They often say with great power comes great responsibility. This saying is becoming ever more true in the birthing community. With so many more marginalized and oppressed groups gaining a voice, it is important to know the power you have through what you share and what you're telling people when you share certain items. If you're a white cisgender leader in these communities, please be aware of your impact. Here are four ways you're impacting marginalized and oppressed groups negatively and how to change.
1) Sharing Images Only Featuring White, Heterosexual, Cisgender People.
A picture is worth a thousand words. While searching for a midwife this last year, I would go to their websites and social media pages and immediately make a judgment based on what I was seeing. If all I saw were white cisgender women who had only white cisgender partners, I backed out immediately! What I was being told was your kind is not welcome here.
What is my kind you may ask? A Latinx non-binary parent with an LGBTQIA+ family. Concerns immediately arise about whether or not I'll be safe with anyone in the birthing community if they're not supporting ALL families.
How can the birthing community change this unsafe feeling for families of marginalized and oppressed groups?
Share images of diverse clients! We want to see when you say you don't discriminate that you've indeed worked with POC, the LGBTQIA+ community, large people, small people, people with disabilities. If we don't see diversity, we cannot hold you at your word!
2) Share Articles That are Racist, Ableist, have TERF Rhetoric, and more.
There's power in words, and when articles are shared that have harmful language towards marginalized and oppressed groups, we see this. We remember who you are and tell others. You may feel that an article is okay because everything else in it was valid, but as soon as it was shared, it was invalid. You cannot share harmful content and be validated. The harm in the article far outweighs the useful content you think you see.
How can you change this?
Refuse to share anything that has harmful content towards those in oppressed and marginalized groups. If you see something with harmful language, call it out! Expect your colleagues to take ownership and responsibility for their share. If they don't, they cannot be trusted by marginalized and oppressed people.
You can also help by immediately unfollowing, angry reacting, and leaving their groups. By silently sitting by, you're perpetuating the harmful content. You're being complacent.
I promise you we see these moments and we'll know whether you're a safe person to trust our births and our babies to.
3) Comparing Injustice in the Birth Community to Racism.
Comparing injustice in the birthing community to the struggles that POC go through every day is not okay! Please do not even compare the two.
It is true there are many problems in the birthing field where women, men, and people are subjected to brutal injustice, but it does not equate to the brutality of racism. You're effectively silencing those of marginalized and oppressed groups and sweeping their struggles under the rug.
How can this be changed?
Speak up about the problems you see but do not say things like this are comparable to All Lives Matter or make hashtags appropriating the BLM movement. Keep the two distinct and different because they are!
4) Using Language that is not Inclusive
The majority of the time, I visit a birth worker's site or social media and see language that is very cisgender and heteronormative.
Many birth workers boast of helping new Mothers achieve natural birth. Many say they offer breastfeeding support for mothers. Others use branding with terms like mom, goddess, womanhood.
You may see these terms and say, "Yes! So empowering to women!" But you're leaving out a large population of birthing people. Those who are outside the binary spectrum and not in heterosexual relationships.
What can you do to fix this?
Simply say you help birthing parents achieve their natural birthing goals. Offer breastfeeding AND chestfeeding support. Rebrand! If you know better, do better, and we'll be thrilled to see the change!
The goal here is to empower all humans to have amazing birthing experiences!