doctors anyway) and her journey, what did she gain? In reality, nothing, she lost her way and her fitness to practice imo, and shamed herself forever, but in practical terms, I've been wondering if she was the Project Manager, and got the $200k - I don't know though. And of course, she spent her earlier career being the white saviour midwife of Bangladesh, so she's well into patting herself on the back for being the most bestest and helpiest, most enlightened of them all. Lucky Bangladeshi women! Lucky wāhine Māori! Lucky us, to have such an example to follow! Lol can you tell I've spent too long glaring at her picture? We all lose if this goes through, but I don't have to tell you that - and you're right, most midwives are awesome, and they don't deserve this either.
I whole heartedly agree with your insight here. I was a midwife until 2020 and escaped this madness just in time. I have given feedback to the council over this time and raised my opposition to the changing of language to eradicate women and babies from the scope of practice. This has quietly happened while the profession also happily promoted untested medical interventions to pregnant mothers abandoning all notions of informed consent and the Bill of Rights. I am distraught to see the names of women I once respected as mentors and colleagues engaging with this nonsense. I will never return to practice and submit to the tyranny of the Te Whatu Ora. The use of a beautiful language to invert all that is good, wholesome and true is just another nail in the coffin.
Hi Sarah, are you on Twitter, x?
No, it makes me cross 😮💨
as someone who had four wonderful homebirths with the help of amazing midwives twenty something years ago i feel enraged and worried for my sons and daughters when the time comes for them to have children here. what is going on is against nature and is a violation of everything good about what it is to be human. my blood boils.
Yes I had my children 20 something years ago too, when midwives had barely won the fight to even be there, I just can't believe that the Council fell for this - midwives!!! You'd think that the one group of holdouts would be the leaders of the midwives! I really, really believe that the language we speak is the mechanism that spreads it, but not just socially, like an actual hijack, a computer virus, in the brain, and until you stop speaking it you can't see the evil once you're in too deep. I'm dying to prove it, with a neurolinguist, a real one, with an MRI machine. But first, stop them! I totally agree, it's against nature. What's good about us will win, it must, it nearly does, but it's always so awful on the way.
they use language to colonise our minds. it's so wrong. what you are doing in speaking out and finding things out is so necessary. you are a warrior for the rest of us. thank you.
They do, they use it to colonise our minds. Thank *you* xxxx What a lovely compliment, I'll try to live up to it xxxxxxxxxx
You were right to highlight these words in their incoherent funding application: " with women in the context of the whanau at the centre. " It is not clear whether " at the centre" applies to "women" or to "the whanau." Funders would assume it was women at the centre, whereas the real intention was to put the "whanau" at the centre and to erase women entirely. They had no intention to centre women. The funding application was duplicitous. It is scandalous. Also the way they pretended to consult, and then completely ignored , or tried to misrepresent, the overwhelming negative responses they got.
Those were my thoughts too, that it was duplicitous, and underhanded. It is always discomforting when people are saying one thing and doing another. The midwives I know are very sad, because it's creating division and confusion when midwifery as a profession has worked so hard to be here over the last four decades, and because they love their work. I am moved and disturbed on their behalf.
So are Luxon and his team going to get bought out by the billionaires and States who fund this? Or are they going to stand up to it?
I suppose we'll have to wait and see. But I don't underestimate women in defence of our children and childbirth, those aren't among the things we'll stop trying to defend, as a class of people. Fathers too, in the end, but mothers especially. I think it also depends whether or not the majority of people know enough to make noise about it.
This sounds unbelievable, but I am living this nightmare. Thank you for documenting this appalling overstep by the Council
Hi Deb, do you follow me on TwitterX? Or do I follow you under a different handle?
I'm not on Twitter Sarah
That's good it's a horrible place 😊 I'm just wanting to pm you but I'm not sure if there's a way to do that here!
I would value some contact. Can I find you on Facebook? We could then use messenger
This humility, what a disgraceful word to hear in 2024 against women. We are humbled enough MC. What I do see is women in powerful positions using those positions to bully women into agreeing with a belief system they do not agree with and they may never have joined the profession if the scope had existed when they did.
Just noticed the relationship between the MC and the Health Quality Care Commission which is a signatory of the Rainbow Tick. https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/news/commission-proud-to-receive-the-rainbow-tick/ Were they to raise issues with degendering the Midwifery Council SoP it would endanger their membership of the scheme - a clear conflict of interest.
Thank you Jan! Looking at the HQSC I can't see a specific relationship other than the maternity early warning system, which I assume has MC participation somewhere - where are you looking? I've not had a good look at this Commission before. Very interesting.
So the Health Quality and Safety Commission is compromised in that they can't say the 'gender' aspects of the Scope are unsafe, because that will mean they're afoul of the Rainbow Tick rules...Thou must not utter the word woman, unless you mean man, etc.
Mandated cultural humility sounds a lot like performative self-effacement. Such expressions are chilling - they sound clinically benign but have sinister undercurrents like "final solution". Once a year the Pope washes and kisses the feet of criminals as a sign of humility... Perhaps that is the endpoint our inclusive overlords are intending for themselves? Will that be enough? How quickly oppressed have turned into narcissistic bullies.
Restated, mandated cultural humility could be "enforced servility"; I find it very menacing as a phrase; it certainly as you say has sinister undercurrents. I believe these ideologies belong not to genuinely oppressed people but the wealthy, who weep and wail and clutch their breasts (or their scars), and claim oppression for themselves. I think it's quite likely that if these delusional ideas are allowed to take hold much further, that actually bowing and scraping is a distinct possibility. They are delusional ideas, which means anything goes. And we will all be bowing and scraping to people who mostly had lovely top-of-the-heap lives to begin with.
Thank you for subbing to my writings, but I haven't written anything yet!! (Or at least finished it) I'm working on it, so pls come back in the NY...
Look forward to it :-)
Tangata Tiriti was a racist term in the 19th C and is a racist term now. The concept sounds like slavery in both versions. And nobody subjected themselves to the Treaty.
But the thing about the Treaty is that it's between the British Queen and New Zealanders. As I read it it gives all NZrs "all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects."
Where's my British passport?
Were you born in NZ before 1984? You can apply for an ancestral British passport if your grand parents were British including Northern Ireland.
Oh interesting, had only ever thought of that as living in the land of Britain. But they would have had British passports.