Those of you from out of town, may not have heard but a serial mutilator of women has been recently discovered in the eastern states. He is currently residing somewhere in NSW with his wife accompanying him. It seems that he sexually assaulted many women and mutilated the genitals of at least 1200 women over a decade and without public outcry or police follow up. He performed these mutilations in public view, in front of hundreds of other people and yet none reported him or followed up his behaviour to see that someone, anyone, put a stop to his activities. Women he mutilated made complaints but these were ignored. Why no outcry?

He was an obstetrician.

There is barely any press coverage, letters women are sending to the newspapers deploring this man walking free while women suffer are not being printed. Silence abounds. Except for his friends who are speaking out to defend him and in hopes that he isn't suffering too badly now, poor man.

Some of us, of a cynical turn of thought, might hypothesise that a system based on the oppression and subjugation of women, where women are routinely disregarded as they scream no, is the ideal hiding place for a serial misogynist. While there is no denying the vile, unspeakable nature of this man's deeds, he's not that far from plenty of birthrape stories, is he? Mutilated genitals, women left scarred for life unable and unwilling to speak out for fear of ridicule. A system where doctors are gods is going to breed this kind of behaviour at some point. I daresay he's not the only one using the safety of general anaesthetic to indulge personal desires of a revolting nature.

Are you feeling shocked and staggered by this?  Despite being deregistered in one state, and concerns being raised about him in a number of hospitals, and despite at least one woman dying, he was allowed to keep mutilating and raping for over a decade in our maternity hospitals. Those with so much invested in how maternity hospitals keep running are not going to just leap aside and offer themselves up for more regulation of their activities. Too much money is involved for anyone to really give a damn about this.

Think it's too outlandish? Check this recent news story: Butcher victims top 1200

Try this quote for size:

"The Sunday Telegraph was met with a wall of silence when it contacted former colleagues, psychiatrists and health regulators last week to find out how the disgraced former gynaecologist and obstetrician managed to escape detection for more than a decade.
Only one former colleague spoke out last week to defend Reeves, who is accused of routinely mutilating and sexually abusing hundreds of patients.
Dr Frank Simonson also revealed fears about Reeves's mental state in the wake of the scandal, which has made headlines around the world.
"I hope that ... he is getting medical treatment and counselling,'' he said.
"He would be suffering terribly mentally at the moment - and he certainly would need some mental support.""

If you're a client of Frank's, I suggest you step away. He befriends serial misogynists and defends them publicly.

Are you feeling moved by the surgeon's plight? Are you wondering where the hell the hundreds of hospital staff who enabled him are hiding? Or maybe they're just working away in the hospital like they were then, watching some other butcher perform mutilations on women. Well yes, they would be, they'd be enabling episiotomies, right? They'd be holding women down and forcing their legs apart to allow easy access to people with sharp instruments who have no business between any woman's legs - ever. They'd be putting up the synto and telling women to shut up and stop complaining. They'd be saying, "Well you let a penis up there!" to women who don't want vaginal examinations. They'd be taking babies from their mothers' arms, jabbing them with noxious chemicals and filling virgin guts with powdered poison made by multinationals.

Not so hard to see how a mutilating surgeon came about and stayed undetected, hey? How about all the surgeons who slice open vaginas and then stitch without anaesthetic to punish women for refusing interventions? Or stitch women too tight to deform their vaginas and supposedly make their (always) male partners jump for joy at the thought of fucking a woman who cries in pain. Or those who force women to have caesarean surgery for no reason thus risking their lives and the lives of their babies? They're having their names printed in glowing birth announcements, as I type, where Dr So-and-so is thanked for the "safe delivery" of a baby. Or they're signing a credit card chit for goods paid for by Medicare where every time a surgeon lays a hand on a woman they get paid a little more. When these women went to see specialists for repair work, the doctor would comment that the mutilating surgeon had left his "trademark" mutilation on their genitals. And yet none reported him? So they colluded and obviously approved, right? People who don't approve of genital mutilation would report it, wouldn't they? Doesn't this rather make a mockery of all the supposed disapproval for female genital mutilation in this country? Or do we only disapprove when non-white, non-surgeons do it?

Obstetrics is the job for serial misogynists. They get to control and abuse women's bodies and not only that, but women's bodies while trying to perform the societally sanctioned defining act of womanhood. And then their colleagues and friends all stand by them. Plus plenty of women who experience brutality on this continuum also fail to speak up even though the people who rape them are clearly coming from a history of rape and will continue to rape as long as they have those positions of power over women.

So if you've experienced interventions without consent or been coerced or forced into anything in a hospital, speak up! Not speaking up means we're colluding!

Can you imagine a surgeon who was removing penises and testicles without reason or consent lasting very long in a job? Especially if it was a woman doing the mutilating? I can't. She'd be gaoled, pilloried, dire mutterings of bringing back the death penalty would be happening in clubs across the country. But let a man loose on women under general anaesthetic to slice at will and no one really gives a damn.

My rage knows no bounds.

Stay tuned for the news of a rally to protest about this shocking travesty.