May 4, 2015 • 41 mins
In 2002, tabloid editor Bonnie Fuller coined the term "bump watch" that stoked our pop cultural obsession with celebrity pregnancies. Cristen and Caroline discuss why we care about famous people's uteruses and how the Hollywood bump watch influences non-celebrity pregnancies and female body image.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen, and we're leading up to Mother's Day
by talking about pregnancy. Look better way to what you
introduce Mother's Day, you guys than to talk about having babies. Yeah,
(00:27):
except we're not quite talking about having babies. We're more
talking about the loaded terrible stuff that can come along
with being pregnant and then having the baby in terms
of people just judging your body all the time, loaded
terrible stuff. Happy Mother's Day, everyone, alright, invite us over
(00:48):
to you on Mother's Day brunch. Well, I'm in the
place up. Just give us some mimosas we'll be cheerful. Well.
In this episode, though, we're focusing in on the phenomenon
of the baby bump, calling it a phenomenon not because
baby bumps are new, but the terminology baby bump is
new in our celebrified lexicon. And leading up to this podcast,
(01:12):
Caroline I mentioned to some people that we were gonna
be talking about baby bumps, and faces immediately went blank.
My fiance had no idea what a baby bump. It
seems like what a baby bump. You thought maybe it
was some kind of childcare accessory. It's like a speed
bump that you put outside your house after you've had
(01:33):
a baby. Yes, slow down, here's a bit that's a
good idea. Thank you, baby bus Sninty branded baby bump. Yes,
but until we start building our our baby bump empire.
This baby bump is the one that celebrities get when
they are a little bit pregnant, and there's even a
(01:55):
bump watch leading up to a full on baby bump.
There's a bump watch. Celebrities are put on bump watch.
Gossip bloggers put on their urban camo and they go
out with the binoculars to stare at celebrities midsections. Yea,
was it a burrito or was it a baby? But Caroline.
One thing that I discovered in this podcast research about
baby bumps that has nothing to do with celebrities, is
(02:19):
how we now celebrate the baby bump, sometimes by painting
the baby bump. This is a thing. This is a thing.
I didn't know this was a thing. Yeah, you can
go to an art fair and while your kid, your
other kid gets his or her face painted, you and
your future child can get your baby bump painted. Yes,
(02:40):
just Google painted baby bumps, and I can't guarantee that
you won't regret it, but it's fascinating because one of
the one of the Google image results was a woman
I'm assuming who has twins who had too little, little
developing fetuses painted on her in great detail. One said
(03:02):
little gentleman, which that was my favorite, hands down. I mean,
I just kind of want to get little gentlemen painted
on my my burrito bump sometime your food baby. Yeah, yeah,
and um, you know, at the risk of offending a
few people. I remember going into this coffee shop in
Augusta that featured a whole bunch of plaster casts of
(03:27):
baby bumps. And the thing is, like, they the casts
of themselves are not weird. But I'm telling you, when
you're standing in a coffee shop looking up at the
ceiling and there's a whole bunch of plaster casts of
things that are painted and you're like, I'm not sure
what the Oh that's boobs in a pregnant belly, I
get it. It's jarring. And I have a feeling that
(03:50):
as also to women who have never been pregnant. Speaking
about this, one of the additional factors that might have
surprised sas so much about these baby bumps being on
display so much. Is that. I mean, when you think
about maternity clothing for so long, it's all been about camouflage.
(04:11):
I mean, go back even only a few decades, and
pregnant women were really not supposed to leave the house
all that much. It was considered improper because pregnancy requires
a lot of times if you're not using in vitro
or things like that, there is usually some kind of
sexual intercourse involved, and simply by virtue of that, you
(04:32):
keep the just wait until the baby is ill. Well,
even in the well, I was gonna say even in
the past twenty years, but then I just remembered that
I'm thirty one. So even in the past thirty or
so years, things have changed. Because especially if you compare,
for instance, Princess Diana with Kate Middleton and you look
at their maternity where Kate Middleton features very prominently in
all of this baby bump versus post pregnancy weight discussion. Um,
(04:56):
you know, Diana was wearing all these very very voluminous
i'll see maternity clothes, whereas Kate is you know, she's
all like in her cute little show it off clothes. Yeah. Yeah,
it seems far more common to show it off, and
it's something that we see in tabloids as well as
(05:17):
just women's magazines in general. There is this be proud
of your baby bump thing happening, but there is also
this undercurrent of we're watching your body. Yeah, and especially
if your celebrity, and if you go all the way
back to there is a particular magazine cover that is
seared seared, I tell you into my memory, like I
(05:39):
was surprised to realize that this magazine covers from because
I remember it so clearly. It was to me more
of course, on the cover of Vanity Fair. And since
then she she's far from alone in this. Since then,
she's been joined by a ton of naked cover moms,
including most recently Carrie Walsh Jennings on the cover of
(06:00):
ESPN magazine in July. But she was followed back in
the nineties by Cindy Crawford, who did her own kind
of similar I think she's even facing in the same direction,
similar nude cover for Debut magazine. Yeah, and in case
people haven't seen this Vanity Fair cover, it was shot
by Annie Leewwitz, and it's to me more naked in profile,
(06:22):
holding her breasts and her belly, and she's wearing a
little bit of jewelry. And people at the time were
scandalized by this because some said that it was hyper
sexualizing a pregnant woman because there we have, yeah, that
that conflict between that that Madonna whore dichotomy. Yeah, it
(06:46):
is interesting reading about all of this pregnancy stuff and
body image stuff, how the narrative is very much like
you're a sex object. You're a sex object. You're a
sex object. Oh wait, you're pregnant. Okay, you're not for
like a minute, and then okay, now that you've had
the baby, like go back to being a sex object.
Why haven't you lost the weight yet? Exactly. And it
is like when you were sending me all of those
(07:08):
images of this to me more cover that has essentially
been recreated over and over and over again to where
now when we see pregnant celebrity in some you know,
level of undressed posing on the cover of a magazine,
it's old news. It's like okay, yeah, yeah, okay, we've
seen that before. Yeah, so your belly is bumping, all right,
(07:31):
good for you. I guess well, No, I did have
a weird reaction that a Christina Aguilera is Marie Claire
cover from two thousand and eight, because she's naked except
for a leather jacket, and it just made me think
of like Donald Duck, Like why isn't Donald Duck wearing pants?
He's wearing a shirt. It's kind of weird. Like, I
don't know Christina either like being do a nude cover
(07:51):
or don't well, listen Caroline if when that's me on
the cover of podcast Monthly, I'm gonna bean naked except
for shoulder pads, just just shoulders and headphones. Don't forget
the headphones. But of course, conversations about a woman's pregnant
(08:11):
body isn't new. This isn't something that celebrity tabloids invented.
