COMMUNITY-BASED DIGITAL LITERACIES: A CYBERFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF LITERACY PRACTICES IN BIRTH WITHOUT FEAR By LORI BETH DE HERTOGH A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of English DECEMBER 2015 © Copyright by LORI BETH DE HERTOGH, 2015 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by LORI BETH DE HERTOGH, 2015 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of LORI BETH DE HERTOGH find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. ______________________________ Kristin Arola, Ph.D., Chair ______________________________ William Francis Condon, Ph.D. ______________________________ Wendy Michelle Olson, Ph.D. ii COMMUNITY-BASED DIGITAL LITERACIES: A CYBERFEMINIST ANALYSIS OF LITERACY PRACTICES IN BIRTH WITHOUT FEAR Abstract by Lori Beth De Hertogh, Ph.D. Washington State University December 2015 Chair: Kristin Arola This dissertation develops the concept of community-based digital literacies, a term that refers to the rhetorical, civic, and technological knowledge and literacy practices communities sponsor and employ for civic action. This concept builds off of, yet departs from, other literacy scholars’ work in that it pays special attention to the relationship between online communities and the digital literacies they sponsor and employ for civic action. As this project illustrates, literacy studies, feminist theory, and medical rhetorics lack scholarship that examines how and why communities sponsor and employ digital literacies and how this process can empower groups and individuals. Community-based digital literacies addresses this gap and offers a new lens for analyzing this complex relationship. Highlighting these connections helps illustrate how and why communities sponsor digital literacies that can change social and technological systems, thereby empowering individuals and their communities. To demonstrate this process, I argue that the online natural birthing community, Birth Without Fear, sponsors and employs community-based digital literacies to engage in cyberfeminist activism that empowers women within technical and medical systems and to rewrite rhetorics regarding women’s experiences with pregnancy and childbirth. I draw on iii literacy, feminist, and medical rhetorical theories and methodologies to investigate the diverse ways in which Birth Without Fear sponsors and employs community-based digital literacies for cyberfeminist activism. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Birth Without Fear’s sponsorship of community- based digital literacies helps women engage in cyberfeminist activism that increases women’s health literacy and helps them create rhetorical agency within healthcare systems. Understanding this process is important as medical systems physically and discursively construct and mediate women’s bodies. It is therefore essential that women have access to and sponsor literacy practices that allow them to critically analyze, resist, and reform medical and cultural infrastructures that shape women’s experiences with pregnancy and childbirth. iv Table of Contents Page Abstract.....................................................................................................................................iii List of Figures...........................................................................................................................vi Dedication...............................................................................................................................viii Introduction................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Empowering Women as Users of Technical Systems........................................10 Chapter Two: Reclaiming Women's Health Literacy...............................................................35 Chapter Three: Reinscribing a New Normal............................................................................59 Chapter Four: Reconstructing Childbirth.................................................................................83 Chapter Five: Afterward & Implications................................................................................110 References..............................................................................................................................124 v List of Figures 1. Figure 1; Diagram of Community-Based Digital Literacies.................................................18 2. Figure 2; About a Week Ago................................................................................................25 3. Figure 3; At the Park.............................................................................................................31 4. Figure 4; Does Facebook allow............................................................................................32 5. Figure 5; Healing Hospital VBAC Picture...........................................................................41 6. Figure 6; That Moment.........................................................................................................45 7. Figure 7; Chemo while pregnant..........................................................................................49 8. Figure 8; i loved your birth story..........................................................................................50 9. Figure 9; Coffee Saved My VBAC......................................................................................51 10. Figure 10; VBAC: What ACOG Really Says....................................................................54 11. Figure 11; The point of this article.....................................................................................54 12. Figure 12; Maternal Death and the United States..............................................................56 13. Figure 13; This was a very healing birth............................................................................69 14. Figure 14; I am strong because I labored...........................................................................70 15. Figure 15; Cesarean Birth Trauma.....................................................................................71 16. Figure 16; Almost twelve hours.........................................................................................72 17. Figure 17; A License to Rape.............................................................................................75 18. Figure 18; I labored with pit...............................................................................................76 19. Figure 19; You seem to lurk...............................................................................................78 20. Figure 20; Birth is not a competition..................................................................................79 21. Figure 21; Obstetrical manikins..........................................................................................87 22. Figure 22; I am dilated........................................................................................................93 vi 23. Figure 23; Natural Breech Birth.........................................................................................94 24. Figure 24; What an amazing young woman.......................................................................97 25. Figure 25; This mama used Hypnobabies........................................................................100 26. Figure 26; Wow!..............................................................................................................102 27. Figure 27; I am NOT happy.............................................................................................104 28. Figure 28; An Intense Home Birth...................................................................................105 29. Figure 29; Personal Photo, Post-Hurricane Katrina.........................................................110 30. Figure 30; My Breech Twin.............................................................................................112 31. Figure 31; Double-Entry Notes........................................................................................117 vii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my husband, Charles Radcliffe, and to my family, for their love and support. viii Introduction I argue in this project that the online natural birthing community, Birth Without Fear, sponsors and employs community-based digital literacies to engage in cyberfeminist activism that empowers women within technical and medical systems and to rewrite rhetorics regarding women’s experiences with pregnancy and childbirth. This project, therefore, is situated within and contributes to conversations about literacy, feminism, and medical rhetorics and is created for scholars, teachers, healthcare professionals, and birth advocates. The primary community this dissertation centers on is Birth Without Fear, a multi- faceted online community devoted to exploring diverse birthing options—from at-home, non- medicated births to planned Cesarean sections. I describe Birth Without Fear (BWF) as a “natural” birthing community as it promotes the idea that pregnancy and labor are part of natural female processes and experiences. The community’s founder, January Harshe, explains that it began “as a simple passion to let women know they have choices