PROLAPSE WARS

Christine, I think you have to be thoughtful about using the term 'war'. It is really "just" commercial interests protecting their investment. This is what business does. It is how our whole economic model works (or not!). We live in it, whether we like it or not. The gyn industry is no doubt suffering as much as anybody else in times of economic downturn.

When that investment starts affecting peoples's lives in a negative way because they have made decisions without full information available, it can result in tragic outcomes. When people's access to full information is blocked they truly are in the hands of their captors. I am thinking people in China who are unable to access the full Internet. I am thinking of countries like Burma, Zimbabwe and now Iran where it looks like democratic elections are held and the results falsified. I am also thinking about a woman who walks into a gyno's Reception area and finds out too late that she is in an area where certain information about the surgical repairs she is about to enquire about, is well and truly hidden from view, in the same way as the crocodile hides in the river, with only his eyes above water, waiting for prey to come to drink; and the iceberg hides 90% under the surface, waiting for unwary sea captains to sail too close.

There are a few countries that have risen to economic affluence and even supremacy, on the back of war reparations that have financed subsequent industrial development, eg Germany's engineering expertise after WWI and Japan's following the WWII. To have lost the war may be ultimately benefit the survivors, if you can ignore the tragic loss of life and the devastation.

You see, wars solve nothing. They just cause a lot of suffering and change the power dynamics. I am sure the Bhuddist in you appreciates that. The eastern martial arts show us a different story. I am not an expert on martial arts by any means, but I believe the aim is to wait until the opponent defeats himself. All the proponent has to do is remain focussed and calm, in order to identify the moment to exploit the weakness, using the opponent's own energy.

We heard the story of David and Goliath in Sunday's readings at church. This is the story of a slip of a boy who volunteered to fight Goliath after all the grown men had run for cover, and chose to cast off the armour and weapons given him by Saul, and to take only the two staffs and his slingshot into battle with Goliath, a fully-armed giant of a man. David also took with him the knowledge that, as a shepherd boy of that age of immortality between about 15 and 25, he had immense bravery and presence(?) of mind, having personally fought with lions and wolves to keep his sheep safe, and was a crack shot with a sling. It was a single stone to the forehead that felled Goliath. The boy won over the man. The bookmakers would have gone to the wall.

In a war, generally the aim of the exercise is to take out the leader of the enemy, and either kill, disable, rape (dominate and impregnate) or capture everybody else, either metaphorically or in practice. If your leader is vulnerable, war is a disastrous prospect.

For a war to occur there has to be an aim for each party. For one it is usually dominance. For the other it is usually continuing autonomy or freedom, but dominance can come in many forms. Modern warfare is a game of information utilisation, though I think the term military intelligence is the oxymoron of all time. Victory and defeat often ultimately hinge on luck, either good or bad.

Do you really want to play this stupid game, you the reluctant, single leader, vastly out-financed and out-marketed out-media-ed by an opponent who is multi-headed, diversified, geographically spread, multi-levelled, influential at government levels, often subdised by government, with large territory established with wealth-producing industries in place, and wearing a benign mask and stylish clothes with a silk bowtie and a comfortable waiting room? You cannot take out the leader, cos there aint one. They all work independently and are on every street corner in some suburbs of cities all over the world, or else wear the face of philanthropy in countries where their patients (or victims) are not even literate, and cannot possibly know what they are letting themselves in for.

Your war is more akin to the battle to abolish slavery, which happened in the late 19th century, and was a miracle in itself, fired by people of great faith, who sacrificed so much for it, and lost great power and immense opportunities for accumulating further wealth as a result of it. Unfortunately, slavery still occurs, even in the western world, right under our very noses. (DISCLAIMER. There are women who tell us they are happy with repair surgery. I don't think happy and slave go in the same sentence.) That war has still not been won, and probably never will be, because the victims of this terrible trade are faceless, invisible and powerless.

I think you have to keep your own agenda, rather than taking them on at theirs, which is reconstructing female bodies.

I think you need to aim to get your model of female pelvic anatomy accepted by those peripheral to the gyno industry as valid, not in place of the medical model, but alongside it, filling in the picture of what happens in the everyday, functioning woman's body as she goes about her day. I am talking physiotherapists, chiroprators, other body workers, the medical imaging sector, Continence Centres and of course the naturopaths and others who do not look at the world through a speculum. I am also talking about community-level general practitioners, family doctors who send women to gyno-land, who do the referring to gynos, and are first point of contact for women who subsequently suffer the consequences of surgery. The family doctor continues the relationship. The gyno doesn't. That's the way it works in Australia anyway. Where women have a gyno as their first point of contact it will be difficult.