We are at a new point in this conversation, it
seems like in terms of visibility, but this discussion about
pregnancy has certainly evolved with and without the help of tabloids. Yeah.
Jane Reynolds in March read about this over at mic
(08:34):
dot com, and she said that acknowledging pregnancy meant and
has meant in the past. Acknowledging female sexuality, so expecting
women were expected to hide their growing stomachs, and it
was really to the point where women in the workplace
had to hide their pregnant bellies for fear of being
(08:55):
fired if they were visibly pregnant, because keep in mind,
we did not get the Pregnancy Discrimine Nation Act until
nineteen seventy eight. But we will get into kind of
the modern state of affairs about pregnant women in just
a minute. But by talking about the bump itself, that
pregnant belly that women for so long have felt the
need to hide, Dvora Myers over at Slate says, hey, well,
(09:17):
this just means that we're focused on the here and now,
i e. The woman's body, and not just what's to
come the baby. She says, quote, it refers entirely to
the landscape of the woman's body and preserves the idea
that she is a single, autonomous person who can still say,
go out late if she wants to. To that, I say,
(09:37):
does it really like? I guess that it kind of
indicates that the woman is autonomous, but it also is
just like talking about her body parts separately from her Well,
and to that point, Myers quotes zeb Eisenberg, who wrote
a doctoral dissertation at Yale on the history of pregnancy
in America, who talks about how the term bump indicates quote,
(09:58):
more legitimacy and more permission to speak about it than
other euphemisms that were in practice in circulation fifty years ago.
And now inevitably we have to mention I Love Lucy
and how Lucille Ball's pregnancy on television really got the
ball rolling in terms of these changing attitudes towards being
(10:21):
pregnant in public, because in two during the filming of
the second season of I Love Lucy, which was massively popular,
she gets pregnant with little Ricky, and the network doesn't
know what to do about it, because again, this is
the era when pregnant women are really expected to stay
(10:42):
out of the public eye, and so they certainly couldn't
say pregnant outright on the air because that was also
deemed too crass. And so they decide that, okay, we'll
just say that she's expecting, and so they worked the
pregnancy into the sea been and in fact, the episode
(11:02):
where she has little Ricky was one of like the
highest rated TV shows at that point in television history.
So people are like, oh wait, okay, so we aren't
terrified by this, We aren't terrified of what the female
body can do. And now we have the Duggers. Yeah,
I mean, we've got teen Mom on MTV or do
(11:25):
we still is that still a thing? We had it?
Team Moms are totally still there, whether whether they're they
the Life after teen Moms them, well, they became celebrities
because of that. We've given the Duggers a TV show
that's totally literally completely centered around reproduction having babies. And
then you know, we obsess over celebrities bodies and their
(11:49):
baby bumps as if we have any steak in what happens.
To the point though, with the Duggers and the celebrity
baby bumps. So our celebrity culture has celebrified the Duggers,
one of whom not the mom, one of the daughters
who just had her first baby. So it's this the
cycle begins a new and we we're talking about celebrities
(12:13):
and tabloid culture more than we usually do on this
podcast because this very idea came to mind just from
seeing so many US Weekly covers of the Bump Watch.
You cannot look in any tabloid today or on any
kind of TMZ related celebrity blog and not see something
(12:35):
about some celebrity pregnancy. Yeah, because it's all the thing
is that the tablets, it's all couched in some level
of judgment about some level of some person's life. I mean,
if if a woman is wearing a blousey shirt, is
she pregnant? Well, if she's pregnant, who's the father? And
like if she married, you know, is this an affair?
There's all sorts of weird judgments that go on about
(12:57):
people that we don't even know. Yeah. I mean when
it came to Mila Kunas getting pregnant via Ashton Kutcher,
that is such a sterile way to put it. I know,
it's I mean, it's set off all of those kinds
of conversations and then also going back bring it full
circle for our conversation already to de me more, what
does she thinks? Yeah, Mela Cunas is pregnant now, So
(13:19):
it's I mean, it's just more fodder for the tabloids.
And for that reason, not surprisingly, credit for the term
bump watch goes to tabloid editor Bonnie Fuller, who apparently
coined the term in two thousand two while working at
US Weekly. Some say it's older, but we'll give the
(13:39):
credit to Bonnie. Yeah, Devora Myers, that's late describes describes
Fuller as pursuing photographs of pregnant celebrities in action with
a missionary zeal and you just why, why why Because
we buy the magazines. That's why we look. We look,
I look at those those pictures. Yeah. Yeah, because if
you just google showing off baby bump, you end up
(14:01):
getting pages upon pages upon endless Google pages of really
just non news items with headlines that say, you know,
literally fill in the blank shows off her baby bump. Um.
But the thing is, like, while some of them do
feature post pictures, so maybe she's in a magazine, you know,
maybe she is like actually posing for the camera. Or
(14:23):
if you're Hilarious Baldwin, Alec Baldwin's wife, you are quote
looking ready to pop and nothing but lingerie. Others are
literally literally just paparazzi pictures of women walking outside. Yeah,
this was the funniest thing to note in looking at
all of these different sources all at one time, the
(14:44):
phrase showing off, showing off, showing off comes up over
and over again, when clearly they're just women getting groceries,
walking the dog, going about their business who happened to
be pregnant. But that, just like exiting your house while pregnant,
is showing off apparently, at least in tap woid speak. Yeah, exactly.
And one that really jumped out to me was an
US Weekly story about Haley Duff Bless her heart. So
(15:07):
there's this giant headline from April early April that proclaimed,
in size like thirty eight font Haley Duff shows off
growing baby bump, Comma goes without makeup. And so here
are my quibbles. Number one, showing off, she was literally,
just like we said, walking outside. Uh. Quibble number two,
(15:31):
you really have to point out in a headline, which
are supposed to be like the newsiest grabby ist lines
to sum up an article. Side note, we are both
in the journalists and school graduates, so it comes out
from time to time. It does, and so pointing out
that she doesn't have makeup in the headline almost gave
me a fit. And then number three, if you actually
take the brain numbing time to read the quote unquote article,
(15:54):
it helpfully points out that she quote kept her blonde
locks up in a messy ponytail, how much like sort
of like backhanded complimenting of like, Oh, look at this
wonderful pregnant woman fending for herself out in the wild
of Los Angeles, and that messy ponytail swept her old
hair up in a dustbin and threw it on her head.
(16:16):
What a mess? Also, Caroline, this is making me really
want to do some sort of episode where we just
read tabloids but interpret it as such as in reality. Yeah, well,
I mean, it's the way the way that tabloids talk
about women in general is horrifying, but the way they
talk about pregnant women specifically is uh, life and soul crushing.
(16:41):
But the thing is, Caroline, this is happening all over
the place in tabloids because it sells. Mean clearly, if
these magazines weren't getting eyeballs and making money off of it,
they wouldn't be doing it so much. The bump watch
would not be a thing. So the question in that
we must address next is what's up with our obsession?
