Filosofie

One of the major strands of feminism concerned with reproduction, represented in this essay by Shulamith Firestone, is tied to a belief in technology as the means to achieve reproductive justice. As such, this strain of feminism has difficulty formulating a critique of institutionalized reproductive technologies that have the capacity to perpetuate systemic racializing and misogynous violence. The prioritization of technology as the primary way to achieve reproductive justice can also trouble the possibility of a conception of reproductive justice where care for the body takes central stage. This is not because technology is deemed mutually exclusive with care, but because it misrepresents reproductive injustice as a biological problem that we can fix, rather than as a cultural issue. In this essay, we offer a perspective on achieving reproductive justice from a different position based in another age-old materialist doctrine, but one that is largely neglected by feminism: that of midwifery. Midwifery has always both used technology and been critical of it, having first-hand experience with its consequences in birth and pregnancy. As such, it has developed both a body of thought on the "techne" (defined as art and skill) of dealing with reproduction, and it has developed a field of scholarship critiquing the misuse of technology. While midwifery is not wary of technology, it negotiates technology from a materialist position that prioritizes experiential, embodied, and tacit knowledge, as well as the physiological process of childbirth, which it aims to facilitate and enhance. Midwifery's epistemological standpoint can hence be characterized as a somatophillic techne that aims to think with the body, rather than fix it. There is, however, a certain tendency in midwifery which is developing towards an anti-technological essentialism. This essay aims to redirect this tendency to the more promising materialist doctrine that can be found in midwifery as well as Firestonian feminism, but develops this materialist stance through a specific "somatophillic techne" embedded in "relational midwifery thinking."

Obstetric violence is an urgent global problem. Recently, several studies have appeared on obstetric violence in the Netherlands, indicating that it is a more widespread phenomenon in Dutch maternity care than commonly thought. At the same time, there has been very little public outrage over these studies. The objective of this qualitative research is to gain insight into the working and normalization of obstetric violence by focusing on the moral and epistemic injustices that both facilitate obstetric violence and make it look acceptable. Following the study design of Responsive Evaluation, interviews, homogenous, and heterogenous focus groups were done in three phases, with thirty-one participants, consisting of ten mothers, eleven midwives, five doulas and five midwives in training. All participants were already critically engaged with the topic, which was a selection criterion to be able to bring the existing depth of knowledge on this topic of people in the field to the fore. Data was analyzed through Thematic Analysis. We elaborate on two groups of results. First, we discuss the forms of obstetric violence most commonly mentioned by the participants, which were vaginal examinations, episiotomies, and pelvic floor support. Second, we demonstrate two major themes that concern practices related to moral and epistemic injustice: 1) 'Playing the dead baby card', with the sub-themes 'shroud waving', 'hidden agenda', and 'normalizing obstetric violence'; and 2) 'Troubling consent', with sub-themes 'not being asked for consent', 'saying "yes"', 'saying "no"', and 'giving up resistance'. While epistemic injustice has been analyzed in relation to obstetric violence, moral injustice has not yet been conceptualized as a fundamental part of both the practice and the justification of obstetric violence. This research hence contributes not only to the better understanding of obstetric violence in the Netherlands, but also to a further theorization of this specific form of gender-based violence.