One of the ways of starkly illustrating an aspect of the gender divide is DeBecker’s quote: “At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.” I think there’s a class and mothering parallel here: Middle-class women are afra...

I read this article in The West a little while ago, and it hit my bad-science peeve button. “Half of WA women drink throughout pregnancy“. This beat-up is certainly not alone in drawing conclusions that do not follow from the data, but it’s a particularly egregious example. The new...

The Maternity Services Review is finally out. But you knew that, because last week the Australian Medical Association published a badly flawed paper designed to suggest that private obstetric care was the only safe way to birth a baby. And the buzzword for today is: “collaborative care”....

We’ve done the other Bingos, and this one’s long overdue. With a nod to all the misogynist trolls out there who’ve provided the material for this card, I present: Antibreastfeeding Bingo! It’s focussed on public breastfeeding conversations, not “mommy wars” type c...

Those who’ve been following some of my recent discussions about breastfeeding and civil liberties might be interested to note this symposium poster. Parenting, Gender, and the Law is a symposium sponsored by the Stanford Journal for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The poster icons are a feed...

A woman in Asheville had the police called on her for breastfeeding. (Video news report at link). An Asheville woman says she was asked to cover up or leave a local Denny’s restaurant while breastfeeding her son, Sunday afternoon. Crystal Everitt says an employee approached her at her table. &...

I just watched “The Doctors” on birthing. They called the show “The Alternative Birthing Debate”. I thought I’d live-semi-transcribe it for you. Some of this is quickly paraphrased, but the quoted material is not misquoted in ways (I hope) that misrepresent the speakers...

There’s always one, isn’t there? The fatuous godbag woman-hater who blames disasters on the Wrath of God. We saw them after Hurricane Katrina, and now they’re starting to waggle their loathsome little fins in the wake of the horrific Victorian bushfires. Today, it’s Pastor Da...

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in consultation with the Vatican, is trying to overturn a court order to remove the feeding tubes from a woman who has been in a coma for 17 years and been assessed as having no hope of any recovery. Why? Because she’s fertile. The other day, Pavlov...

Remember the fuss over Salma Hayek being “abusive” because she was “still” feeding her toddler? Salma Hayek took a humanitarian trip to Sierra Leone. This video[1] shows her being there for the death of a baby from tetanus, speaking to a UNICEF representative, and travelling ...