(17:06):
We can blame the Bonnie Fullers and the US weeklies
of the world all we want, but if we are
also consuming this content, then what is up with us,
and we're going to talk all about that when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
to the show. Well, so I was really interested reading
(17:30):
all of these sources, and by sources, I mean us
weekly articles. I was really wondering, are we obsessed with
these celebrities and their bumps because they're putting it out
there for us to see because so many of them
are posing naked on magazine covers. Are we just witnessing
rich and famous women trying to reclaim a sense of
(17:51):
self for sexuality during their pregnancy, or are these celebrities
just following a larger cultural movement. Are they looking at
Pinterest too, at all of the style your bump pages
on Finterest and following that larger example. I want to know,
And so, what is up with why we're so obsessed?
Kristen so Leonora Sknazzie riding over at the New York
(18:14):
Sun in two thousand and eight suspects that there's a
little bit of schadenfreud at work because everybody feels compelled
to comment on what has now become sort of an accessory,
a celebrity accessory. You have your broken bag and you
have your baby bump at some point, But she also
thinks that it quote stems from the simple fun of
(18:35):
seeing stars fat. Yeah, I mean I would buy it.
I had a friend in high school who, for like
I guess, like daily inspiration, kept a picture in her
locker of Gwyneth Paltrow not looking spelt, and this somehow
inspired her. So I get it. I get like the
schadenfreud of of saying at celebrities fat, But why would
(18:58):
you ever call a pregnant woman that is? It's a
little it's also soul crushing. It is well, and also
soul crushing. Is this cycle of obsession with the body
parts of people that we don't actually know that you
helpfully drew out with lots of arrows for me. Can
you please walk us through this cycle? Yeah? Well, basically,
(19:20):
the way that Scanazi explains it is so we as
consumers are immersed in celebrity gossip culture. We can't escape it.
You know, you see these images of these beautiful couples
making babies. How do they make babies by just being beautiful?
By bumping their iPhones? That's right, They exchange data and
and the baby comes out nine months later exactly. They
(19:43):
facts it to you, um, two people facts I don't know.
Uh So we start to look at them as like
the cool kids in high school. You know, we we
know them, but they're still separated from us. They're distant
from us. The tabloids know we have this interest. They
need money and they need stories to cover. And lo
and behold, you have a pregnancy, which is like nine
(20:05):
months worth of stories. Because okay, so you've you've got
the beginning of the doing it like we mentioned earlier,
are they married, are they having an affair? Did he
leave her for a younger woman, are they too young,
too old? Whatever, You've got the pregnancy itself, so you've
got endless stories about pregnancy, fashion, health scares, beauty secrets.
How much oil is she rubbing on her belly? Is
(20:27):
she gonna wear a bathing suit? How much weight is
she gaining. We've got the actual birth itself, so you
know everybody's clamoring to pay celebrities for those first pictures.
Then you've got the awful discussion about post baby weight.
You've got all the body police and which, of course
will be our next episode. And then you've got endless
years of watching these children grow up, and we end
(20:48):
up being caught in this crazy persons cycle of obsession
with like Kris and said, just Stranger's body parts, which
makes complete sense. An evolutionary cycle just would tell you
the humans are innately interested in the goings on of
higher status individuals, and in this day and age, celebrities
(21:09):
are that. And even if you go back to the
era when royalty really meant something, when that was how
power flowed, they had their own bump watches, so to speak,
to find out whether it would be a boy or
a girl. They simply didn't have, you know, Twitter and
tmz to really fan the flames. So it's not surprising
(21:33):
that we would be so invested in the development of
babies that we will never make whose diapers we will
never change, thank god, um I mean. Scanazzi points out
also that in our quote every day regular schlub life
pregnancies are getting ever more attention. Our famous fetus focus
(21:57):
is just part of this whole child centric word all
that we're getting caught up in. She points to things
like what to expect when you're expecting the book and
the whole sort of cult that grew up around the
book and now the film and now the film which
was filmed here in Atlanta. I haven't seen it though
it didn't want to um and then the follow up
book Your Pregnancy Week by Week. Things like this are
(22:18):
just sort of entering the culture and encouraging us to
be helicopter parents before the baby even gets here. So
we're obsessed with our own babies in our own bodies.
Not that you shouldn't be interested in your own baby
in your own body, but it's sort of just all
kind of bleeds out together to where we're now obsessed
with other people's babies and are you are you treating
that baby right in your stomach? We have taken absolutely
(22:41):
a cute i think, from celebrity culture in terms of
ritualizing the start to finish of pregnancy to childbirth in
our own day to day lives. We talked about this
in our podcast on gender reveal parties. The very practice
of making the baby bump cast, having your your belly painted,
(23:04):
all of the moment by moment information and sonograms and yes,
even plus center pictures that are sometimes posted on people's
Facebook feeds, so it's it isn't just celebrity tabloids. It's
really fascinating though, that with these tools that we've been
(23:25):
given to broadcast our lives as much as we want.
We have elected to take it this far. And someone
say there's nothing there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm
celebrating my pregnancy and my forthcoming baby. Let me do
what I want. And sure, that's totally fine, But I
think it does speak to something larger, perhaps, especially when
(23:47):
it comes to how we talk about those bumps, like
what you said of breaking down these body parts, talking
about women in terms of apart rather than the whole, right,
And I mean, I think there's a difference between you,
as a pregnant woman wanting to claim whatever it is,
your your motherhood or your sexuality, or your sense of self,
whatever it is, and doing things like maybe making a
(24:10):
cast of your bump or painting it or just posting
pictures on the internet whatever um versus the way that others,
particularly strangers, will look at you and talk about you.
And this is another thing that Scanazi points out, that
we're basically treating women, particularly celebrities, but also just women
on the street like Prize livestock. She says, we are
reducing them to their most basic biological beings, and there
(24:35):
is certainly something reprehensible and shot and freudy about headlines like,
you know, a celebrity being desperate to get pregnant, but
I mean focusing specifically on that whole animalistic thing. I
thought this two thousand seven study in media psychology was
really interesting. They talked about how we view pregnant women
(24:55):
and asked people about their views on pregnancy, and they
found out that we tend to view pregnant women negatively
because pregnancy quote highlights the creature early aspects of humanity,
and that we do not like to face facts that
we're basically animals filled with fluids, fluid filled animals, fluid
(25:16):
filled animals. And when the researchers primed participants to think
of the similarities between humans and animals, participants were likelier
to judge, we're not making this up, a pregnant one
of Paltrow to be less competent, which this this study
(25:38):
came out pregup, so speaking of fluids. So but but that,
but that makes it all the more, all the more fascinating.
It does make it all the more fascinating, But it
also kind of explains like the squick factor that a
lot of people have with pregnancy. So I mean, it's
one thing to also judge women for how their body looks,
(26:00):
but also people who are grossed out by pregnancy. I
think this animalistic thing sort of ties into that as well.
