Mothers’ Day is one of those days that it is easy to warm to and turn away from at the same time.

I adore my own mother and treasure every moment with her. But I don’t need there to be a Mothers’ Day to thank her for the immeasurable meaning she has given to my life. I am delighted to spend time with her on Mothers’ Day, but I am equally delighted to see her every other week of the year too.

As a mother myself, I don’t want my own daughter to feel pressured by commercially driven sickly ads imploring her to ‘make your Mum feel special’ by buying some outrageously priced item that panders to the idea that women belong in the kitchen or the bedroom. Seriously, just how many advertisements for frilly nighties and new saucepans can one handle?

I am also skeptical that the veneration of motherhood is also a thinly veiled disguise for a silent contempt and deep suspicion of women who don’t have children. Women like our own Prime Minister, who attracts enormous vitriol, which is apparently accepted because she is childless. I don’t like that the celebration of Mothers’ Day comes at the expense of dividing the sisterhood.

And while I love being a mother, I don’t necessarily love the pedestal that comes with it; a pedestal that sits on a shaky foundation and is poised ready to topple at the slightest bump. Because motherhood on a pedestal is about motherhood as some kind of perfection, and that is setting oneself up for failure.

It is also setting an impossible standard by which women judge themselves as never good enough. We torture ourselves about being stay-at-home or working mothers, and then try to do both. We pressure ourselves to have clean houses, home-cooked meals and perfectly ironed shirts. We can’t let ourselves go but are forbidden from any form of self-indulgence too. We are supposed to nurture children and partners but also have to make time to cover our grey hairs and wax our legs. Hey, there’s an image of motherhood to uphold!

And while we tread an ever-narrowing line about what we “should” be, we feel like failures 90% of the time for being too much or too little of something. We know too that the only thing worse that being childless for a woman is to be a ‘BAD MOTHER’ so we continue walking that diminishing line and judge others and ourselves far too harshly.

So this Mothers’ Day will be about the simple joys of sharing time and conversation with people. No restaurant meal. Nothing fancy. A gift? Maybe a book or two. Nothing perfect. Just as it should be.

The Politics of Patriarchy is a timely addition to our Spinifex Press blog as we prepare to launch Invisible Women of Prehistory, a revolutionary book that challenges our preconceptions of the past. 

 

The Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s led to all sorts of intellectual pursuits, one of which was to ask whether patriarchy had been around for ever. Was it universal and inevitable?

We fairly quickly understood that it hadn't been and lots of women became engaged in reading archeology, world mythology, comparative religion, linguistics and history. I was one of them and in 1979 I decided to enrol in a PhD in Philosophy which I described as a 'study of belief systems in the ancient world'. At the same time I began studying Ancient Greek. The difficulty I faced was that instead of reading relevant material I was sent off to read Saussure (on semiotics – a foundational thinker for postmodernists which deals with the 'science' of symbols) and others. I first heard the word postmodern during this time and that was where I was being pushed. I did not know what destruction postmodernism would wreak on radical feminism. I read some of this material, felt frustrated, angry and more and didn't quite know why. I ditched my PhD and kept going with Greek where eventually I wrote a short thesis on the Homeric Hymns to Demeter and Aphrodite (and in these you can see how the transition to patriarchy was effected). I was duly punished and pushed out of Classics too. 

What happened in the early 1980s, along with the push to postmodernism, was another push in archaeology. Based in Cambridge (England) this school became known as the processural school of archaeology. It is set up to counter the ideas of archaeologists who were really getting places in terms of looking at how women in ancient societies lived. Among their key targets were Marija Gimbutas and James Mellaart – and the crowd of radical feminists who were reading this work and drawing our own conclusions (dangerous stuff). The processural archaeologists claim to use 'scientific method'. But what this scientific method does is strip away the context in which archaeological finds were made (which is what Gimbutas and Mellaart and others were doing). 'Processural' sounds almost feminist doesn't it? But it isn't. They have been known to sue scholars who try to publish work that goes against their ideas.

So here are two areas that feminists were doing great work in. Learning to understand symbols; and finding out about women in ancient societies. Each of these areas needs the other. But under patriarchal scholarship they are stripped of context, stripped of meaning and turned into decontextualised 'science' (fake science in fact).

So instead of writing a PhD I went home and wrote my novel, The Falling Woman. Sometimes you just have to get out of academia and find other ways to do things. The scholars like Gimbutas and Mellaart were attacked relentlessly (they are not the only ones but amongst the most attacked).

The other thing that happened is that anything to do with women was turned into a 'cult' (patriarchy is very good at distorting and renaming). When women are in cults they become either 'fertility' goddesses or prostitutes (the crusty old idea of mother or whore). I've recently started learning Latin and am rereading about the Vestal Virgins. These were powerful women and a kind of memory (but watered down) of earlier times. They were Virgins in the Marilyn Frye sense of Wilful Virgin – not the virginal Victorian type. In other societies these Virgins were called temple prostitutes; they were made slaves to the new patriarchal ideology.

