Tag: male midwife

Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead: “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think. “

“It’s the difference between freedom and indoctrination.” – Tim Goldich

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I was a midwife for 31 years, but modern feminist tyranny in Maribyrnong, Victoria, has turned me into an MRA, a men’s rights activist.

So I love and celebrate the humanity of Margaret Mead who was born on this day in 1901.

Mead observed that, “There is no greater insight into the future than recognizing when we save our children, we save ourselves ………” and “………. when women disengage completely from their traditional role they become more ruthless and savage than men.”

What does this mean for women and for the rest of us when fewer women become mothers?

Lady MacBeth. And her husband. From Shakespeare. How long has this been going on?

Geoff Fox, Terra Nullius, December 16, 2019

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More Questions for Mayor Zakharov

For three years I have been driven towards suicide by the misuse of police services against me from within Maribyrnong City Council and the Australian Labor Party in 2016. A horrific part of this trauma for me has been the complete failure of anyone within either organisation to adequately address the questions raised by what was done to me. Only you have tried, Mr Mayor. You havent done enough to answer the questions, but you have at least made an attempt.

On June 18 2016 I sent an email, to one of your ALP colleagues in Maribyrnong beginning with this sentence, “i believe there is an undeniable presence of gender bigotry and demonisation of men in our society including in Maribyrnong” Two days later police were at my home with a warrant ready to arrest me for communicating with this politician. Is sticking up for mens rights a crime in Maribyrnong?

On July 29th, 2016, I asked this question in an email of you and all other Maribyrnong councillors, “Does Maribyrnong City Council practice gender equity with respect to physical and psychological health issues or does Maribyrnong City Council discriminate too strongly in favor of women?” On July 5th i was arrested by the police for communicating with one of the councillors to whom this question had been addressed. The question is still unanswered. I now add this question: Is Maribyrnong City Councils expenditure addressing suicide, which claims 8 lives a day, 56 times greater than its expenditure addressing domestic violence against women which you have told me several times, as memory serves, claims one woman’s life every week?

On November 18 last year I asked you early in your term as mayor, “How many men have committed suicide in Maribyrnong in the past decade and in each of the past five years and what are the equivalent figures for women in Maribyrnong?” On January 8 you responded, “I don’t have Maribyrnong figures, but nationally I believe it’s roughly the opposite of domestic violence deaths – more than twice as many men as women dying from suicide.” I dont think this is a very good answer, but it is better than none at all.

I believe, using my instincts as a Registered Midwife of 31 years standing and based on what I have seen in quite a few artistic interactions with you, you have inherited many fine qualities from your mother Senator Olive Zakharov, a pioneer in opening up the issue of domestic violence. But now it is time for those qualities to be turned to addressing the needs of men. Too many men are choosing to die and too many Australians ignore the questions which we need to ask to address this difficult problem.

Can you make a start on this and show some leadership by becoming a Mayor who is on top of the suicide figures and trends in his own municipality and who does not duck the hard questions that need to be answered if the problem is to be addressed?

Geoff Fox, Maribyrnong, May 29, 2019

PS John F Kennedy, who was born 102 years ago today, said this five months and eleven days before his death in 1963, “The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” Do you, Martin Zakharov, care about the implications, for the rights of all men in Maribyrnong, of what was done to me from within your organisation in 2016?

Too Many Men Want To Die: #metoo4mentoo?

My fellow western men, we must tell our stories: when we are silent, we die.

We have as much right to #metoo as women do.

This poem is my story of unresolved PTSD induced by police state practices in Australia in 2016:

Untitled

GEOFF FORKS DAY

(#metoo for men too)

Remember. Remember. The 5th of November.

I remember childhood, when Stranger Danger hadn’t been invented: the streets were free.

I remember Repat: nursing with the diggers and then Brisbane midwifery: in being with women ….. for twenty eight years I had felt free.

I remember Morotai, Douglas MacArthur’s waterhole, where I am proud to see my dad look good, but Maribyrnong took me down: was that cos I was free?

I remember these 28 months of too much wanting to die …….