And due to all of that, Jane Reynolds over at
mike dot Com does wonder whether our attitudes towards pregnancy
and also female sexuality in tandem, whether they haven't changed
as much as we like to think that they have,
(26:22):
because clearly there's some fetishization going on. We're fetishizing pregnant
women in their bodies at a time when, counterintuitively, reproductive
rights are very much under attack. Well, actually, maybe it's
not so counterintuitive because we're worshiping these pregnant bodies and
(26:42):
taking away reproductive rights. So maybe that doesn't actually go together. Yeah,
I mean, you follow that up with what Jane Reynolds
describes as pregnancy being considered a state of transcendent femininity,
and it makes sense. The whole bump watch culture is
just part of this x spectation that women will and
(27:02):
should be mother. She even cites a two thousand nine
Pew study that found that thirty eight percent of survey
respondents think that the trend of fewer couples having children
is bad for society, and that's up from just two
years earlier. And yet pregnancy discrimination in the workplace is
still very much alive and well. For instance, a two
(27:24):
thousand seven study found retail store employees were more hostile
to pregnant job applicants. The second part of that experiment
found pregnant women were especially likely to encounter hostility when
applying for what were deemed masculine jobs as opposed to
feminine jobs. In other words, pregnant ladies were fine as
long as we they fit the box we think that
(27:46):
they should be in. It's much harder to transgress those
kinds of gendered boundaries when you are so clearly biologically female.
Um and and this reminds me too of career advice
that some young women are given when they are fresh
out of college that if they are engaged, leave that
(28:06):
ring at home. If you go on a job interview,
because someone sees an engagement ring or a wedding band
and will immediately start thinking, when is this person going
to get pregnant and then have to leave work? I
will hire someone else. Yeah, well then, but then that
gets you into a whole thing of like Okay, well
she doesn't have a ring. She's a dangerous single person,
(28:29):
so then that I won't go off on it. Or
she she's a single person so she can just work
over all the holidays. Right, Oh yeah, double binds again.
Invite us to your Mother's Day, brunches. We're fun, we're fresh,
got lots of ideas. Oh yeah, we're full of something,
including a speed bump called a baby bump. Right um, right,
(28:52):
But you know, we mentioned the Pregnancy Discrimination Act from
n and I teased that we would get back to it.
That did not end discrimination against pregnant people by any means. Apparently,
according to a study, pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rose by thirty nine percent from
(29:14):
to two thousand three. Oh yeah, I'm not surprised at
all by that. But what about pregnant women themselves? How
is all of this baby bump culture influencing them and
their process of being pregnant and how they feel about it? Well, again,
Caroline and I cannot tell you firsthand because we have
(29:35):
never experienced that. But thankfully, uh Meredith Nash, who was
a sociologist, wrote the book Making Postmodern Mothers pregnant embodiment,
baby bumps, and body image. And in the process, she
talked to a bunch of pregnant women for her book
and found, based on interviews with them, that the baby
(29:57):
bump stage was relieving Yeah, because they were able to
transition finally from just feeling like, oh, I just look
chubby too. Oh no, but now I have a very
easy to see and uh decipher excuse for being bigger. Look,
I have a baby bump. I'm pregnant. I'm not just chubby. Yeah,
(30:17):
because in reverse, I mean, think about the the ultimate
faux pa of asking a woman if she is pregnant
and the answer is no, Yeah, there's yeah exactly, and
and Nash reports that the presence of the baby bump
quote was psychologically uncomfortable but also familiar to women who
were used to monitoring their bellies anyway, and that women
(30:40):
reported feeling anxious whenever there was the possibility that their
pregnant bodies might be mistaken for being fat instead of pregnant. Yeah.
I mean. Devora Meyers sort of along those same lines,
does point out, going back to our discussion on celebrity tabloids,
that in a lot of those magazines they talk about.
Part of the bump Watch is determining is she pregnant
(31:03):
or is she just fat? They call it like it
was it burrito or baby is one of the magazine's
UH photo spreads that they frequently do. But moving on,
moving on from just fat fears and concerns about body image,
we've also got to talk about ideas about femininity and sexuality.
When Nash discusses maternity clothes and quote managing the pregnant body,
(31:27):
she highlights that the pregnant and very visibly pregnant body
can be a spectacle, and she says that it's wedged
between two uncomfortable norms of femininity as simultaneously de sexualized
and an object of desire. And she says that women
who are visibly pregnant should be in any way de
sexualized is very strange, as surely pregnancy is is a
(31:51):
quite visible expression of sexuality. Well, that's been a really
fascinating thing to see as well, in terms of the
evolution of maternity clothes and the fact that we now
have maternity clothes that are not just like the Princess
Diana moo moves intents, which honestly, I love the idea
of lounging and a pregnancy MoMu um, and how a
(32:14):
lot of these styles are more are more fitted where
you see they're they're also the tabloid spreads of the
pregnant woman, the pregnant celebrity who's in a bikini on
the beach. At the Oscars, Benedict Cumberbatch's pregnant wife was
wearing a dress that had a high slit up the
side and it was called daring for a pregnant woman
(32:37):
to be showing that skin. Because to me, that that's
the definitely highlights this conflict we have about well can
a pregnant woman still be sexual? And especially by the
choice of clothes she wears. It does seem radical for
a pregnant woman to wear, say a skin tight or
leg revealing or cleavage revealing garment, because it goes back
(33:01):
to our discomfort with pregnancy and how people how people
might have gotten I don't know, how do you get pregnant? Oh,
I don't want to think about it. Well. And also maternity,
the idea of like a mom is canna momby sexy?
Is that is that strange for us to even think about? Yeah,
we're trying to put you in a category. Why won't
(33:22):
you go in a single category. And that's another thing
that Nash points out, that pregnant women are encouraged to
maintain bodies that are thin, proudly displayed, and in control.
And that's a concept that we've talked about on the
podcast before in terms of overweight people being judged to
be out of control. And it seems kind of strange
to me that we would put pregnant women in that
(33:44):
category two of like, oh, she's out of control, and
it's like, well, no, but society says she has to
get pregnant, she should have a baby, she should become
a mother. But now we're saying that she's got to
be simultaneously like thin and well groomed, but also like
big and pregnant. Yeah. I mean. And I can tell
you both anecdotally and also empirically that pregnant women absolutely
(34:05):
feel a lot of appearance related pressure because it is
so much of a tight rope. And this was something
confirmed um by a study presented in two thousand three
at the Women's Studies International Forum, in a paper that
concluded that pregnant women adopt a quote pragmatic approach of
both selective resistance to a sexualization and selective compliance with
(34:31):
the pressure to be slim. Well, that sounds so tiring,
and being pregnant is already so tiring. Yeah, I mean,
I can't imagine. I can't imagine, but you know, I mean,
you see it. You see it everywhere. People like Drew
Barrymore and Kim Kardashian faced so much public shaming and
(34:54):
abuse for gaining weight. Oh my god, gaining weight during pregnancy.