So now we have another layer again beginning in the early 80s of no longer talking about prostitutes (other than radical feminists doing so) but 'sex work'. It is no accident that these forces came to bear at around the same time because radical feminist ideas were really taking off. Some were a bit popularised, some were not for the fainthearted, but such success has to be countered. 

What we were left with after postmodernism, processural archaeology and sex work advocates had ploughed through was just a few strands. In the one corner, the goddess movement, too much depoliticised but an important repository for the knowledge; in another people like Marija Gimbutas were being accused of being Nazi sympathisers because she writes at times about the swastika that appears on some ancient artefacts (what isn't said is that the swastika is an ancient Indian auspicious symbol meaning luck (in Sanskrit it also means a poet and a cake!) which was appropriated by Hitler, just as Mussolini appropriated the double axe as his symbol. A dehistoricised view of the world can ignore the fact that the latest versions of these symbols (ie the Nazi and Fascist renditions) are not any reflection of ancient symbolic meanings.

Women all around the world have been made to pay under patriarchy, through thousands of years – BUT that does not mean that patriarchy is universal – it has not been around for ever – nor is it inevitable. We can change – and the world can change.

I can't help by finishing with one of best quotes I know from the wonderful Monique Wittig in her novel The Guérillères:

"There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that. You walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember … You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or failing that, invent.'' 

I take this seriously and try to find the words, to create ways to understand our own words and meanings; and to do whatever I can to remember: in the Dalyesque sense of putting back together the dismembered bodies of women and the dismembered knowledge, languages, memories and stories of women.

First published:Liberation Collective

Susan Hawthorne is a publisher, a poet and a political activist, blogging at http://susanscowblog.blogspot.com and http://susanspoliticalblog.blogspot.com/ 

By: Melbourne feminist, Vera Hartley

It was mother’s day sixteen years ago, the first year that we were without our mother. I remember how I had refused to celebrate this annual event and am choked with guilt.

But mother’s day has never been a particularly favourite celebration for me. My reluctance to enter into society’s celebration of motherhood - contrived or otherwise - was born out of my unhappiness within the patriarchal family both as a child, a wife and mother.

I grew up in the 1950s, the daughter of a very domineering man who ruled the lives of my sisters and our mother. He was a church-going man, but this didn’t stop him from striking me hard across my mouth when I dared to have my own opinions. Not surprisingly I could hardly wait to leave him but unfortunately married a man who dominated me and criticised everything I did, and at the age of 21 I was a mother. After many years of emotional and physical abuse, I managed to leave the unhappy marriage.

My experience within the family, an institution still lauded by society has not been pleasant, and has tainted my picture of marriage and motherhood to such a degree that to enter into society’s commercial celebration of the day has always been very difficult for me and of course my children can’t or won’t understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Renate Klein

                       This article first appeared May 1st, on Online Opinion  

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) recommended on 26 April 2013 that the abortion pill Mifepristone Linepharma (better known as RU 486) and the necessary second drug prostaglandin GyMiso® be included in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

The Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek will now make sure that there is "a cost-effective price" and "a steady, good quality supply" (ABC News, 26 April 2013). Indeed, the first thing we need to know is how much the tax payer will have to contribute to the coffers of MS Health – the subsidiary of the abortion provider Marie Stopes International Australia (MSIA) - who obtained registration of the two drugs in August 2012. A previous amount mentioned by a Department of Health and Ageing spokeswoman for Mifepristone was $300: five times higher than the $60 charged by Exelgyn for the same 200 mg of mifepristone, available to 187 TGA Authorised Prescribers since 2006.

MSIA/MS Health sure need to recoup a lot of money, given that the application and evaluation process of including the two drugs in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) cost them in excess of $335,000 dollars according to the fee schedule on TGA website. At a price of $450 as previously charged by MSIA in one of their Sydney clinics, MSIA clinics would have to perform over 77,000 'medical' abortions at a cost of $450 per termination. This number amounts to the approximated total for all abortions in Australia in one year – suction and chemical abortions combined. If Mifepristone Linepharma (RU 486) is listed on the PBS, it might cost only $36.10. Pill abortions would then have to be considerably cheaper. So more business needs to be raised.

But this is one of the main problems with putting Mifepristone and GyMiso®on the PBS: pill abortions will become cheaper than suction abortions. This will push many more women into using the drugs instead of asking for the much safer suction abortion, preferably with a local anesthetic. I am writing this as a long-term health advocate supportive of women's right to abortion, but I want women to be able to access a safe service, not a second-rate, unpredictable and dangerous drug cocktail. A South Australian woman who had a pill abortion in 2009 commented: "I was *technically * offered the choice of either suction procedure or tablet/RU486. However, I felt I was definitely encouraged towards the latter… Basically, I felt as though I would be causing an annoyance if I were to choose the surgical option."

