Jesusa Ricoy Olariaga

On Sunday I attended FiLiA’s conference (previously known as Feminism in London) and I came home equally inspired and angry. Exhausted too. It is difficult to hear all the suffering that women can endure but even more difficult to hear how male humans can inflict so much cruelty and pain, and how can they then ignore it and even benefit from it. When I got home I started asking women on my Facebook page about their stories of abuse, I’ve asked who like me had been raped or assaulted.  And I did add some tag like #ithappenedtome. Little did I know that in the synchronicity of female uprising a campaign of #metoo was about to take over social media within hours.  The morning after my question and the 200 comments that followed my question,  I witness the outpouring of stories worldwide in a bigger wave coming from the U.S.A and I was glad. Because the #metoo for me are not about empathy as most people like to see it, we women have always had the empathy of ou...

I have always liked the Bechdel Test, and my kids now are so familiar with it that when they want to convince me to watch a movie they say:" ... And it passes the Bechdel test mum!" For those who don't know what it is, it is a brilliant tool to measure sexism in movies, it is pretty simple and once you start using it you will realise how sexist movies are: So, inspired by it and by an exercise I do in my antenatal classes I have decided to create a test for physiological birth in the movies: There is a facebook event this weekend to test movies that have birth scenes, please join us: https://www.facebook.com/events/1548023882168197/ And there is a page to start up a conversation in this topic too

Today, it will probably remain in my memory as one of the most bizarre, surreal and sad days of my life. I'm one of the many many fans that Bowie had. This morning I woke up had my coffee while reading the news and instantly the shock, disbelief and the tears, then I woke up my husband and told him the news while crying, and simultaneously the messages from friends and family and the irreversibility of the fact, coming in  in the modern shape of tweets and facebook posts. Bowie had died, as if that was ever possible in our heads! He was an alien visiting, he was an icon, he was extraordinary and none of those move in the realms of mortality ever. Not knowing what to do with myself and my sadness, and since I live near Brixton by chance, fate or unconscious decisions, I've decided after I've dropped my son to school to go down to his mural to leave flowers, there were already some there, but also there was an eager press to interview me, as most of the fans were rushing ...

              Photo from BBC News  Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,  I have just seen the above picture of you and your wife with your new baby daughter and I just felt like congratulating you. You are just like me or like anyone of the 500 couples that I've taught at my antenatal classes in London, U.K.  But you see? There is something very special for what I must congratulate you enthusiastically as I trust it could change you forever, you didn't just have a baby you've had a girl! And before I go any further, please let me also congratulate you and your wife on your noble decision of donating 99% of your shares to charity. I guess becoming a parent brings that sense of responsibility with the future and with others. But here is a different gesture that you can do to protect not only the future of humankind but also your daughter. And it has been clear to me since I, like you, had a daughter 4 years ago. In the picture attached you can see me with...

On the 25th of November we "celebrate" the day against all violence towards women. From the movement I've founded on 2011, we will campaign like every year against obstetric violence around the world. After all these years campaigning I'm reflecting more and more about the various issues surrounding these apparently complex matters. Also in the process, in my personal life my kids are growing older and I have had a daughter. So now more than ever, the personal is political as my dear Sheila Kitzinger used to say. But one thing that is starting to bother me is the way the issues of my gender are relegated to a corner in society. On the 7th of this month I went to a demonstration in the Spanish consulate in London, in solidarity with a march of thousands in Madrid demonstrating about the fact that around 70 women per year in Spain are killed at the hands of their partners. The issue is massive, the demonstration was massive...48 hours later we had 6 new victims, n...

Last night I received the news of Sheila Kitzinger's death. I'm not even sure where to start in saying thank you to her. Just 3 days ago I was thinking of sending her an email wishing her well on the publishing of her autobiography next month. I was planning to tell her that I was hoping to see her to get a signed copy. In the end I didn't email her though because I thought she may be busy with the book. Among the many things I've read in the papers about her, there were a couple from her husband that made me smile. The first informed us that she was eating chocolates and drinking Kir Royale until 3 days ago and the second proclaimed her as an icon of home birth who decided to have a home death. To me Sheila was energy, life and passion. Sheila had a clear focus, to share her vision of womanhood, birth and life. The force that drove her was unstoppable. My last memory of her came to mind just last week as I was teaching in the same conference room w...

