I didn't preview to see if my blockquote tags worked... the first part was supposed to be this quote:

How is it that we feminists (well, SOME of us anyway) can rhapsodize on and on about the importance of "Choice" and "Controlling our bodies" regarding some aspects of women's health...but when it comes to others (chiefly child-birth and child-care methods), suddenly become "my way or the highway" absolutists? And how do we reconcile with the hypocrisy of it all?

And this part's my response:

I don't think it would become an issue, the usual sniping & mockery aside, if trends in childbirth weren't damned near impossible to buck. Abortion's a bad choice analogy, because the primary choice is being pregnant vs. not being pregnant; once that decision's made, the methods (excepting the recent SCOTUS travesty) are mostly irrelevant. Cosmetic surgery's a somewhat better comparison, because one of the problems with it as a trend is that it sets standards that become normalized and therefore pressure women who wouldn't ordinarily be susceptible to the hype. But even then, if someone doesn't want cosmetic surgery, well, don't make an appointment with a plastic surgeon, and avoid that minefield. But in childbirth... well, it's almost impossible to know what one will get at the end of the prenatal-care phase. Will it be the language of 'asking for the sale' in the form of "I know you're uncomfortable, and it's almost your due date; wanna go ahead and schedule an inductionlater this week?" Or the more subtle "I'm a little worried about your pelvic bones here-- if this baby gets too big..." etc. And we have no way of knowing if any of this is valid medically speaking, because so much of modern obstetrics is not evidence based medicine. And they can easily hold the threat of your baby's health over your head, like a hostage situation in which your noncompliance will kill someone.

So yeah, it would be great if we could just agree to live and let live on this, but too often the birthing experience is too much like going to get a facial and finding out you're scheduled for a full face lift instead, and not being able to get out of it. That's why what other women do ends up being a problem, because they're the ones who let the facelift guys run the spa.

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Again, my apologies.

made the point that months of pregnancy are much harder on the pelvic floor (the muscles surrounding the vagina & supporting internal organs) than minutes or even an hour of birthing is on the vagina? There's a reason that women start peeing every time they sneeze or cough when they're still pregnant, since carrying the weight of a bowling ball or greater on a sling of small muscles tends to stretch them out. If you want to keep your nether regions tight, don't get pregnant, or learn to do some serious Kegels regardless of delivery method, because the muscles are gonna get pretty loose either way.

People can have their phobias, but I sense that some women here are going to have some unpleasant postpartum surprises if they think that surgical birth's going to keep their genitals in a virginal state.

the virus-obesity link would be interesting is because it could explain sudden weight gain or changes in metabolism among those who had not been overweight in the past, not that it would provide an excuse for everyone who's currently overweight. I was always a slender adult with a pretty robust appetite, but never had weight fluctuations that couldn't be directly linked to changes in my activity level (and I've never been all that athletic)... until I took a particular medication and started gaining weight quickly, without dietary or exercise changes. And taking it off is hard as hell, when in the past I could drop a couple of pounds in a week without too much trouble. I don't see why a virus couldn't cause a similar change in one's metabolism.

(yeah, usually moms, at least for the not-fun stuff like dr. appointments) at work, although my employer does believe in having a life. Obviously there are always people who can't manage their time and/or use their personal dramas as excuses to slack, and some of them have kids as a convenient justification, but it's not just parents. I had help from both parents and nonparents when I had a terminally ill parent and sometimes had to just leave abruptly, and as far as I know there weren't too many complaints as long as I stayed fairly organized.

Plus, I want to support parents in the workplace because women dropping out disturbs me more than having them there, in a broader sense... my feminism is more of an equality-oriented type, and I'm disposed to favor women who retain some independence even as their personal lives become more burdened. In fact, my first thought on the article cited was that it sounds like a companion piece to the reliable old NYT opt-out stories, in that it really sets up work environments as soooo hostile and unpleasant to mommies that no one could blame them for not wanting to continue working. I'd rather have workplaces in general be more family-friendly-- and let's face it, most of us will eventually have some family concerns that interfere with work, even if we don't have kids-- to encourage both men and women to try balancing things out at home, and hopefully, work as well. Even if I didn't get full benefits myself, other people I care about would, after all.

Okay, the shoplifting part is obviously disgraceful, but I've often thought that anyone who decides to badger a nursing mom in public deserves a face full of milk. In fact, a few extended family members probably would have benefited from a good squirting, at least a few years ago when they couldn't keep their opinions to themselves.