Contrary to the 'safe, effective and more natural' mantra put forward by the pill abortion promoters, Mifepristone and GyMiso® have a failure rate between 5 and 7 per cent (10 per cent is not unusual), which means that women then need a second suction abortion to ensure complete termination. Instead of spending 15-30 minutes in a safe clinic setting for a suction abortion, the pill abortion takes a minimum of three days as the prostaglandin needs to be taken 24 to 36 hours after the initial mifepristone tablet. In order to exclude an ectopic pregnancy and confirm the time of gestation – only up to 7 weeks since the last period – a (transvaginal) ultrasound should be performed.

So it's a myth that pill abortions are not invasive. It's just easier for doctors to hand out pills rather than doing the abortion themselves. Blood loss can be excessive, sometimes needing blood transfusions; bleeding can last up to 6 weeks. The pain is often severe and is accompanied by chills, fever, nausea and vomiting. Women have died from cardiovascular events and sepsis including a woman in 2010 in Australia in a Marie Stopes Clinic. Difficult also for many women is the fact that they see the small embryo (only about 1 cm but already formed) when it is expelled.

The problem is that no woman will know what adverse effects she will experience and whether she needs emergency treatment – which makes this unpredictable abortion method inherently ill-suited for women living in rural and remote areas. There is a black box warning in the Patient Information for Mifepristone Linepharma:"Even if no adverse events have occurred all patients must receive follow-up 14-21 days after taking mifepristone."

As the South Australian woman remembered:

Overall the worst part of the RU486 was the sheer amount of time it took for me to 'terminate' my baby: with each and every large clot of blood – which I could literally feel passing through my insides and then out of my vagina – was a reminder of the fact I was terminating a baby, for which I felt hugely saddened. More than I realized I would.

It was three days of nausea, high temperature/sweating (I was worried about infection), cramping, lots of blood, distress and swirling emotions, thoughts, etc. I would never ever go through that again.

She also said: "I absolutely support a woman's access to abortion – but I think RU 486 and prostaglandin is the wrong way to go."

Data by the TGA up to 25 June 2012 - with an estimated number of 22,500 women who had undergone a pill abortion in Australia - mentioned a total of 832 adverse events: 132 women ended up with an ongoing pregnancy; 23 required transfusion; 599 had retained products of conception and needed a second abortion (D&C). There were 29 infections and 28 women hemorrhaged (quoted in Australian Public Assessment Reports - AusPAR – for Misoprostol and Mifepristone, 2 October 2012, p. 81 and p. 80).

Not only was MS Health given the right to register Mifepristone and GyMiso® in Australia in 2012, it was also accorded the right – and indeed the mandate - to provide on-line courses to clinics, individual healthcare practitioners and other 'healthcare professionals' who might want to become 'medical' abortion providers. Once these professionals have completed the MS-2 Step™ Program of 11 Training Modules and 5 Case Studies - estimated by MS Health to take 4 hours – as well as the Pre-Course Assessment and Post-Course Assessment – 20 minutes each - they will receive a Certificate and be allowed to register as a bona fide 'medical' abortion provider. And of course, let us not forget, buy the requisite combined blister packs of 1 tablet Mifepristone Linepharma and 4 tablets GyMiso® from MS Health: the only current TGA-endorsed provider. When Tanya Plibersek says she wants to ensure a "steady good-quality supply" she is locked into the TGA registration of Mifepristone Linepharma by MS Health: no other generic (cheaper) mifepristone has been registered.

Is Marie Stopes' monopoly really in the interest of Australian women needing abortions? What about the future of providing low-tech suction abortions? Called, unkindly, an 'abortion chain' by a doctor performing suction abortions at a community clinic, many abortion providers are unhappy about MSIAs increasing power as their names will be included on a Prescriber Registry held by MS Health once they receive their Certification to become a medical abortion provider. This lets MSIA know which locations and clinics are willing to offer 'medical' abortions: a good way, perhaps, to discover untapped markets? In rural areas maybe?

If or most probably when (given we are in an election year and Labor wants to be seen as woman-friendly) Mifepristone Linepharma and GyMiso® will be added to the PBS, it is important to get the message out to women needing abortions that they should think twice before they opt for days of pain, misery and emotional upsets (possibly followed by a second abortion), rather than a 99 per cent effective and safe suction abortion in a controlled clinic environment. This is especially true for women in rural and remote areas for whom this abortion method is especially dangerous.

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Renate Klein was one of the authors of 1991 Spinifex book, RU 486: Misconceptions Myths and Morals - look out for an updated version of this book, complete with new intro coming soon to Spinifex!