Imagine that. This reminds me though, speaking of stuff mom
never told you. Something my mom did tell me was
when she was first pregnant with my oldest sibling, when
the doctor told her that she should gain some extra
(35:16):
weight because she was always very slim, slender, and she
was delighted by that news. She was like, my entire life,
I had to be thin, I had to stay thin,
and here was a doctor telling me, prescribing me to
gain weight, and she loved it. She was like, I
went a little overboard, to be honest, but it was
so fun. Well, I mean that is that. I think
(35:39):
that is so interesting, and that illustrates a critical point
in talking about women's bodies, that you no matter sort
of at what point you are whether you're pregnant or not,
that you do feel like you've got to still fit
into these these images somehow, but also that you might
need permission to kind of eat what you want or
(36:00):
let your body do what it's going to do naturally. Yeah,
I mean, and at this point, I think we need
to hear from some some humans who have been pregnant. Yeah,
I'm really curious to know what what it is like,
what that kind of body monitoring is like, and if
you do feel like celebrity tabloid culture has intensified it
(36:20):
at all, And also for people like Carolin Amy, who
have been more observers than participants in this whole thing,
What do you think? What do you think about this
whole bump watch culture that we live in. Moms Stuff
at how stuff works dot Com is our email address,
and you can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast
(36:41):
or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
messages to share with you when we come right back
from a quick break. Well, I've got to let her
here from Zoe about our episodes on science fiction and
social justice. She says, I've been on the internet since
i was around ten years old, and yes, I had
a live journal, and yes I have a Tumbler and Twitter. Now.
(37:03):
I've never been directly called a social justice warrior to
my face, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was,
as I have always been interested in various social justice issues.
I've also had friends that have been called derisive lye
social justice warriors, and had friends who have called people
that I've also had friends started out the ladder and
became the former. I used to think the term was
(37:24):
very specific to a type of hyper aggressive activist, ally
with misguided views, similar to the definition you gave. But
part of my problem with the term is I soon
discovered that not everybody defines it the same way. Some
people define it solely as people who only fight for
social justice in fandom, like a quote meat Space activist
friend of mine who works with serious legal issues, and
(37:47):
others use it toward anybody interested in social justice at all,
especially if they're younger than thirty, and still more seem
to use it as anybody who's doing social justice differently
than I am. It can be difficult to navigate the
online sphere. I think part of the problem is that everything,
especially stuff like Tumbler and Twitter, is public. If you
make a mistake with a few friends, you apologize no biggie.
(38:09):
But when you have a public platform, you can never
know who you might be hurting with your words, or
where they are or how bad their day was. As well,
It's sometimes hard to know when you're being too aggressive,
because some people will perceive any sort of correction or
common about this sort of thing is being too aggressive.
I feel this is especially true if you're a woman
or queer person like I am, or part of other
(38:29):
marginalized groups. Sometimes you're being too aggressive and need to chill.
Other times, though, people perceive being assertive as being hyper aggressive.
I think it's important to try to be polite when
sending messages, but also make sure you're not making that
mistake when you're getting one. Assertiveness versus aggressiveness sounds like
it could be an episode on your podcast. I firmly
believe stuff like death threats, harassment, and ignoring boundaries like
(38:52):
using sock puppets to get around someone's block is not okay,
and that's important to remember. On a lighter note, I
like your science fiction episode a lot. I've heard about
a lot of the fiction discussed in it, but I've
been meaning to read some of the books you mentioned,
and we'll try to do so. I'm a bit passionate
about comics in general, and there seems to be a
resurgence of comics of all genres, including sci fi. I'm
(39:13):
a huge fan of web comics and indie comics. One
of my favorite is oh Human Star, which explores the
nature of people and their relationships in a robotic future.
I'm also really excited about a couple of upcoming anthologies,
such as New World, which is being headed by Spike Trotman,
who I believe was mentioned in your episode about comics.
I'm also really excited for and backed Beyond, an anthology
(39:34):
of sci fi and fantasy with a queer theme. Love
the podcast, Thank you so much for it, and thank
you Zoe Well. I've got a letter here from Robin,
also about our science fiction episode, and Robin writes, I
wanted to mention how much science fiction changed my life.
My dad is the biggest science fiction fan I know.
(39:55):
He also has six daughters. Raising us on science fiction
has inadvertently made all of us feminists and shaped our
own lives and relationships for the better. We would spend
hours watching Star Trek together, and when I was eight,
Jake Lloyd was my first crush. I remember him handing
me Ender's Game when I was just nine years old,
and ever since then have had such a passion for
(40:16):
this genre. It's helped me examine the world critically and
inevitably has led to some very interesting conversations throughout my
life on gender especially. I don't think my dad expected
any of this, but I'm happy, nonetheless that he did
bestow this onto us as children, as it has shaped
our lives so much. Ps. My favorite book is The
Left Hand of Darkness by earthlaky La Gwin, which you mentioned.
(40:39):
I also love Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card,
even though he's a staunch Mormon who uses his profit
to fund anti gay marriage legislation. That's all things that
much for your podcast. I was very excited for this topic,
So thank you Robin, and also Robin's dad for being
a rad dad. We love red Dad's and if you
want to email Mom stuff at how stuff works dot
(41:02):
com is the address and for links to all of
our social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
and podcast including this one. So you can also take
a look at that ninety one Vanity Fair newe to
Me more cover. Head on over to stuff Mom Never
told You dot com for more on this and thousands
(41:23):
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You From how Supports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristen, and we're leading up to Mother's Day
by talking about pregnancy. Look better way to what you
introduce Mother's Day, you guys than to talk about having babies. Yeah,
(00:27):
except we're not quite talking about having babies. We're more
talking about the loaded terrible stuff that can come along
with being pregnant and then having the baby in terms
of people just judging your body all the time, loaded
terrible stuff. Happy Mother's Day, everyone, alright, invite us over
(00:48):
to you on Mother's Day brunch. Well, I'm in the
place up. Just give us some mimosas we'll be cheerful. Well.
In this episode, though, we're focusing in on the phenomenon
of the baby bump, calling it a phenomenon not because
baby bumps are new, but the terminology baby bump is
new in our celebrified lexicon. And leading up to this podcast,
(01:12):
Caroline I mentioned to some people that we were gonna
be talking about baby bumps, and faces immediately went blank.
My fiance had no idea what a baby bump. It
seems like what a baby bump. You thought maybe it
was some kind of childcare accessory. It's like a speed
bump that you put outside your house after you've had
(01:33):
a baby. Yes, slow down, here's a bit that's a
good idea. Thank you, baby bus Sninty branded baby bump. Yes,
but until we start building our our baby bump empire.
