From Women’s Sacrifice to Feminist Sacrifice: Medicalized Birth and “Natural” Birth versus Woman-Centered Birth

The concept of sacrifice poses an interesting challenge to feminist theory. On the one hand, it seems that women must reject self-sacrificing practices. On the other hand, certain recent feminist analyses have recognized sacrifice as a potential empowering tool for women, so long as it is freely chosen and experienced as positively transformative. In this paper I argue that it is possible to relate to childbirth either as an event calling for women to sacrifice themselves in the patriarchal sense or, alternatively, as one that allows for a “feminist sacrifice” – a deeply embodied and painful but also creative and redeeming self-sacrifice, chosen by a woman herself. I show that while the patriarchal sacrifice of women’s birthing bodies in the labor room through shame, blame, objectification, and abuse must be clearly rejected from a feminist perspective, there is nevertheless room for “feminist sacrifice” in childbirth.