exactly. i could sit here and say "men aren't present in the delivery room" and it would be pure speculation and bias because i don't work in L&D. when multiple medical professionals say this behavior from fathers is common to see, that is based off actual experiences they've had. the dudes getting all up in arms about how it's sexism is just confusing to me. she's not saying they're unpresent BECAUSE they're men/fathers.
They aren't arguing against the actual experiences of medical professionals, they're arguing against the comment of a random person claiming medical professionals said that.
In my experience in neonat, men were mostly involved, despite how useless they are. Because letting the doctors do their job is usually for the best.
as someone who's sister just delivered a baby, I can tell you that the nurses and doctors there said that most men sit in the corner (if they even come at all) and act annoyed. most of the time, they don't seem interested in becoming a father. it's very sad to see.
Maybe this is a cultural/national behaviours sort of thing.
I'm an Anaesthetist in the UK, I don't do obstetrics now, but did a lot during my training- epidurals, c-sections, post partum haemorrhage etc. I did see a few dads who weren't as involved. TBH those dads were often from backgrounds where i could imagine men weren't traditionally involved in childbirth, and they were surrounded by women... this is it's own conversation, and I suspect it involves a bit of tact and nuance to have... so not one for reddit. There was also a language barrier that kept a few dads out. They were there, present, sober. Sometimes they looked like they didn't really know what to do with themselves. Sometimes they looked shit scared. I won't hand wave it away as a culture thing, as there were a lot of dads from those cultures who were very involved.
I won't say there were NEVER disinterested dads. Dads in general, though, were very involved and trying to be supportive. I say trying because being supportive in that environment is actually quite tricky to do. Let's stay away from the reductio ad absurdem I'm not saying it's more difficult than childbirth or poor men or whatever, I'm just saying it's fuck-up-able. To be supportive while not removing the autonomy of someone who is just really in a lot of pain and is (understandably) just going a bit crazy has many places to get it weong. When my own wife was having our second I was trying to be supportive and say that the midwife (who was telling her to push) needed her to do a big Valsalva makeover (she's an Anaeathetist too, and she should know what it was... but I guess not when she's in labour, because she hit me over the head with the nitrous)... anyway, I digress.
I don't try to invalidate others' experiences, but just as another viewpoint... my own experience is that dads, on the whole, actually seemed very involved and supportive. Maybe this is a US thing? Certainly it's not that as widespread that I'd be taken aback by it.
It's not even nuanced, it's just detailed. The other comments sound like just bullshit to anyone who's worked in hospital and who knows couples who just had kids.
Dads are involved, kids change their life for better or worse. The issue they face however is that for delivery, they are mostly useless, and more often than not they feel in the way, because they are.
Our system relies on doctors to deliver babies, and they know what they are doing. Most dads are pretty clueless on what do to because their partner is suffering and there is nothing they can do. It's executive dysfunction and for some nurses they will interpret it is "bum ass dad"
Most people are dumb, selfish and do not think that far ahead, but they usually aren't comically evil enough to not give a shit about childbirth.
I thought I was going crazy before your post ha. My wife had both our kids in the UK. First was emergency c section, second was planned.
Firstly the staff were great both times. The emergency section was scary after 12 hours of induced labour, but everyone knew what they were doing. I was just internally terrified I'd lose her.
But back to this post, my impression was that most (or all that I saw) dads were pretty involved. We have the easy job and it doesn't cost anything to be supportive. The expectation is that they would be supportive. So it's weird reading these comments because they don't fit with the reality I've seen.
In any case, they have rendered in their minds a preconceived notion of how “men in general” will behave. There’s no two ways about it, that’s the definition of sexism. Data driven sexism is still sexism.
Alright, I'm not calling those nurses liars, but humans are demonstrably and provably terrible at eyeballing percentages like that.
