doula – Feminism and Religion

With Women by Kay Bee

Someone told me the other day that Death Doulas are one of the fastest growing career fields out there right now. As a (currently not practicing) Birth Doula, this does not surprise me. The term Doula came into its modern – predominately American – usage in the early 1970s, in reference to a woman who provided non-medical care for a birthing woman. The word is Greek in origin and depending on who you ask, means “with woman” or “servant woman.”

While I suspect the earlier “servant woman” version is the correct etymology, the romantic in me appreciates the “with woman” version, even in its technical inaccuracy. This is because at its core, the role of the Birth/Postpartum Doula is the formalized return of what I believe in my bones to be an ancient cultural practice of women being with each other as a woman passes through an intense life transition.

Whereas before, when a woman gave birth, the older, multiparous women of the local culture would gather around her to see her through her passage from expectant to postpartum motherhood; now some of us approaching that same rite of passage use the Internet to reach out into the culture to hire a Doula to do that very same thing. How we bring it about has changed, but what we desire has not. We desire to be supported, cared for, & loved by someone who has gone through what we are about to — we desire to be with women.

The number of Birth Doulas in the U.S. and abroad, at this point, has increased dramatically over the last ten years and now it would seem that the Conscious Birth movement has birthed a Conscious Death movement, complete with Death Doulas. Again, how we secure the care we want at birth or at death has changed, but what we desire in those powerful moments of passage has not.

The fundamental physical, emotional, and spiritual craving to be with women at life’s major rites of passage runs incredibly deep within us. It is also something denied to us by the patriarchal structures of most major religious systems, but over the last sixty years or so, we’ve worked hard at taking that back. Continue reading “With Women by Kay Bee”

BOOK REVIEW: Amy Wright Glenn’s Birth, Breath, & Death by Natalie Weaver

Amy Wright Glenn’s Birth, Breath, & Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula is a mid-life memoir of the author’s personal encounters and professional insights drawn from her work in the spaces of birth and death. Glenn gleans from her formative experiences as a daughter and sister, her trained experiences as a teacher and doula, and her wisdom experiences as a mother, chaplain, and friend. In an accessible voice, Glenn reflects compassionately on her early life in a Mormon family. She considers critically the nature of religious worldviews that are doctrinally dualistic and apocalyptic. Glenn further describes the therapeutic and illuminating value she found in the scholarly study of religions as an anthropological phenomenon. Glenn explores how religious discourse both expresses human joy and grief and also aids us in our encounters with life and death. Glenn intertwines her academic study with personal narrative and achieves a professionally-informed and experientially-based “thinking out loud” about the bookends of human life. Her writing is tender, and her vision is thought-provoking.
Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: Amy Wright Glenn’s Birth, Breath, & Death by Natalie Weaver”

Women Standing as Sacred Witness to One Another By Stacia Guzzo

The following is a guest post written by Stacia Guzzo. She received her MA in Theological Studies from Loyola Marymount University and is currently working toward a MDiv through Fuller Theological Seminary. She is also in the midst of completing certification in Childbirth Education and periodically serves women in her community as a labor doula. She has taught on the elementary and high school levels, led retreats, and spoken at regional congresses through the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese. She lives with her husband, son, two dogs, two cats, seven chickens, and five beehives on a small homestead in Tehachapi, California.

“Hands!” The young woman gasped as the next contraction swelled. I quickly put the wet washcloth I had been using to dab her face back in the small bowl of water beside me and grabbed her hands. She squeezed them, moaning low. Her husband stood behind her in the birthing tub, pressing on her hips. Two midwives stood in the background, their encouragement silent and strong. The dim light of dawn was beginning to shine through the window of their home. In another room, the couple’s two-year-old son slept. Continue reading “Women Standing as Sacred Witness to One Another By Stacia Guzzo”