Preach It!

No one can tell a woman what is best for her and her baby ... waterbirth, homebirth, hospital birth, doctor, midwife, Unassisted Childbirth (UC) or cesarean surgery ... it is for her and her baby to know. The best we can do is support her to access, trust, and know her own inner wisdom and communicate with the Being within her - the One whose birth it is through her womb and the man. - Janel Mirendah, Attachment/Birth trauma therapist, Filmmaker of The Other Side of the Glass.

Watch It! (The Trailer)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dr. Fischbein On My Radio Show

We just completed week three of our shows with Dr. Stuart Fischbein, obstetrician from California on Thought Crime Radio: Voices for the Human Rights of Babies. The podcasts are up at www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com.

Please visit his site, Www.SupportDrFischbein.com and learn about his experience as an obstetrician fighting for women to have true informed consent and right of refusal (BIRTH CHOICES - breech, VBAC, as well as no drugs, homebirths, delayed cord clamping etc.) when birthing their babies. Check out his plan to create a new form of birth center ... a collaboration between obstetricians and midwives in a facility separate from the hospital.

Also, on this page, check out the youtube presentations of excerpt from his interview for the film.

Friday, January 8, 2010

"It's a tragedy for all the women who are missing out on natural men..."

I entered late into a conversation going on a friend's page on FaceBook.

Her status today was: BH: wants to know... what is WRONG with men? Sheesh.

The comments that followed speak to the part four of my film that is about healing the masculine, so we can heal the feminine and the relationship between them. I shared the conversation with my friend and cohost, and fellow rabblerouser and intactivist, Rich. He emailed me back, "It's a tragedy for all the women who are missing out on natural men..." That's Rich. Simple words, profoundly to the point.

So, my friend's status today was:

B
H: wants to know... what is WRONG with men? Sheesh.

Here are the responses from mostly women:

EBA: testes. doi

RBR: They have a Y chromosome??!

LMS: the Y is actually an incomplete X...they are missing all the good genetic stuff LOL
HBM: Penises, for sure.

RBR: Just a bit of genetic trivia... The “X” sex-chromosome consists of 3000 – 4000 genes. The “Y” sex-chromosome only consists of 50 genes (and most non-functional).

LMS: Oh and god put all their sex organs on the outside...clearly that is a flaw...with them all flopping around and what not

BT (a male): Hey!

EO: Quite simply put, they are not women.

VCM: Ladies... Don't discriminate based on X Y.

EBA: i think that their balls weigh their brains down.....

VCM: ok now that was funny!

KF: Same thing that's wrong with women! ;)

RCG: clueless, just clueless... and how frustrating to try to explain to people who don't know, what they don't know and they think they know it all!

AR (a man): Now ladies, we may only be life support systems for peni, but we do have our usefullness and at least we're easy to figure out. Food, sex, remote. Not necessarily in that order.

EBA: all things we can take care of without men

ADBM: @Erika, that is the funniest thing I've heard all day!

MM: When God created man he didn't provide him with enough blood to opereate two organs (brain and penis) at the same time.

--- Ok, this is the one that got my "dog in the fight." God DID provide him with enough blood and the nerves to operate not only his brain and penis, but to have them connected to his heart. It is adults who have robbed the male of his blood (separating him from his placenta and blood) and his neural connections between penis and brain (CIRCUMCISION). The baby did not choose this, and I am pretty certain that the adult man is pretty damn mad about it .. even if he can't name it.

RCG: Gee, way I heard it: Sure God created man before woman. You always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece!

I'm with U Erika... my toy works REAL well and I don't have to have a headache... fake or real!

BH: Monika is on the right track... well, the track I was on. I mean, almost every single man I know or have known or watch on the news or tv or even who paints the stars... men have no couth when it comes to their genitals. I just do not understand how they don't know WE WILL FIND OUT. Do they *really* think they are so sly we can't smell perfume? Hear the hushed tones? Figure out the paycheck isn't equal to all the time away from home? It's baffling to me. They must think WE are idiots.

WHY is the "grass" always greener in someone else's panties?


RCG: Anything to shift responsibility.. Ever since Adam... God asked him "Adam, did you eat from the tree?" His reply, "It was the woman you gave me!".

AR (man): It's the hardware and the wireing.

RCG: Anything to shift responsibility.. Ever since Adam... God asked him "Adam, did you eat from the tree?" His reply, "It was the woman you gave me!"

AR (man): Geez. It's not shifting. Men are Simple creatures. And our evolutionary physicallity does have a lot to do with our behavior. We are, however not all the same.

BH: I think I could count on one hand the number of men I know that have NOT cheated on a partner. I'm really not as angry as I sound... no man (recently) has cheated on me or anything... but just so, so many men are doing the craziest things lately. I just don't get it!

Okay, 'nuff of that vent. On to nicer topics.

EO: My husband is a great guy. Completely obsessed with sports, beer and sex, but faithful as the day is long a good friend and a wonderful father. That being said, always remember this: If it's got tires or testicles, it's bound to give you trouble.