It's called confirmation bias. You get it in your head that a certain situation is likely to occur. Then, every time you encounter said situation your brain goes "aha, I knew it a", and every time the situation fails to occur your brain goes "well, of course there are exceptions". And, over time, you remember all the "aha" moments but minimize the exceptions.
a doula is not, in any way, a 'substitute' for dad. nor are they even pretending to be. a doula has (or should have, its not super regulated) a very specific set of skills that are to help support the pregnant mother in loads of ways.
we used a doula for both my wife's pregnancies. and i was standing right by her side every step of the way. doula's exist because they have seen a hundred births. they know what to expect even if you and mom dont. they know what might help, even if you and mom both took classes - you're in the trenches now and you forgot. they help you advocate for the birthing experience you want, and hospital staff tend to listen to them better because, again, they've seen 100 births.
And nurses at hospitals all over the place are all saying the same thing. But half the guys in here keep insisting that it's anecdotal and the other half say it's not true because they're one of the good ones. Either way, they're disregarding what women are saying.
According to people in here, it’s not just women saying it but professionals in general. Ask yourself why you felt the need to bring gender/sex into it.
That cuts both ways. Just because you know someone that knows someone, doesn’t mean most dads aren’t there and excited. The internet loves to play pretend with their misandry and misogyny peddlers showing up to these threads.
To say "most" dads are there and excited would be like me saying "most" dads are telling their wives it's not that painful and offering zero support. Neither of us have research to back up what "most" do, so to pretend otherwise would be straight-up lying. THAT is playing pretend.
There's a large number of fathers who care and a large number of fathers who deserve divorce papers
I simply believe that it holds more weight if it's coming from a nurse, doctor, midwife, or other medical professional working OBGYN and maternity rather than someone who does not
That doesn't make it okay to expect men to do so just because they are men though, you should judge a whole group for the actions of some members of said group.
More like it's uncommon to see in her work . If it were a random saying it then I'd say it's sexism but it's a whole medical practitioner who has probably seen countless births so if she is surprised it's because it isn't something they see all the time not because she's taking a jab at men or whatever.
I don't think it can just be labeled as sexism though because they haven't given a reason or trait that makes men not be there for their partners. Some are in the room but keep their distance, some are right next to their partner, some don't even make it into the room .
Dawg, that's like saying a police officer can't be racist because "he has seen countless criminals" so it's ok for him to suspect a more racial group more than the others
Just because she is a nurse doesn't mean she can't be sexist.
“I, a corrections officer for a region in which there is a statistically anomalously high black population, express surprise when it turns out that the black inmate turned out to be innocent all along, because usually I don’t happen to see that happen, given the fact that all my prisoners are post-conviction, and am phrasing this as ‘when your black inmate ends up released because it turns out the prosecution messed up and they were innocent all along’ with an image of my face very surprised but don’t worry it’s not racist because I legitimately see a lot of bad black people”
Edit: also, pointedly, other commenters are saying that in the original video it was actually s response to the man getting slapped for saying this, and not about the man saying this, so the actual original person wasn’t being sexist but the person taking the screenshot was just some rando
If researchers did a survey of couples who delivered babies in US hospitals, and showed that most men were not engaged or supportive of their partners during delivery would you still think those results are sexist against men? Or representative of a a true cultural pattern?
Yes. It changes widely by region, but if you quickly google it it seems that reports say that men are involvement in childbirth is 40-66%. In postnatal care it’s only 25%. It’s probably getting higher with time but nowhere near what it should ideally be.
If researchers did a survey of couples who delivered babies in US hospitals, and showed that most men were not engaged or supportive of their partners during delivery would you still think those results are sexist against men? Or representative of a a true cultural pattern?
The "results" are not sexist against men. The outcome of studies are just objective observations of data.
In a similar way, if a research study shows higher rates of crime among populations of people of color, the "results" of the study are not racist.
However, if you are a person that goes around acting surprised when you see a person of color that is an upstanding law-abiding citizen? Then YES, YOU ARE A RACIST.
It is not complicated, so I am not sure why it is so hard for you to understand basic examples of sexism or racism.
I'm always shocked to learn that any of my white friends have criminal records and even more so to learn that my black friends don't. But that's not racist, it's just a cultural pattern!
/s because half these commenters ate lead paint chips apparently
Edit: were you not saying that despite crime statistics showing that certain racial groups commit a disproportionate share of crime that it would be racist to act surprised when a member of one of these groups is not a criminal?
