W-Women Globally

Dr. Karen Rayne and Midwife Christy Tashjian got the idea of creating a site where one of the biggest taboos of female beauty is being revealed and celebrated: the female belly.

What is the Belly Project? Is is a business or a hobby for you?

Dr. Karen Rayne: The Belly Project is a hobby for both of us, but it is integrally related to each of our professions. Neither of us earn any money doing the Belly Project, we merely wanted to show how different bellies can look.

How did you get the idea of starting the project?

Dr. Karen Rayne: Walking home from taking our daughters to school one day we were discussing body image and Christy told Karen about a poster she had seen one time with pictures of women’s bellies and the number of children they had. Karen said, “We should do that as a blog.” We felt compelled to also include the belly’s age and full reproductive history so bellies could be seen in the context of their full stories.

Does Belly Project reach locally, globally or…
Dr. Karen Rayne: Since the Belly Project is on the internet, it reaches far and wide…we have received international belly pictures, but we do not ask for names or locations of the women who submit pictures, so we are not sure how far it has spread. We were recently linked to from a Polish language site.

What is your vision?
Dr. Karen Rayne: Our vision is for women everywhere to feel comfortable and happy with their bodies and see the beauty of their bellies, no matter what the shape. One unintended effect the project has had is opening people’s eyes to the number of pregnancy losses that women experience, including miscarriages, abortions, and stillbirths. These losses are not talked about in our American culture and bringing this into awareness has become an important part of the Belly Project.

Plans for the future?
Dr. Karen Rayne: We want to take the Belly Project on Oprah! But really, we both have so many ideas and goals, and they all center around supporting women and men in expanding their ideas about the body, reproduction, birth, and sexual health.

About the authors of The Belly Project:
Dr. Karen Rayne is a Sexuality Educator. She takes both of those words very seriously and believes that high quality sexuality education is far more than the nuts and bolts of reproduction or a simplistic ideological approach to the appropriate time for sexual intercourse. Rather, sexuality education is a lifelong process. Between birth and death, we do not stop learning about ourselves and these magnificent bodies we inhabit during our time on earth. Sexuality education is about giving people of all ages the skills and knowledge of how to explore and get to know their bodies in developmentally appropriate, safe, pleasurable ways. As for educational approaches, there are so many ways to increase people’s knowledge and skills that are fun, innovative, and engaging. Karen delights in bringing her knowledge of cognition and learning she gained through her Ph.D. in Education Psychology to bare in curriculum writing for her sexuality education classes. Karen particularly favors working with parents on how to do sexuality education in the home environment – the perfect place for a lifelong learning process! Karen loves The Belly Project because it opens up women’s worlds to the knowledge that we are all beautiful – with our six-packs and our stretch marks, our births and our miscarriages, our scars and our moles – because we are all intimately and essentially ourselves. This is the essence of what sexuality education should be. (www.karenrayne.com)

Midwife Christy Tashjian has been a homebirth midwife for 11 years. She trained in the traditional apprenticeship model with another midwife for 3 years prior to becoming a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM). For those who do not know what a homebirth midwife does, Christy cares for women during their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum period. She goes to their homes when they are in labor and helps them through the birthing process. Once the baby is born, Christy supports the mother and family to help ensure a smooth transition to parenthood. During her career she has, of course, seen so many varied bellies, none of them are the same. She also came to realize through the study of Mayan Abdominal Massage that the abdomen is the emotional holding place of the body. Most of us do not show our bellies to others or allow others to touch our bellies very often; we are very protective of our mid-sections. Since initiating the Belly Project, Christy has noticed that pregnant women are much more comfortable with showing their bellies and having pictures taken of it, than non-pregnant women.