Last week I read that a fellow activist/Facebook friend, the writer and founder of Positive Birth Movement,  Milli Hill, had been censored by Facebook for posting a birth picture. That same week, whether or not you wanted to see it, whether you were old enough or your beliefs accepted, you would have been exposed to Kim Kardashian's naked bottom. I have no problem with this lady's bottom per se, but I do have a problem with who decides that some bottoms, some nipples, some breasts are okay and others not and how and why that decision is made. Basically choosing some women vs other women. You might think, thanks to propaganda, that I'm one of those asexual mothers who according to some urban myth breastfeeds compulsively in public just to get attention and talks only about nappies, babies with other mums. Well, no...

There is an ongoing trend on social media that speaks of empowerment and challenging stereotypes. Even some brands like Dove are supporting these ideas. They talk about "real women", they offer a variety of mothers, women or models or women of different shapes instead of the one type only. There are multitude of photographic projects to show stretch marks, bellies and hanging breasts in many occasions these campaigns are more objectifying than the worst sexist ad. And while we  women post and repost in fervour with a tear of joy, feeling vindicated after many years of being repressed by a system that tells us who to be, we often miss the obvious, the system is still telling us who to be and how to look…               These campaigns are still reinforcing that the most important attribute of a woman is her physical appearance, they are still telling her that beauty is an external concept that it has to be validated socially a...

Beyond the occasional physical issues in birthing and breastfeeding, there are also several intellectual problems parents face today when having a baby. Most of these seem to arise through the pursuit of the concepts of ‘easier parenting’, ‘greater freedom’ and ‘being in control’. As promoted by movies, magazines and advertising, we find ourselves questioning how asmothers we  can still have ‘me time’, get enough sleep, maintain our figures and relationships as if ourbabies had  never happened at all?.  Life is not a picture, but we are certainly sold one: the picture of all those women who can do all the above, who right after birth look as glamourous and, and here comes the crux of the matter, as sexually desirable as ever before. We need to question this very carefully. This picture is...

Perhaps because English is my second language I'm able to smell rats behind certain sentences that would at first glance appear perfectly acceptable to native speakers. There are some posts these days talking about normalising birth and or breastfeeding pictures . I will never understand these concepts. There is nothing abnormal with my body, my babies' feeding or my giving birth.  An act that gives origin to our lives and an act that maintains it through millennia, can't possibly be abnormal.  There is absolutely no need to normalise it. I do not want to normalise breastfeeding or birth. Saying so would imply that there are strange or perhaps even obscene situations that are actually the hidden and not so hidden arguments behind the current conversation that originated on social media. The ideas of obscenity about womens' bodies in motherhood come from the perspective of patriarchy. The idea that our bodies are sexual objects which serve a sexual desire ...

On the 11th of April women around the world will take action to protect their bodies, their sexuality, their birth experiences and babies from the unstoppable misleading ignorance  that guides many countries to prevent women from giving birth and to make them have unnecessary surgery instead.  Brazil reaches 83% in its cesarean rates in its private hospitals, it simply can not be possible that 83% can not birth. When we talk about unnecessary cesareans we talk about the impact of the surgery on the woman and baby's body and emotions, but there is also the less talked about impact of those rates in culture, women's endangered culture of motherhood. The impact of those rates of cesareans in generations of women and their relationship with their bodies, their womanhood and their motherhood, their relationship with their mammalian instincts... And the perpetuation of a secret that it is kept, hidden and distorted from women's access which is that they decide, they rule, ...

My page has been removed after I posted pictures of nipples in protest at the 24 hour suspension of my page for posting the picture of a woman who had just given birth which I was told goes against your rules.   After many years of suffering your constant censorship and discrimination I have come to understand that the whole issue seems to be with nipples (hence my protest). And that is why some women in the interest of education or activism decide to self mutilate with photoshop in order to guarantee that their pictures will not be censored and remain, albeit without nipples. Wow! No one needs to mutilate us to sell fashion - we do it all by ourselves now. Well done!   When I recovered my virtual freedom after the temporary closure of my page, I organised a peaceful and virtual demonstration of nipples (just nipples without the surrounding breast) which had the effect of degenderising them. After that I received a warning and the two pictures most evidently from female breast...

Dear Doula/Midwife/Birth companion If you could take a minute, I/we would like to tell you somethings that we would or wouldn’t like during our mum’s labour, thank you!: In the case that our mum has to be transferred to hospital we would like to stay with: (Write here the name of relatives/friends or neighbours and in order of preference) Friends Neighbour I want to see the birth:             Yes / No I want to be awaken for the event:             Yes / No The person I would like to explain to me what is happening is:                      My mum’s doula                     Dad                     Grandma                     Other__________________ Movies (or games, books, etc) ...