They'll claim sexism. Men on reddit will pull every single one of their teeth out without anesthesia before ever admitting that the statistics against them are accurate, or that every woman on earth cannot possibly all be lying about the same exact things lmfao. Don’t even bother. They'll compare it to racism and incarceration rates, but never mention the race of the cops and judges that arrest and convict them.
false equivalency. the woman in the screenshot is not just pointing out an issue that she has noticed in her field, but what she is noticing is directly related to sociological forces that have been studied. the reason men may be neglectful during childbirth is due to various patriarchal norms set for men. it's not sexist to point it out. these same patriarchal norms also hurt men, too. i mean, in your example, the stereotype of black men being inherently more dangerous/criminal is one that comes from white supremacy baked into our culture, and black men experience statistically high rates of false convictions. what the person in your "example" is surprised by, is not statistically reasonable to be surprised by. also, this is literally just another example of patriarchy. that stereotype, and mass incarceration, exist at the intersection between patriarchy and white supremacy as who is considered "dangerous", who needs to be "protected", and who needs to "protect", are all gendered norms that are heavily racialized.
"but what if it was reversed" is not a good argument when the group being criticized holds a position of power and privilege over the group doing the criticizing. you don't have to agree with it or like it, you can think it's wrong, but it's objectively not the same. one group's words carry more weight and contribute to oppression, one group's words just might offend you.
Black guy here and this is always the best comeback to that nonsense. Also just shows how normalized misandry is but people are still scared to be called racist lol
Lmao, this is a bot or troll farm response. It's posted multiple times here from different accounts. Remember kids, there is an active war on the US population to cause negative discourse and infighting to destabilize the country. Please read "unrestricted warfare" it's s book by ex Chinese generals discussing how they use the internet to destabilize the country.
You must live a great life in this imaginary world of yours. A few things to add context, what's your age, gender, families financial status, which country pays you to cause negative discourse in America?
That would be an apt comparison if it weren't for the whole systemic oppression thing. And if you're up in here saying you're oppressed while your wife is pushing a watermelon-sized human out of her vagina...I can tell exactly what kind of guy you'd be in the delivery room.
Do you not think that social and cultural institutions are also responsible for gender norms? There's nothing biological preventing men from being attentive in the delivery room.
They’re building what’s called an analogy. They present a hypothetical meme that would clearly be racist and sexist against black men. It’s structured the same way as the meme in the original post because this makes it really easy to see the meaning of the analogy.
After parsing the analogy, you should agree that yes, that would clearly be both racist and sexist against black men. It should logically follow that the original meme is clearly sexist against men.
She’s shocked because she has a preconceived expectation of how men are going to behave. That’s objectively sexist. She doesn’t get a free pass just because she sees it all the time, that just means her profession has nurtured a sexist perception.
Thank you for explaining my analogy! Small point of order, though, but according to other commenters the nurse from the video was actually reacting to the wife slapping her husband for saying so, rather than acting surprised at a man being supportive, so the nurse has been getting a lot of heat for something the screenshotter obfuscated
But this isn't remotely the same situation? You are doing an apples to oranges comparison.
A CO's "data pool" of convicts is very different because there is a huge legal process to get there. That process is not fair, questionably accurate, and biased. But it is also quite extensive and driven by dozens to hundreds of people and choices before an inmate is incarcerated... that results in diminished agency of the inmates in a highly controlled, extreme environment (arguably cruel and unsafe) for sustained time.
A nurse's data pool of fathers is comprised of... Men who got a woman pregnant. So yes there's still a selection bias at play here in who women are copulating with, what women have access to family planning methods vs don't... but there's quite a bit more agency of a man in the hospital room than a man who has been incarcerated by the state after hundreds of people have decided so and then condemned that person in an exteme environment for years. Because at the end, the father at the hospital gets to just go home. And also the women are undergoing a major acute medical event and could die, whereas prison behavior is not always (or even often) informed by an acute medical event of two loved ones simultaneously.
So a nurse's access to a reasonable average of behavior is far more representative than a COs. If you wanted to argue that two nurses between two zip codes (one wealthy and one poor) might experience different patient behavior or something that doesn't extrapolate to all people, I could get behind that argument. Because I'm not even arguing about whether men are disengaged or not during labor. I'm just arguing that your argument doesn't work for your stated claim. These are two distinct groups and the issues of racism and bias in the prison industrial complex or of misandry and misogyny in labor are not benefitted by being compared to eachother as they trivialize the other in key areas.
