[Pil-pc-oceania] Womens' PDC's

Wed Apr 2 22:02:48 EST 2008

hey Tamara,

These are critical issues, never more so.
The C-section rate is at a record high, even higher here in Aust. than the US.

Everything we can all do to spread the word ie educate the female population about the risks of unnecessary caesars is a bonus for babies and mothers.  Even if some women never have babies themselves, it is important for them to be aware of these issues, so that they can spread the word to other women.

I really like the herb mandala ideas, one culinary, one herbal/medicinal; of course culinary herbs have medicinal properties as well...maybe we can devise a short course or segment on this topic.  

Are any teachers in the habit of giving out notes to students?  No-one did at any of the PDC's I attended, but nowadays??? A relatively short list on this topic would be useful...I will get to work on it.   Time I revisited my herbalist!....research required.  A good bibliography is always a useful thing....

Nutrition is another big topic: eg list of the most nutritious vegetables, high antioxidant fruits...some bushfoods are high on that list as well..

Thanks for the passing refernce to "the Royal Commission into the decline of births 1902": sounds interesting...I had not heard of this....but there was a crippling drought and depression in the 1890's, and it is likely that the desperate plight of many working class people, many more of whom lived in the countryside back then and were agricultural labourers, attests to the fact that there are many times and situations when women need to control their fertility.  1902 also marked the close of the Victorian era (famously an era of sexual repression during Victoria's rule which ended with her death in 1901).  There were also many types of plagues, including cholera, not to mention the BIG C19 killer which accounted for 1 in 4 deaths: "coffin disease", better known as TB (drug resistant strains of which are now making a comeback)  Life in early colonial times was definitely far from easy. Drought must have made life very hard, coming at a time of expansion into areas which were very marginal in terms of European style agriculture.  People were not adapted to the new landscapes and plants, or used to water shortages. 

But the birth rate REALLY dipped after WW1....perhaps those women who did not have many children prior to 1900 were glad of it when all those young men went waltzing off the the war.....many of those who returned suffered the effects of mustard gas, and were never the same again, and many of those did not have children, or had very few children.  Try researching your family tree and see if there are any who went to the war and if they had children: centuries of very similar breeding family patterns just suddenly went out the window after WW1.  probably just as well, as the next war was just around the corner.  

I could not get to NSW for the APC9, perhaps next year....its hard to imagine someone you have only emailed, I thought of you as my age or even older (surely a mark of your wise ways!).  I really have no idea, but it hardly matters, really.

Looking forward to getting my library out of storage now, so I can contribute some ideas or material for Womens PDC: not just a course with childcare!  Some material may even get circulated back into all other PDC's for inclusion as supplementary curricula.

Sleeptime,

Thanks Tamara, and

Cheers,
Deb

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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tamara Griffiths 
  To: permacultue discussion list 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:21 PM
  Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Womens' PDC's

  Hi Deb,

  My mum is a midwife and is very concerned about the c-section rate. She says that it was started by the male obgyn's who didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to deliver babies. So they just book them in and whip the baby out.

  If there is an emergency and a need for a c-section, then it should be done, no questions asked.

  I have studied how the medical profession (doctors were mostly male then, women weren't allowed to study as a doctor until the late 1890s and were very rare) and the state interacted with mothers in the "Royal Commission into the decline in Childbirth in NSW 1902-3. It is pretty harrowing stuff and showed that women were desperate to control their destinies and their reproduction using all kinds of techniques (too graphic for here). For doing this, and not having the 7-10 babies their mothers had produced, they were called selfish. I have always said I wanted to have my babies in a field or in the garden at home. My mum says yes, but it has to be within an ambulance ride to a hospital (very sensible, my mum).

  There are birthing centres in most capital cities now that use mainly midwives and doctors only for emergencies.

  As to fitting all this into a PDC? No idea.

  We have a local herbalist who is keen to share her knowledge and her produce - perhaps we could build two herb spirals to fit all the ones we women would need at the back door????? A culinary and a medicinal?

  I also think that a zone 1 forest garden could be heavily planted with medicinal as well as culinary plants. I have some in but need more niches before I can put more in. It is just too sunny in summer at the moment.

  I also like the idea I only recently heard - the fourth ethic in Permaculture as care of spirit... 

  My aunty is a goddess woman and she introducted me to Marija Gambutas' work on symbols and patterns in old europe - very similar to the pattern thinking we do in Permaculture.

  Probably some women's empowerment workshops would be fantastic too.

  I'm pretty new to all this, so I am very keen to hear ideas from all women as to want they would want or what they see as important in a women's pdc.

  All the while, sticking to the curriculum!!!!!!!!!!

  Love T

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From: bocor at bigbutton.com.au
    To: pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
    Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 08:26:19 +0930
    Subject: [Pil-pc-oceania] Womens' PDC's

    I have always been interested in natural medicine: herbalism in particular is a very rich field (pun unintended).  There is of course a very ancient tradition of women as healers to draw upon. 

    Also, in this current era with childbirth (as well as most aspects of health management)having been almost totally appropriated by druggists and technologists -aka the medical profesion- resulting in a dangerously spiralling caesarian rate, it would also be advantageous to have a segment on natural childbirth.  I know David Holmgren has often spoken in support of this..

    Healthy children means healthy communities, and a wholistic person centred health perspective transfers really well to a philosophy of caring for the environment and the planet.  Care for animals is also worth promoting.

    Cheers
    Deb

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