I bristle when someone refers to an unmedicated vaginal delivery as ‘natural’. The inference is that a medicated or caesarean birth is ‘unnatural’ (which is why I love the term ‘belly birth’) and therefore inferior to a birth where the baby was pushed—not pulled—out and without medical intervention. At best, ‘natural’ is a euphemism for ‘vaginal’—but it is a persistent term stuck in slightly outdated feminism. As a feminist, I have long maintained that if you’re too embarrassed to say the word ‘vagina’ then you should probably change the topic of conversation altogether…
So I was delighted to receive an advance copy of The Seed, which expertly crafts Kimball’s personal experience of miscarriage and infertility with sharp journalism. It is a reckoning for anyone who thinks of themselves as an intersectional feminist. This is the book I didn’t know I needed to read; if you’re reading this, it’s likely the book you didn’t know you needed to read, too.
Because which of us infertiles have really examined our feminism through the prism of our collective infertility experience? Kimball states how as infertile people, our determination to have a baby is misunderstood more than not. The ‘barren woman’ is a mythological figure to be feared. Contemporaneously, we are often portrayed as desperate and foolish, reduced to mere “dupes of the patriarchy.”
The reality is, of course, far more complicated. Kimball deftly argues that the fight for women’s reproductive freedom has so far excluded the right to reproduce when medical intervention is required. It’s a deft argument, and the cornerstone of the book. Reproductive rights must also mean access to fertility treatment, not just to birth control—all the more important if you’re not a middle class white person.
This eye-opening book left me nodding along with its probing questions. Shouldn’t we transcend traditional definitions of ‘womanliness’ and what it means to be maternal? Shouldn’t we support the desire to become a parent, as well as the choice not to reproduce? Why is acceptable to talk about birth work, but not the work of pregnancy loss and infertility? Shouldn’t all forms of family constellations be celebrated? These are some of the questions feminism’s fourth wave must answer. I am hopeful that The Seed will help steer the conversation in that direction.
The Seed is available to purchase on Amazon on April 10, 2019.
Leave a Reply