Dealing with the sexism of childbirth

ukreview · 2016-03-10T13:48:02+00:00

This is rubbish having been at the birth of my children this is not credible. The mother would not be at all interested in inflicting pain or anything like this during the birth process. Just complete utter rubbish

2016-03-10T18:21:56+00:00

For instance, of the rules revolving round sex, which were recently mentioned, none is more curious than the savage custom commonly called the couvade. That seems like a law out of topsyturvydom; by which the father is treated as if he were the mother. In any case it clearly involves the mystical sense of sex; but many have maintained that it is really a symbolic act by which the father accepts the responsibility of fatherhood. In that case that grotesque antic is really a very solemn act; for it is the foundation of all we call the family and all we know as human society. Some groping in these dark beginnings have said that mankind was once under a matriarchy; I suppose that under a matriarchy it would not be called mankind but womankind. But others have conjectured that what is called matriarchy was simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remained fixed because all the fathers were fugitive and irresponsible. Then came the moment when the man decided to guard and guide what he had created. So he became the head of the family, not as a bully with a big club to beat women with, but rather as a respectable person trying to be a responsible person. Now all that might be perfectly true, and might even have been the first family act, and it would still be true that man then for the first time acted like a man, and therefore for the first time became fully a man. But it might quite as well be true that the matriarchy or moral anarchy, or whatever we call it, was only one of the hundred social dissolutions or barbaric backslidings which may have occurred at intervals in prehistoric as they certainly did in historic times. A symbol like the couvade, if it was really such a symbol, may have commemorated the suppression of a heresy rather than the first rise of a religion. We cannot conclude with any certainty about these things, except in their big results in the building of mankind, but we can say in what style the bulk of it and the best of it is built.

G.K. Chesterton

So who has it worse, men or women? In the ongoing battle of the sexes, there has always been a debate on who feels more pain. That is the question that the Kensington Church set out to solve with a new video that discusses one very specific type of pain: childbirth.

At the beginning of the video, two men walk side by side and one says, "Did you know that according to women, childbirth is the worst kind of pain there is?" The other man says, "And did you know according to women, that us men can't handle any of it?" The men also mention that they think women are exaggerating the pain associated with giving birth.

So the two men visit Dr. Julie Masters, who places electrodes on their abdomens to simulate the contractions experienced in labor. Before the simulation begins, as Dr. Masters explains what's about to take place, one of the guys even says, "That sounds fun!"

Then the simulation starts. Each man groans, hisses and moans as the constant pain continues. The two men's wives are in the room during the simulation, and they try to coach them through it. The men try to breathe through the pain, but eventually just give in to it and surrender to the process. One guy notices that his wife seems to be enjoying his misery, and he tells her to "stop smiling."

It is clearly not a pleasurable experience for the men, but for the wives it's comical, as they get a little bit of payback for what they've gone through in delivering their children. Maybe these guys should have reconsidered that whole "exaggerating" idea.

After the simulation is over, one man says, "That was not good." The other follows with, "It sucked!" That same man adds, "Mom, if anything that I just experienced is anywhere close to what I did to you, all those years ago, I'm sorry. You're like a superhero. You're one tough mama. Happy Mother's Day!"

Now that the two men have endured the simulation, their gratitude to their wives and their own mothers is on a whole new level. Guess you could even say that they got gut checked—pun intended.

https://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/two-men-experience-pain-childbirth-hourlong-simulation-181703323.html

TamidMT · 2016-03-11T04:47:14+00:00

This sort of thing gets me irate. Vengeance is conflated for justice, and men are painfully forced to be empathetic for something over which they have absolutely no control and for which they are not biologically equipped. u/lostapwbm asked why it was that "when women experience suffering, their reaction is not to spare or protect others from the same suffering, but to inflict as much, if not more suffering on others in the name of "empathy"?" It is a just-world fallacy (thanks, u/SigmundFloyd76), which "[causes] them to rationalize an otherwise inexplicable injustice as deserved by the victim(s)". Women who react like this are mistakenly tying morality in with gender instead of humanity, and sadistically withhold sympathy while men suffer. Violence against men is never funny in exactly the same way that it isn't for women. The moral standard between men and women must be the same, because otherwise we will have different rules for the sexes, which completely goes against the equality towards which those same reacting women strive.

Title	Dealing with the sexism of childbirth
Author	ukreview
Upvotes	8
Comments	5
Date	March 10, 2016 11:48 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/49t4ep/dealing_with_the_sexism_of_childbirth/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/dealing-with-the-sexism-of-childbirth.954308 https://theredarchive.com/post/954308

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