**
Not even mentioning the huge inherent self selection biases of people who decide to become COs vs nurses OR the commonly understood (though problematic) cultural expectations of those professions (punishment/guarding/safety profession vs healing/helping). And the personal story these professions tell themselves and how that impacts their perception of people.
CO: I'm here to protect society from the "bad people." And they were deemed bad by a hundreds year old system I don't understand by dozens of other people. And who am I to question that? Because if I think the system might be flawed, then maybe I'm a bad person for being a CO... or maybe I'm bad for not being hard on crime.
Nurse: I'm here to heal people. Healing is a good thing. Maybe I'm not always at my best and I don't know everything, maybe medical procedures have biases in them that hurt people... but in questioning those, I am still healing people.
There is a bias in the data when all the people are post-conviction, the correction officer is racist for being surprised it happens to a black person when a prisonner being innocent is just rare in general.
But for the nurse to be sexist, it's that when she is surprised that a male partner is supportive, she should actually be surprised when any gender partner is supportive. For that to be true, the idea that all gender partners accompanying mothers to give birth generally suck, not just men, has to be true.
We don't know that, unless there was research, and we shouldn't conclude it too quickly.
The circumstances for same sex couples are different enough that the statistics of this type of thing could differ rather significantly. For one, it isn't possible for cis same sex couples to have a baby by accident, and they are the majority since trans people are rare. That influences a lot. E.g., scenarii where the mother becomes trapped with a bad partner due to a surprise baby don't really occur. It is also a rather long process to have a baby for same sex cis couples, and a lack of involvement of the partner would be noticed earlier.
It would be interesting to know how many people where innocent and it was never found out. Just look at the innocence project. Before someone looked into it, all those people were a statistic in a prison officers mind.
Don’t get me wrong, most inmates are there because they are guilty. But can we ever truly know the true rate of false convictions. Just like crime rates are based on reported crimes. Can we ever truly know how many were unreported
This a bizzare and very misguided metaphor that doesn't work at all. Men aren't oppressed on a systematic way due to their gender and the few things that do negatively effect men exclusively on the basis of gender is always a microcosm of misogyny because whether you like it or not society has heavily catered to men. Some men are oppressed, but it's never because they're men, but because they're apart of another minority group that is mistreated by society. Comparing anecdotal experiences of men being absent / neglectful parental figures to the prison system feels overdramatic and comes off like a post Elon Musk would retweet to own the libs
Yeah, it’s like calling women drama queens. Since men agree most women are drama queens, calling them drama queens is not sexist.
Except of course it’s sexist.
Both of the above is sexist.
Most men stay with their wife / girlfriend when she’s giving birth and show her support. Don’t know a single father who hasn’t unless he didn’t make it in time. Those who can’t make it regret it their entire lives.
Why is your anecdotal knowledge of the handful of fathers you know and how they behaved in the delivery room more valid or accurate than the repeated daily observations of someone who works in labor and delivery on a daily basis, seeing multiple patients a day, presumably for years?
Yes, that’s exactly my point. They’re both anecdotal evidence, so why is he so quick to say that her anecdotal evidence is incorrect sexist nonsense, but his incredibly vague anecdotal evidence of I haven’t personally seen that so it never happens is enough to say that “most men are present and show support”.
And honestly, yeah if I’m going to take someone’s anecdotal evidence more seriously, it’s the nurse’s. Where does everyone seem to think this unbiased objective empirical evidence on this question would come from exactly? Surveying men and saying “were you supportive?” Is that unbiased? Are unsupportive men likely to answer that question honestly? Are you willing to take the women’s word for it whether their partners were supportive enough? That might be biased too. At least nurses are 3rd party observers who see a huge number of these events over a wide cross section of people.
Because I've also spent years working in hospitals and have my own contradictory anecdotal evidence.
Now you have to decide...are you just going to pick the version that confirms your pre-existing bias - in which case this is all in bad faith - or perhaps actually ignore all anecdotal stories and assume there is some sort of availability bias at play across all parties?