ME: What's wrong with men, and it's cheating that makes you ask? Has much to do with the disruption of his opportunity to come to his mother's breast, gaze into her eyes, bask in her arms, in safety, and suckle at will -- when connection and intimacy are disrupted it wires and fires. This is what the majority of males have experienced. Then he has ... See Morebeen handled by strange women, roughly and separated from her and most men today were isolated in a nursery crying, being boundary violated over and over. And then, his penis, his sex organ, is mutilated, most likely after being strapped down against his will by a FEMALE nurse.

Circumcision short circuits the neural system between the brain and the penis, robs them of the full capacity to be empathetic. Of course, it still has it's primary functions -- urinary and ejaculation. The circumcized man spends his life looking for the fulfillment of something in his head that can seem to be completed through the penis, but is supposed to. Its why they are rough and thoughtless with women, even the ones they love. They have to be focused, have images in their heads, and work really, really hard to get what their brain tells them there is ... but can't do it without the nerve endings in the penis. They're frustrated .... it must be HER fault, and her and her and her, Looking for that connection that was lost.

Having done months of shows talking to the experts in circumcision and birth on my radio show, (www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspotc.om) and listening to men I see men differently. After two years of talking to men about their experience of their baby's birth, after a decade of intense study of birth trauma and the healing of it ..... I'm .... I guess that why's I'm doing the film ... to bring to light the extreme traumatization of the male baby and how it impacts him for life. It's why I'm so rabid about the care and touch and the emotional quality of the team when birthing a baby.

Watch the circumcision on my blog, if you can. And, if you can't it tells you a lot. THIS is the pain, deep, deep pain that 90% of our men carry that is "unconscious" to them, but drives them. Years and layers of years later, he is still crying to connect. He will always act out his breaks in the connection with his mother with other women.


SN: Love this and you Barbara!!! I AGREE!! We aren't stupid, and if not the smell of perfume. Then its the look all over their face! BUSTED

SN: L. Janel, I would like to post your comment please on my page. This is just so wonderfully put, I'd like to share it,

AR (man): Janel, I love your explanation. It makes a lot of sense. I'm always looking for the science or evolutionary explanation of the "why?". I'm curious if this is a just a good theory or if you have empirical data to support it. And how, in a similar way, does it relate to why a female spouse cheats, which many do. Also how does it explain the why of ... See Moremales cheating in other cultures, and in previous generations where breatsfeeding is the overwhelming norm and circumcision is rarely practiced. As a cinematographer who favors the doco form, I am intrigued by your project. Bon Chance with it.

Buy It!

Part One: The Other Side of the Glass: a Birth Film for and About Men officially released in digital download format on June 2, 2013. Go to www.TheOtherSideoftheGlass.com to purchase a digital download.

Men have been marginalized in birth for a long time. The old joke is that a man was sent off to boil water to keep him busy. I believe they were making the environment safe. Birth moved to hospitals and for forty years women were separated from their partners who was left to wait in smoke filled waiting room. Finally, he would see his baby from "the other side of the glass." Now a man can go in the birthing room and even get to hold his partner's hand during surgery. But they are still marginalized and powerless, according to the fathers I interviewed around the country.

Historically, birth has been defined by the medical establishment. The midwifery and natural birth movement now advocate for need "to educate and prepare men to protect their wife and baby" in medical environment. Seems logical ... if we process with the same illogic that got us here.

Through the voices of men - and doctors and midwives - men share heart-touching stories about how this is not workin' out. A man is also very likely to be disempowered and prevented from connecting with their newborn baby in the first minutes of life.

Now is the time for men to take back birth.

The film is about restoring our families, society, and world through birthing wanted, loved, protected, and nurtured males (and females, of course). It's about empowering males to support the females to birth humanity safely, lovingly, and consciously.

Donors, check your emails or email me at theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com for info to download. Release on DVD is not planned at this date.

FREE online! watch Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 10 at www.vimeo.com/75767434

"Doctor's Voices" - Stuart Fischbein, MD - Part 1

Doctor's Voices - Michael Odent, MD

Human Rights Violations

Resources - Healing Birth Trauma

"The Other Side of the Glass" has the potential to open up feelings that have been denied and ignored for a very long time. How to heal the trauma of birth at any age will be addressed in the film. Meanwhile, these are pioneers in the field.

Raymond Castellino and Mary Jackson - www.BEBA.org

David Chamberlain, Ph.D. - www.BEPE.info

Judith Cohen - www.judithleecohen.com

Myrna Martin - www.MyrnaMartin.net

Karen Melton - www.HealYourEarlyImprints.com

Wendy McCord, Ph.D. - www.WendyMcCord.com

Wendy McCarty, Ph.D. - www.WondrousBeginnings.com

And, many, many more all over the world at www.BirthPsychology.com
In both relationships and life trust begets trust.
Generosity begets generosity.
Love begets love.
Be the spark, especially when it's dark.

--Note from the Universe, www.tut.com

"Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so children have very little time with their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world." - Mother Theresa