> > Oh yes. Couldn't have been anywhere else. I was by far the most unskilled
>> labor in the room, so mostly I watched - but it's inexpressibly glorious
>> to watch a tiny human emerge from someone you love.
>>
> > Doug
>
>Birth is the most numinous, sacred event there is, and it happens everywhere
But it's also very raw fleshy - I love the bag that collects all the blood and stuff.
>: refugee camps, high tech hospitals, in taxicabs. I think the fact
>that women can create entire new human beings in their bodies, and
>unadulterated fear of and resentment of that fact by men, is the
>foundation of repression and demonization of women across the world
>in all historical epochs.
Well yes, but there's more - men fear the sexual power of women and want to control them. There's loads of wonderful stuff in Gilder about how abortion and greater economic independence puts women in control of sex and it freaks him out. Plus the material requirements of childbearing have inhibited women in the labor market, one of the central institutions of a capitalist society.
>Wouldn't this world be a much happier and productive place if social
>and economic policies put women and children's needs front and
>center, instead of the military, corporate, capital, and male needs?
It'd be nice if we could separate men from what you call male needs - you know, make a better class of men.
>PS: You didn't mention the labor and delivery nurses, who were most
>likely at your bedside the entire time, whle the OB probably just
>showed up in time to catch the baby!
He was fairly present, but I'm very sorry for not mentioning the nurses. I think nurses are generally great, and all the nurses in this adventure (there was one at the birth, along with the doc, and bunches of others at every stage) have been terrific. All the people who work there - assistants, aides, guards, cleaning staff - are great. Roosevelt is a fine hospital - I'd be happy to give them a blurb. It's so fucked up that the social and economic organization of health care is so fucked up because there are a lot of talented people in it.
> And you may have been the technically less skilled person in the
>room, but the most important person present, as Liza's partner and
>FOB.
Yes I like to think I was irreplaceable in that role.
Doug