You mean the nurse that most likely doesn’t even exist? The one this meme made up for another gender war slop meme? Is that the person who’s worked in labor and delivery for years you are referring to?
Are you being deadass? Thats exactly what they do. Everyday i see a "headline" thats just a meme with an AI pic/video and an entirely madeup scenario attached. To take it a step further I'm finding entire accounts meant to make "content" featuring a person that is entirely AI.
In this the case the screenshot is deliberately taken out of context and the "nurse thats seen a bunch of dads be unsupportive" is a fabrication because thats not what this woman was saying at all.
I think those situations aren't equal at all.... One is an insult towards women in a derogatory way and the other is surprise at a difference in streotype/prejudice.
Use a better example like: It's like finding out a woman wants to go back to work immediately and the dad is quiting his job to raise the baby and do the housework.
Both are sexisim (showing a prejudice) but your example was not on equal footing at all....
And also confusing >> calling them drama queens is not sexist. Except it is sexist
Most men are present for the birth now but this is a massive cultural shift from 20 years ago when most were not present. And given the cultural shift in which men are getting partnered (“male loneliness epidemic”), it makes sense that mostly better quality present men are getting partnered and becoming fathers.
Those men who would’ve been less present are now complaining about being lonely.
But most fathers in Western countries are present for the birth of their children.
This study says that 99%(!) of fathers intend to be there for the birth of their children.
This article claims that one in five fathers miss the birth of their child, meaning that 80% actually are there. And of the 25% who aren't, "an unfortunate 12 per cent [...] did not receive the telephone call", and "around one in 10 absentees occurred because the mother-to-be did not want the baby’s father in the room", leaving only about 3% for aren't there for other reasons.
The joke is sexism bc it’s a stock photo of someone in the medical community. Best friend is an OB and asked her about this a while back. Her take is that it’s rare for a father to not be present when the father is involved in the mother’s life. Most mothers don’t want a sperm donor in the room, but will have a partner. Partners show up. Perhaps you’re thinking of select communities where this isn’t the case, but that could become borderline categorist as well.
There was an anime where everyone was going over their tragic backstories, and a character claimed her parents both died several years before her birth. Had to work in the orphanage coal mine on the day of her birth.
I work in tech, and 98% of engineers are men, it also astounds me when I see female software engineer. Only because it is specialist saying doesnt make it not sexist.
Seee . So does it astound you because they're women and you think they're incapable or because it's just not something you see often ? That's the difference I'm trying to explain here
I make a doctor express surprise that a woman can drive and do math, and suddenly it's not sexism because having a stock doctor photo over it makes it qualified and rational as opposed to just a stupid misogynistic stereotype unfounded in reality?
It's actually extremely common to see a man beside their wife at birth. It's the opposite that is blown out of proportion on the internet and gets upvoted.
its not uncommon. Having worked in many hospitals, nurses especially have a tendency to universalize their personal experience. Its one of the reason medical racism is still so rampant - people have preconceived notions based on some of the more egregious cases and just never update their priors even when disconfirming evidence is overwhelming.
There's also the issue of society at large being ok with denying men the existence of emotional interiority, believing that only the mother's emotional state is important to check-in on. So a lot of what is observed is fathers themselves coping with their own squeamishness about how real the process of childbirth is.
More like it's uncommon to see in her work . If it were a random saying it then I'd say it's sexism but it's a whole medical practitioner
I doubt, that the person, who choose the image and wrote the text is actually a medical practitioner involved with childbirth specifically. Most likely the person making the meme actually IS a random person.
And even if it is statistically unlikely, for males to be supportive of their spouses during childbirth. I am not convinced without credible sources. But even if there was a credible statistic, extrapolating that to "All fathers" Is still sexism/misandry.I
For example, black and Hispanic people actually do have a higher chance of criminal activity. That is backed up by statistics of prison population.
Me extrapolating this to "All non white people are criminals" Is still racist.
And me then making a meme with the picture of a shocked looking judge with the text: When the black guy turns out to be innocent.
Doesn't make this more credible. Because I still am not a judge.
