This is a callout to those of you with a pregnancy fetish. If you don’t respect pregnant women or their boundaries, I am targeting you and I will insult you. If you choose to read on and then get offended, good! That’s the point. I need you to understand the impact of your actions and change. The way some of you treat pregnant women is creepy and weird. You need to understand that for your own good.
I wholeheartedly believe that pregnant women should be respected. They are creating the next generation and without them, the human race would go extinct. They’re also in pain and need support. We should treat them with kindness.
That being said. A woman has value outside of her pregnancy. To treat her as purely a vessel for a growing human life is disrespectful. Her boundaries should still be respected. For example, if you don’t know her, don’t touch her. Don’t even ask. It’s weird and you sound like a creep when you go up to strangers and touch them. She’s growing a human being inside her body (painfully). Respect that and take your pregnancy fetish elsewhere.
Also, don’t take it personally if she doesn’t want you in the delivery room. Even the dad doesn’t have a right to be in there if it would make the pregnant person uncomfortable / unsafe. If she wants to do it alone, it’s her choice. Her pregnancy and labour is about her. Not you or anyone else. Respect that.
You’re Not Entitled To See The Baby (Unless She Wants You To)
Don’t expect to see the baby straight away. As the mother, she has the right to spend time with the baby, alone with the father, for as long as she wants. She just spent 9 months growing a human inside her body and then pushed that human outside of a tiny hole (ripping her body in the process). She deserves to be treated as a human being. Respect her boundaries and don’t touch her or her baby unless she asks you to. And especially don’t rock up to her house uninvited. It’s disrespectful. Even if she doesn’t tell you herself, you’re still probably making her uncomfortable.
If you want to help and be there for her, ask her if she needs help. Offer to clean her house, look after her older children or pets. She probably wants to spend quality time with her baby and if not that, she probably wants a shower and a nap. Don’t expect her to entertain or cook for you. Expecting a new mother to be at your beck and call just because you want to play with a newborn is selfish and disrespectful.
Just because there’s a new baby doesn’t excuse you from your manners. If you’re not the one who just went through pregnancy and birth, you’re not the priority. The mother and her baby are the priority. That being said, if she wants you there, by all means go. Support her but don’t expect her to cater to your wants and needs. The world doesn’t revolve around you, I’m sorry but that’s the honest truth.
Stop Romanticising Women Sacrificing Their Lives For The Unborn
I am pro choice. That means that I fully support a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. Whether she wants to keep the baby or abort it, I will fully support her. I am not pro abortion and would in fact love for the abortion rate to go down. But I do understand that life is complicated and not everyone can support a pregnancy, birth or parenting.
That being said. I think it should be illegal to encourage women to go through with pregnancies that could kill them. That includes depictions in movies (where women dying to give birth is romanticised), religious people saying abortion is a sin and even just telling a woman she should risk it anyway. You wouldn’t be allowed to donate an organ if it risked your health, why do we romanticise women sacrificing themselves for the unborn?
It’s misogynistic. In prioritising the unborn over a woman, you are saying that her only value lies in her giving birth. You are ignoring the fact that in cases where pregnancy might kill the woman, her baby will probably also die. You are also ignoring the fact that she is a human who has lived and will lose something by dying. Her unborn child might not even be capable of feeling pain. If she were to save her life by having an abortion, her baby might never even know. Might never lose anything because they never lived in the first place.
To expect a woman to risk her life in those circumstances is misogynistic. I’m going to say that until it’s normalised. We shouldn’t romanticise women dying to have a baby. I’m sick of seeing movies where women say that if it’s a choice between the mother and the baby, the doctor should pick the baby. That’s stupid. I’m sorry if you’ve been in that circumstance but it is.
Sure, the unborn has value but so do living human beings. And if you can’t be persuaded by just the reason that she is a human being who deserves to live, here are some other reason:
- She might have other kids / dependents and if she dies, her kids / dependants will grow up without a parent / carer. And if she was a single parent or her kids’ father is unable to take care of her kids, her kids will become orphans. Will you be responsible for caring for her children if she dies?