Can men like me be free

with women now?

Or has hatred

grown too strong?

@ us too?

Geoff Fox, 5th of November, 2018, Australia.

Relevant link:

https://tujuhbelasan.net/2018/10/17/austral-indonesian-tujuhbelasan-1-my-dad-in-morotai/

Prosaic explanations:

  1. I studied General Nursing at Heidelberg Repatriation hospital where there were many war veterans (diggers in Aussie parlance) and followed up with midwifery in Brisbane. The Old English word “wyf” meant “woman” and the “mid” syllable means “with”. Think of the modern German word “mit” meaning “with”. A midwife now is someone who is with women in pregnancy, birth and breast feeding.
  2. I have created an art display at General Douglas MacArthur’s waterhole in Morotai in Indonesia. My Dad was in Morotai in WW2. His image is now part of the sacerd heart of this grassroots art display. It means a lot to me. I wanted to share and replicate my Morotai achievements in Maribyrnong. I was arrested by the police.

SOME QUESTIONS FOR MOTHERS DAY FROM A VICTORIAN MIDWIFE.

I have been a midwife in Australia for 30 years.

I believe that human babies have a right to human milk.

Who agrees with me?

6 months exclusive breast feeding is the recommended minimum. According to the latest publicly available comprehensive figures, 96% of Australian mothers initiate breast feeding for their newborns. At 5 months only 15% have been exclusively breast fed for that time. To achieve better breast feeding rates, mothers need more support.

The Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities states: “Every child has the right, without discrimination, to such protection as is in his or her best interests and is needed by him or her by reason of being a child.”

The first few days are crucial to establishing breast feeding.

Since breast feeding is unarguably the best foundation for a baby’s life long physical, psychological and social health, why have successive Victorian governments whittled away at the publicly funded lying in period spent among midwives for new mothers?

When I became a midwife in the late 1980’s, we were very reluctant to send a breast feeding woman home if the milk supply was not established. Sometimes that could mean midwifery care in hospital for a week. Most mothers stayed for three to five days.

Since then the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative made Victorian hospitals much better places to establish breast feeding than they were. But the question, “Is the milk in yet?” has been replaced in public hospitals by the question “How soon do you want to go home?” The common length of stay is one to three days or earlier if the mother wants. For some women going home quickly is highly desirable and not a problem at all. But for others, undisturbed bonding with the baby under the care of experts in breast feeding is a need that it is impossible to meet at home.

Why have women and their newborn babies been denied the right to a publicly funded lying-in period to establish breast feeding?

I believe this has happened because it is cheaper for new mothers to be sent home quickly than it is to care for them.

Earlier this decade, I told Labor Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, that I believed new mothers were being sent home too quickly. Her immediate response was to ask what impact would that have on breast feeding rates. She promised to discuss my concerns with me, but did not deliver on the promise till she became Attorney General: she knew there was a problem but she didn’t make the time to listen to me when it counted.

At that time if you googled “Liberal Party breast feeding” Tony Abbot’s generous paid parental scheme was what you found: this policy would have helped breast feeding rates; he clearly did care. Who cares now?

If you googled  ”Labor Party breast feeding” the result was policies about cattle feedlots.

Australia’s latest national comprehensive breast feeding figures are from 2010.

Share market prices can be dealt with in seconds or even milli-seconds.

Who wants a better balance between our attention to our breast feeding rates and our attention to stock prices? I know I do.

Why don’t we have regular updates on breast feeding rates?

Is there a single candidate running in this year’s Victorian state election who cares about breast feeding and who will push for better midwifery postnatal services and the return of a publicly funded lying-in period available to all mothers?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/breastfeedingsupportinvictoria/?ref=group_browse_new was my attempt to raise awareness prior to the previous election. Who wants to revive this effort?

Mothers want to give their babies the best.

But they need more support.

Who else cares about this?

Societies which neglect the needs of mothers and their babies cannot survive.

Geoff Fox, Midwife. 08-05-2018.

Postscript. ……….. I. Geoff Fox, am no longer a midwife, but I still care deeply about mums. (11/1o/2020)