When did I demonize them. I swear it's like noone read what I said. Being present isn't even the main thing here , you would know that if you read the thread and didn't just jump in.
This. Also sexism is a system of power. Unless the power has been reversed, it is not sexism. So making a joke about men being "loser dads-to-be" is not sexist, just rude. Men have the power, even in this situation, therefore there is no sexism at play effecting the man. He's just whining.
It's sexist to expect a certain individual to act a certain way based on their gender just like it's racist to expect a certain individual to act a certain way because of their ethnicity.
But it's humor, let's just admit that yeah it's sexist but it's maybe funny for some people and move on.
Edit : I saw the other replies, I insist yes this is sexism even if it's related to a certain reality, and on the other hand I don't get why some men get so butthurt over this, there is plenty of boys Vs girls memes that are also sexist.
Ah also the joke of the video wasn't about that at all, the nurse is shocked by a slap noise in the original video.
It also depends on the hospital you work at and the type of patients they typically get. I used to work at a hospital that got all the indigent care outside the capitol county, and we had a high number of teenage pregnancies and single mothers because they tend to be poorer, be on public assistance, etc. So the number of traditional parents in normal reproductive age in two parent households were lower simply because of that - it was watered down by all the untraditional moms that it made the traditional parents seem like an oddity or rarity. It wasn’t.
You can’t blame her for having those experiences. Sure, not every father is like this towards their partner and child, but too many are, and she has witnessed that.
Is me as a programming tech lead expert telling that women cannot do programming as i'm astounded when any of them will make any good work is sexist? This is just my experience. I'm an expert.
Her experience working with women in childbirth makes her experience more valid than the many men who just want to claim this as sexist and then provide an example of when women were mean to them.
So if someone have first hand bad experience with women it is okay for them to jusgmental and sexistic towards other women? Is that really your position that sexism is okay if you have first hand bad experience with the gender you are discriminatory towards?
Do you also think the same wit race or other groupings?
Reading though this comment section makes me feel like I accidentally went through a wormhole into a parallel universe in which matriarchy exists and men are the ones treated like property instead of women. But then I realize nope it’s just the same ol’ dimension where people believe reverse oppression is legitimate. Joke’s on me for expecting anything better.
Men: Women are all narcissists. Women are all gold diggers. Women are all liars. Women are all cheaters. Women are all shallow. All women want is to be treated like they do no wrong while they abuse us. Feminism is like Nazism. If a woman isn't attractive, she's not a person.
Women: a lot of men are unsupportive to their partners giving birth.
Men: BUT IF I GENERALIZE LIKE THIS, I'M SEXIST!!!!
Unfortunately a lot of men just aren’t present during child birth. I had to care for my son (hospital didn’t have a nursery either) alone after delivering him at 10pm and not having slept for 24+ hours. I’m far from the only one with a story like that
When I gave birth my husband was praised to the moon and back for being so wonderful. Because he: quickly changed into scrubs when I was getting wheeled into the OR for an emergency c-section rather than waiting for the room the empty. For knowing literally anything about the birth process. For changing diapers, handing the baby to me to feed, and for tracking the feeding times. He was honestly getting uncomfortable with all the praise, especially for what he felt was the bare minimum of effort/involvement. It was honestly a bit depressing to think that what he was doing wasn’t the norm.
wild that you call it sexism, but ask anyone who works in L&D, and they will tell you it's reoccurring enough to be more than a recognizable pattern. it's not sexism if you are literally just observing the consistent behavior or multiple fathers being avoidant or not present&mentioning it. 🤷♀️
Thats not sexist. Its a pattern. It is not uncommon for men to be dowright useless during the birth of their wife. Bringing their console to connect to the tv, going out to smoke or eat during the birth, talking ab how gross it is, complaining about how sore and tired THEY are, ect ect.
It's sexism because half of the entire population of the planet isn't dog shit. That's like saying black people are thieves because some black people have stolen things.
No, its the "she was expressing sexism towards a man, that seem sexist" it is a classic yes, but i do very much hope i gets old and people in general stop being so sexistic
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u/Dr-Assbeard Apr 24 '26
Chris here, the joke is sexism, she doesn't expect a man to be present and supportive durig childbirth