This baby bump is the one that celebrities get when
they are a little bit pregnant, and there's even a
(01:55):
bump watch leading up to a full on baby bump.
There's a bump watch. Celebrities are put on bump watch.
Gossip bloggers put on their urban camo and they go
out with the binoculars to stare at celebrities midsections. Yea,
was it a burrito or was it a baby? But Caroline.
One thing that I discovered in this podcast research about
baby bumps that has nothing to do with celebrities, is
(02:19):
how we now celebrate the baby bump, sometimes by painting
the baby bump. This is a thing. This is a thing.
I didn't know this was a thing. Yeah, you can
go to an art fair and while your kid, your
other kid gets his or her face painted, you and
your future child can get your baby bump painted. Yes,
(02:40):
just Google painted baby bumps, and I can't guarantee that
you won't regret it, but it's fascinating because one of
the one of the Google image results was a woman
I'm assuming who has twins who had too little, little
developing fetuses painted on her in great detail. One said
(03:02):
little gentleman, which that was my favorite, hands down. I mean,
I just kind of want to get little gentlemen painted
on my my burrito bump sometime your food baby. Yeah, yeah,
and um, you know, at the risk of offending a
few people. I remember going into this coffee shop in
Augusta that featured a whole bunch of plaster casts of
(03:27):
baby bumps. And the thing is, like, they the casts
of themselves are not weird. But I'm telling you, when
you're standing in a coffee shop looking up at the
ceiling and there's a whole bunch of plaster casts of
things that are painted and you're like, I'm not sure
what the Oh that's boobs in a pregnant belly, I
get it. It's jarring. And I have a feeling that
(03:50):
as also to women who have never been pregnant. Speaking
about this, one of the additional factors that might have
surprised sas so much about these baby bumps being on
display so much. Is that. I mean, when you think
about maternity clothing for so long, it's all been about camouflage.
(04:11):
I mean, go back even only a few decades, and
pregnant women were really not supposed to leave the house
all that much. It was considered improper because pregnancy requires
a lot of times if you're not using in vitro
or things like that, there is usually some kind of
sexual intercourse involved, and simply by virtue of that, you
(04:32):
keep the just wait until the baby is ill. Well,
even in the well, I was gonna say even in
the past twenty years, but then I just remembered that
I'm thirty one. So even in the past thirty or
so years, things have changed. Because especially if you compare,
for instance, Princess Diana with Kate Middleton and you look
at their maternity where Kate Middleton features very prominently in
all of this baby bump versus post pregnancy weight discussion. Um,
(04:56):
you know, Diana was wearing all these very very voluminous
i'll see maternity clothes, whereas Kate is you know, she's
all like in her cute little show it off clothes. Yeah. Yeah,
it seems far more common to show it off, and
it's something that we see in tabloids as well as
(05:17):
just women's magazines in general. There is this be proud
of your baby bump thing happening, but there is also
this undercurrent of we're watching your body. Yeah, and especially
if your celebrity, and if you go all the way
back to there is a particular magazine cover that is
seared seared, I tell you into my memory, like I
(05:39):
was surprised to realize that this magazine covers from because
I remember it so clearly. It was to me more
of course, on the cover of Vanity Fair. And since
then she she's far from alone in this. Since then,
she's been joined by a ton of naked cover moms,
including most recently Carrie Walsh Jennings on the cover of
(06:00):
ESPN magazine in July. But she was followed back in
the nineties by Cindy Crawford, who did her own kind
of similar I think she's even facing in the same direction,
similar nude cover for Debut magazine. Yeah, and in case
people haven't seen this Vanity Fair cover, it was shot
by Annie Leewwitz, and it's to me more naked in profile,
(06:22):
holding her breasts and her belly, and she's wearing a
little bit of jewelry. And people at the time were
scandalized by this because some said that it was hyper
sexualizing a pregnant woman because there we have, yeah, that
that conflict between that that Madonna whore dichotomy. Yeah, it
(06:46):
is interesting reading about all of this pregnancy stuff and
body image stuff, how the narrative is very much like
you're a sex object. You're a sex object. You're a
sex object. Oh wait, you're pregnant. Okay, you're not for
like a minute, and then okay, now that you've had
the baby, like go back to being a sex object.
Why haven't you lost the weight yet? Exactly. And it
is like when you were sending me all of those
(07:08):
images of this to me more cover that has essentially
been recreated over and over and over again to where
now when we see pregnant celebrity in some you know,
level of undressed posing on the cover of a magazine,
it's old news. It's like okay, yeah, yeah, okay, we've
seen that before. Yeah, so your belly is bumping, all right,
(07:31):
good for you. I guess well, No, I did have
a weird reaction that a Christina Aguilera is Marie Claire
cover from two thousand and eight, because she's naked except
for a leather jacket, and it just made me think
of like Donald Duck, Like why isn't Donald Duck wearing pants?
He's wearing a shirt. It's kind of weird. Like, I
don't know Christina either like being do a nude cover
(07:51):
or don't well, listen Caroline if when that's me on
the cover of podcast Monthly, I'm gonna bean naked except
for shoulder pads, just just shoulders and headphones. Don't forget
the headphones. But of course, conversations about a woman's pregnant
(08:11):
body isn't new. This isn't something that celebrity tabloids invented.
We are at a new point in this conversation, it
seems like in terms of visibility, but this discussion about
pregnancy has certainly evolved with and without the help of tabloids. Yeah.
Jane Reynolds in March read about this over at mic
(08:34):
dot com, and she said that acknowledging pregnancy meant and
has meant in the past. Acknowledging female sexuality, so expecting
women were expected to hide their growing stomachs, and it
was really to the point where women in the workplace
had to hide their pregnant bellies for fear of being
(08:55):
fired if they were visibly pregnant, because keep in mind,
we did not get the Pregnancy Discrimine Nation Act until
nineteen seventy eight. But we will get into kind of
the modern state of affairs about pregnant women in just
a minute. But by talking about the bump itself, that
pregnant belly that women for so long have felt the
need to hide, Dvora Myers over at Slate says, hey, well,
(09:17):
this just means that we're focused on the here and now,
i e. The woman's body, and not just what's to
come the baby. She says, quote, it refers entirely to
the landscape of the woman's body and preserves the idea
that she is a single, autonomous person who can still say,
go out late if she wants to. To that, I say,
(09:37):
does it really like? I guess that it kind of
indicates that the woman is autonomous, but it also is
just like talking about her body parts separately from her Well,
and to that point, Myers quotes zeb Eisenberg, who wrote
a doctoral dissertation at Yale on the history of pregnancy
in America, who talks about how the term bump indicates quote,
(09:58):
more legitimacy and more permission to speak about it than
other euphemisms that were in practice in circulation fifty years ago.
