ONE of the worst things that can happen to a woman or girl around the world is a fistula, an internal injury caused by childbirth (or occasionally by rape) that leaves her incontinent, humiliated and sometimes stinking.
Victims are the lepers of the 21st century, and although the condition is almost entirely preventable, it is suffered by hundreds of thousands of women worldwide.
The condition is invisible because it distastefully involves sex, odor and private body parts, and because victims tend to live in impoverished countries and already have three strikes against them: They’re poor, rural and female, and thus voiceless and marginalized.
They’re the same group that is routinely denied education, denied the right to own property, denied jobs and denied any recourse after being battered, raped or married against their will — and that’s why gender equity worldwide should be a top item on the social justice agenda.
This is fuck all to do with womens’ rights or gender equity. It’s to do with poverty.
No one, no matter how rich, poor, patriarchal or just plain flat out stupid wants women stumbling around smelling of piss and shit. No one wants their mother, sister, daughter, nor day I say it their potential fuck, to be in this condition.
So, why doesn’t it get fixed? Because these places have been run by terminal dimwits for the past couple of centuries and they’re as poor as fuck. It’s not a rights nor gender issue, it’s a poverty issue. Get GDP growth up and this will be one of the first things that that newfound wealth is spent upon. By common agreement and desire, no armtwisting needed, no campaigning.
Hmm, so, to calm down a bit. What was the incidence of fistulas before modern surgery? Is this current poor world incidence any greater than our own ancestors went through?
Lengthy traumatic labours are most likely in young girls with immature pelvises so yes it is a feminist issue in societies where early and preteens are married off by their families, their consent being irrelevant, the same societies where childbirth is regarded as their lot in life and contraception and available medical care dependant on the discretion of their menfolk. Yes, these are poor societies but the use of limited resources is gender skewed in favour of males. Divorce in preobstetric European societies for damaged genitalia did not happen although the incontinent became invalids; these broken girls are cast off and become outcasts.
What the hell is he complaining to us for?
Great macro-illness –socialism/ “spiritual aberrations”/statism/tribalism–give rise to personal illness such as this fistula.
Go tell his complaints to the carriers and vectors of such aliments.
The West is the cure. Or would be if we could get rid of our own fistula of socialism.
It is actually a wimmins ishoo (and a far more important one than what top tennis players get paid, or whether 40% of non-executive directors self-identify as female) because medical money will get spent on lesser problems in men before this problem. Unfortunately that’s because it’s also economically rational to do so, as mothers can still carry out their economic duties more or less unimpeded with this condition.
https://archive.org/details/vesicovaginalfis00emme>Here‘s a book by a 19th-century surgeon in New York, who was treating one or two cases a week, referred to him from across the USA.
BiG: …because medical money will get spent on lesser problems in men before this problem
You wouldn’t have an example of this, would you?
My layman’s understanding of the world is that – rather like cookery programmes – you’re never more than ten feet away from a discussion concerning women’s health matters.
Lengthy traumatic labours are most likely in young girls with immature pelvises
But that won’t stop some claiming that age of consent legislation is puritanical…
Track down some doctors who were present at the start of the NHS and you’ll be horrified at their stories of women turning up with things like prolapsed uteruses literally hanging out that they’d put up with for years because they couldn’t afford to access treatments for it.
Around the world? More accurately, mainly in one continent. Africa.
See http://globalfistulamap.org/
Bloke in Germany – 2It is actually a wimmins ishoo (and a far more important one than what top tennis players get paid, or whether 40% of non-executive directors self-identify as female) because medical money will get spent on lesser problems in men before this problem.”
Sorry but really? Is there any male medical problem that gets more money than a female medical problem? Breast cancer gets a lot more money and attention than prostate even though they kill similar numbers. Men’s health is largely ignored.
Social Justice Warrior – “Here‘s a book by a 19th-century surgeon in New York, who was treating one or two cases a week, referred to him from across the USA.”
A whole 100 every year across the whole United Sates of America? So vanishingly rare then.
It’s a problem easy to fix, at very low cost.
A local anaesthetic, a few stitches, and Bob’s your Uncle.
Can be a problem when Bob’s your husband, though, as you need to abstain from sex for a few weeks.
My mum volunteered for a sabbatical doing this, but was rejected as over qualified.
While this touches on gender equality and womens’ issues, the main cause of this is, as Tim point out, economic: a serious lack of decent postnatal care.
Then again This is Africa. Medical Care, period, in most regions is akin to Iron Age levels of practice/knowledge.
( People may be surprised that this particular affliction only started to become a problem in Europe around the 16th/17th C upward, when Protestantism and the Great Shaming of Private Parts really took hold.
Before that people knew how to deal with it, and midwives and surgeons ( not to be confused with “Doctors” ) had a rather impressive array of classical and local remedies that generally worked.
I positively hate the feminazis, but there’s a couple of ladies out there that have focussed on Ladies’ Issues in the ever increasing digitised horde of surviving manuscripts, and besides their Pet Peeve, they certainly bring up a lot of goodies that show the Dark Ages pretty much weren’t.
Post-plague Europe, double-tapped by religious civil war, started the real Dark Ages as far as Europe is concerned.)
Grikath – “Then again This is Africa. Medical Care, period, in most regions is akin to Iron Age levels of practice/knowledge. …. midwives and surgeons ( not to be confused with “Doctors” ) had a rather impressive array of classical and local remedies that generally worked.”
Right. So Mediaeval Europe could deal with it. Mediaeval Africa cannot. Can you think of any reason why folk remedies might work in Europe but not in Africa?
“they certainly bring up a lot of goodies that show the Dark Ages pretty much weren’t.”
Someone is selling you leftist [email protected]
Mediaeval Europe could deal with it
We’ve got no data to support that. But if the incidence of obstetric fistula was much less, it would have been because the outcome of obstructed labour was usually death.
Dear Mr Worstall
It’s amazing what can be solved by a bit of prosperity, which makes one wonder why socialists are so against it.
Meanwhile in other news: MPs want action on ‘motherhood penalty’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35862925
Have you considered that some people read your blog posts just to come up with new ideas to campaign on? Or that you might be solely responsible for the ‘rise’ of P Murphy (0.2 of a Prof rounded to the nearest whole letter)?
DP