REPORT ON MANA
CONFERENCE: 2015
Midwives Alliance of
North America Conference
2015, October 15 to
18. Albuquerque, New Mexico
By CAROL DOWNER
BACKGROUND:
To promote my Pro Woman Agenda
project, I attend midwifery events, such as the MANA conference. This year, I also participated in a “shadow
conference” put together by MANA member and midwife, Mary Lou Singleton and members
of WoLF (Women’s Liberation Front),
to protest a change in MANA’s
“Core Competencies” document language. “Pregnant woman” was changed to
“pregnant individual”, “mother” was changed to “birthing parent”. This was done to be inclusive of trans men
who have babies. WoLF had reserved a
table to discuss the issue with attendees. MANA cancelled their reservation and
refunded their fee, on the grounds that it would make the conference more
“safe”. I exhibited the WoLF literature and the announcements of the workshops
on my table.
THE ONLINE
CONTROVERSY BEFORE THE CONFERENCE
Mary Lou Singleton and fellow midwife Michelle Smith wrote
the Open Letter to
MANA a month ahead of the conference, placing it on the website, Women-Centered
Midwifery with 190 signatories. Birth for
Everybody set up a website, including hyperlinks
to other sites to further explain their support for the language change
with 625 signatories. Supporters of the language change
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| A Midwife for Every Body Buttons |
The Loss of a Good Friend: Pati Garcia, who went to
midwifery school in Texas three years ago signed the Birth for Every Body
response and placed it on her Facebook Page.
I followed the very long thread of comments she received, all in
complete agreement with her. One
commenter said that she was upset to see respected pioneers in birth, such as
Ina May Gaskin, on the list of signers to the Women-Centered Midwifery Open
Letter. Pati’s response was to say that
I was one of the signers that she knew very well, and that she had stopped associating
with me because I am racist. She said that I said that women of color have too
many doors being opened for them. Of
course, I have never said this nor do I believe it, so I wrote Pati to admonish
her on her ad hominem attack (I never quite understood what that was until it
happened to me). I saw her at the
conference many times because she staffed a table with others. Anyone who knows me and Pati knows that we
were closely associated for several years and I was privileged to help her with
her founding of Shodhini. I know that
her slur will not damage my reputation with those who know me and work with me,
but her personal attack deeply wounded me.
Perhaps this is one reason this report has taken so long to
write. It may show the level of acrimony that exists
in the movement over this disputed debate.
SHADOW CONFERENCE
SCHEDULE
WoLF activities: WoLF members (who had traveled to attend
the conference and protest) distributed leaflets announcing their
workshops. Six WoLF members and
supporters attended a plenary program presented by Sam Killerman (Gender
Bread Person) and WoLF hosted an informal discussion about the forced
professionalization of midwifery.
WHWH.ORG TABLE
One of the officers of MANA came by to visit my table to see
that I wasn’t violating the agreement regarding the literature that all
exhibitors have to comply with. We had
met at a prior MANA conference. She was
borderline civil; she stopped just short of being nasty and she let me know
they were keeping an eye on me and would be back to check to see that, although
I’m a member of WoLF, I was not just a front for WoLF.
Our table was poorly located, and I didn’t have too many
visitors. However, the few that came by
were quite interested and had interesting things to share. We talked some about the controversy, but mostly
people were interested in the books and leaflets I had on display. All the brochures for the Trans Health Initiative at the
Feminist Health Center in Atlanta were snapped up. I hope the program
became known to midwives around the country.
As usual, my copy of Radical Doula
attracted a lot of interest, until it, along with all of my WoLF literature,
disappeared during the night.
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An organization of attorneys, Know Your Vaccines, was located across
from my table. I learned from the woman
staffing it that the government recognizes that the vaccines given to babies
and young children do cause severe injury to a certain number. To protect the manufacturer from being hit by
big damages from lawsuits from parents, the government has set up a fund to
help parents to care for children who require years of institutional care, but
attorneys are needed to help parents with the complicated process to qualify
for the money.
OUTCOME OF CONTROVERSY
MANA, like many liberal women’s
organizations, quickly accepted the demands of the trans gender community to
change its language to be gender-neutral.
They had a speaker, Sam Killerman, and they have accepted his views of
gender.
Some of the women who came to
the table told me that at the opening Plenary Session, a MANA speaker had
said that MANA “is still discussing the issue”, so they had the impression
that perhaps there would be a reversal of MANA’s change. No one has offered to discuss the issue any
further with Mary Lou or Michelle, both of whom have been active in the
organization for years and held high office.
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IMPORTANT POST-CONFERENCE
ARTICLE TO SHARE
Women’s Health in Women’s Hands
has just come across an article in an online magazine, Model View Culture, by
Kyra, December 10, 2014, “How
to Uphold White Supremacy by Focusing on Diversity and Inclusion”. This
article would have changed the dialogue about being “inclusive”.
Kyra shows how white supremacist
liberalism uses the demands for diversity and inclusion by working to ignore
and erase difference rather than to undo oppression. Of course, she is speaking from the viewpoint
of oppressed people of color and people with marginalized identities with
racial/gender/sexual backgrounds, but her analysis of the change to gender-neutral
language in MANA’s guidelines is very applicable.