- The baby might still die. In cases where the mother’s life is at risk, it’s unlikely that the baby would survive. In fact, there are known cases of women being shamed into going through with a pregnancy, only to have said baby die alongside them. They then leave their previous children without a mother.
- It affects an entire community of people. If the unborn die, it’s sad but the unborn don’t form relationships with people. The woman probably has an entire community of people who now have to grieve her death. I’m sorry but the impact of a woman dying is much greater than the impact of the unborn dying.
I have always wanted kids but I have health issues. Even if I’m not infertile (I haven’t checked), my fertility is at best very low. My uterus does not function the way it’s meant to. But I don’t care because there are so many kids who don’t have families to take care of them. I am perfectly happy being a foster / adoptive mum. In fact, I don’t have any intention of ever getting pregnant. But if I do, and it comes to a choice between saving me or the unborn, I will always ask to save me. I will not leave all of my loved ones to grieve my death on the off chance the baby will even survive.
I value myself. I may be a person with a uterus but I still have value. I am still worthy of life and to expect me to sacrifice myself is stupid. And misogynistic. Because, again, this is a situation where people forget that pregnant women have value and are human beings outside of their pregnancy.
We, as women, are not vessels. Do not treat us as such. We are worthy of respect. We are worthy of being prioritised and we are worthy of life. If you don’t support abortion in the case where a pregnancy could kill the mother, you are a terrible person. You don’t respect women and you don’t understand the implications of your belief. I hope you get well soon.
Stop Expecting Mothers To Sacrifice Their Livelihoods For Kids While Commending Men For Doing The Bare Minimum
As a parent, it’s your duty to look after your kids. It’s your duty to feed them, shelter them, care for them and treat them with kindness. Looking after kids is not solely the responsibility of the mother. Especially now, when in most families, both partners work. It’s unfair to expect a woman to, on top of working full time, to also take care of all the parenting by herself. And even worse to expect her to also look after all the domestic work.
I’m sorry but if it’s 50/50 financially, it should also be 50/50 domestic work and 50/50 child caring. We, as women, already do more by giving birth. We don’t also need to be stuck with all the parenting. In fact, if we’re stuck with doing all the parenting and domestic work on top of working full time, what’s the point of having a man around? It would probably be less of a hassle to just become a single parent at that point.
If you are a father, it’s your responsibility to look after your kids (listen to their problems, take them to events, care for them when they’re sick etc). If you’re not willing to “sacrifice” your career but you expect the mother of your child to, you’re not only selfish but also a misogynist. In fact, you should just sign away your rights to the kid if you’re not going to parent them.
Mothers, don’t allow men to push you around. If you’re working full time, it’s not your job to also take care of the parenting and domestic work. If you have to take time off from work to parent, he should also take turns taking time off from work to parent. If you gotta clean and cook, he has to clean and cook. If he doesn’t, he’s just using you.
You are worth more than a lazy and selfish father. Don’t put up with it. Have a conversation about your expectations and set boundaries. And if he’s only 50/50 for financial needs but nothing else, leave him. He ain’t worth your time. It may be hard, at first, to leave a relationship but you deserve more than a man who doesn’t respect you.
Final Thoughts
I know I sound harsh but this is a matter of life and death. We cannot continue to devalue women the way we do. Best case scenario, it leads them to be unhappy and worst case scenario, it causes their death. I know that most of you probably don’t even realise the implications behind your actions so I’m here to remind you.
For most of history, women have been oppressed. Our only value came in our ability to produce heirs. We were seen as property to be passed on from father to husband. So while times have changed (in some countries), some of those misogynistic views are still present. We need to recognise them and be willing to call them out.
Women have value outside of their ability to give birth. Men don’t give birth and we have always respected them and treated them like human beings. We need to start doing the same thing for women. Women do just as much (sometimes more) than our male counterparts. It’s time to stop treating us as lesser.
