Birthing: Vindicating a Visceral Body Philosophically

How to tell our tales? How to listen to the tales we choose to tell? My thesis is that to reorient philosophical conversation toward birth and, specifically, to the origin of our lives in the female body, produces a radical shift. Once we take that turn, many of the tales about our origin truly become ‘old tales’. In this essay I suggest that interpreting/ representing/ affirming the visceral birthing body in and with the philosophical discourse is possible. I also suggest a vindication of the birthing body and its language is needed. Birth, giving birth, has its language. And, as any language, the language of birth has its hermeneutics and politics. Are we already imagining a new genealogy, a new logos for genos? Can we philosophically (and medically/obstetrically) represent and vindicate this new genea-logy? Birth matters matter —and they matter philosophically too.