And now inevitably we have to mention I Love Lucy
and how Lucille Ball's pregnancy on television really got the
ball rolling in terms of these changing attitudes towards being
(10:21):
pregnant in public, because in two during the filming of
the second season of I Love Lucy, which was massively popular,
she gets pregnant with little Ricky, and the network doesn't
know what to do about it, because again, this is
the era when pregnant women are really expected to stay
(10:42):
out of the public eye, and so they certainly couldn't
say pregnant outright on the air because that was also
deemed too crass. And so they decide that, okay, we'll
just say that she's expecting, and so they worked the
pregnancy into the sea been and in fact, the episode
(11:02):
where she has little Ricky was one of like the
highest rated TV shows at that point in television history.
So people are like, oh wait, okay, so we aren't
terrified by this, We aren't terrified of what the female
body can do. And now we have the Duggers. Yeah,
I mean, we've got teen Mom on MTV or do
(11:25):
we still is that still a thing? We had it?
Team Moms are totally still there, whether whether they're they
the Life after teen Moms them, well, they became celebrities
because of that. We've given the Duggers a TV show
that's totally literally completely centered around reproduction having babies. And
then you know, we obsess over celebrities bodies and their
(11:49):
baby bumps as if we have any steak in what happens.
To the point though, with the Duggers and the celebrity
baby bumps. So our celebrity culture has celebrified the Duggers,
one of whom not the mom, one of the daughters
who just had her first baby. So it's this the
cycle begins a new and we we're talking about celebrities
(12:13):
and tabloid culture more than we usually do on this
podcast because this very idea came to mind just from
seeing so many US Weekly covers of the Bump Watch.
You cannot look in any tabloid today or on any
kind of TMZ related celebrity blog and not see something
(12:35):
about some celebrity pregnancy. Yeah, because it's all the thing
is that the tablets, it's all couched in some level
of judgment about some level of some person's life. I mean,
if if a woman is wearing a blousey shirt, is
she pregnant? Well, if she's pregnant, who's the father? And
like if she married, you know, is this an affair?
There's all sorts of weird judgments that go on about
(12:57):
people that we don't even know. Yeah. I mean when
it came to Mila Kunas getting pregnant via Ashton Kutcher,
that is such a sterile way to put it. I know,
it's I mean, it's set off all of those kinds
of conversations and then also going back bring it full
circle for our conversation already to de me more, what
does she thinks? Yeah, Mela Cunas is pregnant now, So
(13:19):
it's I mean, it's just more fodder for the tabloids.
And for that reason, not surprisingly, credit for the term
bump watch goes to tabloid editor Bonnie Fuller, who apparently
coined the term in two thousand two while working at
US Weekly. Some say it's older, but we'll give the
(13:39):
credit to Bonnie. Yeah, Devora Myers, that's late describes describes
Fuller as pursuing photographs of pregnant celebrities in action with
a missionary zeal and you just why, why why Because
we buy the magazines. That's why we look. We look,
I look at those those pictures. Yeah. Yeah, because if
you just google showing off baby bump, you end up
(14:01):
getting pages upon pages upon endless Google pages of really
just non news items with headlines that say, you know,
literally fill in the blank shows off her baby bump. Um.
But the thing is, like, while some of them do
feature post pictures, so maybe she's in a magazine, you know,
maybe she is like actually posing for the camera. Or
(14:23):
if you're Hilarious Baldwin, Alec Baldwin's wife, you are quote
looking ready to pop and nothing but lingerie. Others are
literally literally just paparazzi pictures of women walking outside. Yeah,
this was the funniest thing to note in looking at
all of these different sources all at one time, the
(14:44):
phrase showing off, showing off, showing off comes up over
and over again, when clearly they're just women getting groceries,
walking the dog, going about their business who happened to
be pregnant. But that, just like exiting your house while pregnant,
is showing off apparently, at least in tap woid speak. Yeah, exactly.
And one that really jumped out to me was an
US Weekly story about Haley Duff Bless her heart. So
(15:07):
there's this giant headline from April early April that proclaimed,
in size like thirty eight font Haley Duff shows off
growing baby bump, Comma goes without makeup. And so here
are my quibbles. Number one, showing off, she was literally,
just like we said, walking outside. Uh. Quibble number two,
(15:31):
you really have to point out in a headline, which
are supposed to be like the newsiest grabby ist lines
to sum up an article. Side note, we are both
in the journalists and school graduates, so it comes out
from time to time. It does, and so pointing out
that she doesn't have makeup in the headline almost gave
me a fit. And then number three, if you actually
take the brain numbing time to read the quote unquote article,
(15:54):
it helpfully points out that she quote kept her blonde
locks up in a messy ponytail, how much like sort
of like backhanded complimenting of like, Oh, look at this
wonderful pregnant woman fending for herself out in the wild
of Los Angeles, and that messy ponytail swept her old
hair up in a dustbin and threw it on her head.
(16:16):
What a mess? Also, Caroline, this is making me really
want to do some sort of episode where we just
read tabloids but interpret it as such as in reality. Yeah, well,
I mean, it's the way the way that tabloids talk
about women in general is horrifying, but the way they
talk about pregnant women specifically is uh, life and soul crushing.
(16:41):
But the thing is, Caroline, this is happening all over
the place in tabloids because it sells. Mean clearly, if
these magazines weren't getting eyeballs and making money off of it,
they wouldn't be doing it so much. The bump watch
would not be a thing. So the question in that
we must address next is what's up with our obsession?
(17:06):
We can blame the Bonnie Fullers and the US weeklies
of the world all we want, but if we are
also consuming this content, then what is up with us,
and we're going to talk all about that when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
to the show. Well, so I was really interested reading
(17:30):
all of these sources, and by sources, I mean us
weekly articles. I was really wondering, are we obsessed with
these celebrities and their bumps because they're putting it out
there for us to see because so many of them
are posing naked on magazine covers. Are we just witnessing
rich and famous women trying to reclaim a sense of
(17:51):
self for sexuality during their pregnancy, or are these celebrities
just following a larger cultural movement. Are they looking at
Pinterest too, at all of the style your bump pages
on Finterest and following that larger example. I want to know,
And so, what is up with why we're so obsessed?
Kristen so Leonora Sknazzie riding over at the New York
(18:14):
Sun in two thousand and eight suspects that there's a
little bit of schadenfreud at work because everybody feels compelled
to comment on what has now become sort of an accessory,
a celebrity accessory. You have your broken bag and you
have your baby bump at some point, But she also
thinks that it quote stems from the simple fun of
(18:35):
seeing stars fat. Yeah, I mean I would buy it.