Once those peripheral to the gyno industry see a fuller picture of female anatomy I think the demand for these ops will decrease because the peripherals will have a fuller picture of how the female pelvis works and will be less likely to see surgical repairs as a desirable outcome. Getting that fuller picture over to the primary health information sources is the big challenge, because many of them operated in the medical system which often filters the information they can use with patients.

Wars are won by a series of battles, some of which you lose and some you win. You just have to pick your battles carefully and win the strategically important ones.

There are some battles that are not worth fighting, unless they are strategically important. Then you have to be very well resourced, and it may take a very, very long time to win, and the cost may be enormous, ie it may nearly, or actually, kill you. Ask any dead or disabled political activist.

There are are also battles that cannot be fought until other battles are won, because previous strategic wins will aid you in winning the big one that will win the war. There is no point in taking the gynos on in their plush consulting rooms, where they are protected by their ring of confidence, their glamorous and articulate assistants and marketing machines that resemble Trojan Horses.

You have developed a damned good anatomical model that has come from your hard work.

Nobody has been able to prove it wrong.

They may ignore it, but they have not proved it wrong.

They may try and discredit it by manipulating Youtube, Amazon and other big Web marketplaces, but they have not proved it wrong.

They might try to discredit you, but they have not proved your model wrong.

These are the sort of things what people do to protect their own dung heap. They are easier to do than fighting wars.

We Members are your resources. We Members are your foot soldiers. We Members are your ears out there in the real world in our own communities. Send us.

Cheers

Louise

Book review in The Economist dated 13 June of a book called "Science: A Four Thousand Year History", by Patricia Fara. Oxford University Press; 432 pp, $34.95 and 20 pounds. This book traces the crooked history of science from ancient Babylon, and how it has been used for "gain(ing) power through activities such as politics, magic, religion, trade and war".

Anyone got a copy yet?

Sounds like the sort of book to read before embarking on The Prolapse Wars.

Cheers

Louise

I also couldnt get it to let me give it a rating. Weird. And there werent nearly enough letters allowed for me LOL

And - There are so many MMAIs on youtube LOL

Ah well - I put up a comment and maybe one day I will understand how to do ratings (tho joining was hard enough trying to get a name that wasnt taken LOL)

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You simply have to click on the stars to give the video your rating, for instance click on the fifth star to give it 5:) Easy:)

I saw stars! Lol
Thanks alot for that :-)

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Now that WILL be such a wonderous moment - And one I pray we will see very soon so that our daughters and their daughters will hold so muc knowledge - That will be one amazing step forward for women :-)

Quote Louise.........
Victory will also be when we see mainstream medicine admitting that their model of pelvic anatomy is insufficient to gain understanding of pelvic organ prolapse, and that the Wholewoman model gives them greater understanding of how a woman's body supports the pelvic organs.

Victory will be when the gyns and urogyns themselves admit that most women with POP can manage it themselves with better longterm results than repair surgery will give them.

Victory will be when Christine is publicly thanked by mainstream medicine for her contribution to the understanding of female pelvic anatomy and its implications for the health of women, whether they be growing girls, women in pregnancy and birthing, nursing, peri/menopause or in old age or any stage in between.

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I did wonder why one was deleted.

Well there willl always be someone who likes to wrote a bad review o any subject at all.

I thought the clip on youtube was very informative, and showed me what could be gained from the DVD etc - Very good.

As you know I read alot more than I write these days, my life is alot busier than t once was lol.

But. Flying the flag for WW I am :-))) I could do no less after all these years and the information I have gained, and the fact that without it - I would be leading a far different life.

I hope one day that this information will be something given to all women, and passed on from woman to woman forever, so we know more about our own bodies, and that can be nothing but a good thing.......

Its a brilliant thing this YouTube thing.. LOL

Hopefully tons more woman will come to WW and read, and join the ever growing 'family' that is - WholeWoman and I am proud to tell all and sundry what it has done for me :-)

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been following this thread quietly because y'all are so good with the words and I'm having a major case of pg-brain and everything comes out like a mash of poorly worded ideas.

but will try to get to rate the video soon.

Christine, I just gave you 5 stars! lol
Liv

but didn't get the star thing either. Will try again. Love ya, Christine!

Marie

PS Went back and got the star thing!