I had a friend in high school who, for like
I guess, like daily inspiration, kept a picture in her
locker of Gwyneth Paltrow not looking spelt, and this somehow
inspired her. So I get it. I get like the
schadenfreud of of saying at celebrities fat, But why would
(18:58):
you ever call a pregnant woman that is? It's a
little it's also soul crushing. It is well, and also
soul crushing. Is this cycle of obsession with the body
parts of people that we don't actually know that you
helpfully drew out with lots of arrows for me. Can
you please walk us through this cycle? Yeah? Well, basically,
(19:20):
the way that Scanazi explains it is so we as
consumers are immersed in celebrity gossip culture. We can't escape it.
You know, you see these images of these beautiful couples
making babies. How do they make babies by just being beautiful?
By bumping their iPhones? That's right, They exchange data and
and the baby comes out nine months later exactly. They
(19:43):
facts it to you, um, two people facts I don't know.
Uh So we start to look at them as like
the cool kids in high school. You know, we we
know them, but they're still separated from us. They're distant
from us. The tabloids know we have this interest. They
need money and they need stories to cover. And lo
and behold, you have a pregnancy, which is like nine
(20:05):
months worth of stories. Because okay, so you've you've got
the beginning of the doing it like we mentioned earlier,
are they married, are they having an affair? Did he
leave her for a younger woman, are they too young,
too old? Whatever, You've got the pregnancy itself, so you've
got endless stories about pregnancy, fashion, health scares, beauty secrets.
How much oil is she rubbing on her belly? Is
(20:27):
she gonna wear a bathing suit? How much weight is
she gaining. We've got the actual birth itself, so you
know everybody's clamoring to pay celebrities for those first pictures.
Then you've got the awful discussion about post baby weight.
You've got all the body police and which, of course
will be our next episode. And then you've got endless
years of watching these children grow up, and we end
(20:48):
up being caught in this crazy persons cycle of obsession
with like Kris and said, just Stranger's body parts, which
makes complete sense. An evolutionary cycle just would tell you
the humans are innately interested in the goings on of
higher status individuals, and in this day and age, celebrities
(21:09):
are that. And even if you go back to the
era when royalty really meant something, when that was how
power flowed, they had their own bump watches, so to speak,
to find out whether it would be a boy or
a girl. They simply didn't have, you know, Twitter and
tmz to really fan the flames. So it's not surprising
(21:33):
that we would be so invested in the development of
babies that we will never make whose diapers we will
never change, thank god, um I mean. Scanazzi points out
also that in our quote every day regular schlub life
pregnancies are getting ever more attention. Our famous fetus focus
(21:57):
is just part of this whole child centric word all
that we're getting caught up in. She points to things
like what to expect when you're expecting the book and
the whole sort of cult that grew up around the
book and now the film and now the film which
was filmed here in Atlanta. I haven't seen it though
it didn't want to um and then the follow up
book Your Pregnancy Week by Week. Things like this are
(22:18):
just sort of entering the culture and encouraging us to
be helicopter parents before the baby even gets here. So
we're obsessed with our own babies in our own bodies.
Not that you shouldn't be interested in your own baby
in your own body, but it's sort of just all
kind of bleeds out together to where we're now obsessed
with other people's babies and are you are you treating
that baby right in your stomach? We have taken absolutely
(22:41):
a cute i think, from celebrity culture in terms of
ritualizing the start to finish of pregnancy to childbirth in
our own day to day lives. We talked about this
in our podcast on gender reveal parties. The very practice
of making the baby bump cast, having your your belly painted,
(23:04):
all of the moment by moment information and sonograms and yes,
even plus center pictures that are sometimes posted on people's
Facebook feeds, so it's it isn't just celebrity tabloids. It's
really fascinating though, that with these tools that we've been
(23:25):
given to broadcast our lives as much as we want.
We have elected to take it this far. And someone
say there's nothing there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm
celebrating my pregnancy and my forthcoming baby. Let me do
what I want. And sure, that's totally fine, But I
think it does speak to something larger, perhaps, especially when
(23:47):
it comes to how we talk about those bumps, like
what you said of breaking down these body parts, talking
about women in terms of apart rather than the whole, right,
And I mean, I think there's a difference between you,
as a pregnant woman wanting to claim whatever it is,
your your motherhood or your sexuality, or your sense of self,
whatever it is, and doing things like maybe making a
(24:10):
cast of your bump or painting it or just posting
pictures on the internet whatever um versus the way that others,
particularly strangers, will look at you and talk about you.
And this is another thing that Scanazi points out, that
we're basically treating women, particularly celebrities, but also just women
on the street like Prize livestock. She says, we are
reducing them to their most basic biological beings, and there
(24:35):
is certainly something reprehensible and shot and freudy about headlines like,
you know, a celebrity being desperate to get pregnant, but
I mean focusing specifically on that whole animalistic thing. I
thought this two thousand seven study in media psychology was
really interesting. They talked about how we view pregnant women
(24:55):
and asked people about their views on pregnancy, and they
found out that we tend to view pregnant women negatively
because pregnancy quote highlights the creature early aspects of humanity,
and that we do not like to face facts that
we're basically animals filled with fluids, fluid filled animals, fluid
(25:16):
filled animals. And when the researchers primed participants to think
of the similarities between humans and animals, participants were likelier
to judge, we're not making this up, a pregnant one
of Paltrow to be less competent, which this this study
(25:38):
came out pregup, so speaking of fluids. So but but that,
but that makes it all the more, all the more fascinating.
It does make it all the more fascinating, But it
also kind of explains like the squick factor that a
lot of people have with pregnancy. So I mean, it's
one thing to also judge women for how their body looks,
(26:00):
but also people who are grossed out by pregnancy. I
think this animalistic thing sort of ties into that as well.
And due to all of that, Jane Reynolds over at
mike dot Com does wonder whether our attitudes towards pregnancy
and also female sexuality in tandem, whether they haven't changed
as much as we like to think that they have,
(26:22):
because clearly there's some fetishization going on. We're fetishizing pregnant
women in their bodies at a time when, counterintuitively, reproductive
rights are very much under attack. Well, actually, maybe it's
not so counterintuitive because we're worshiping these pregnant bodies and
(26:42):
taking away reproductive rights. So maybe that doesn't actually go together. Yeah,
I mean, you follow that up with what Jane Reynolds
describes as pregnancy being considered a state of transcendent femininity,
and it makes sense. The whole bump watch culture is
just part of this x spectation that women will and
(27:02):
should be mother. She even cites a two thousand nine
Pew study that found that thirty eight percent of survey
respondents think that the trend of fewer couples having children
is bad for society, and that's up from just two
years earlier. And yet pregnancy discrimination in the workplace is
still very much alive and well. For instance, a two
(27:24):
thousand seven study found retail store employees were more hostile
to pregnant job applicants. The second part of that experiment
found pregnant women were especially likely to encounter hostility when
applying for what were deemed masculine jobs as opposed to
feminine jobs. In other words, pregnant ladies were fine as
long as we they fit the box we think that
(27:46):
they should be in. It's much harder to transgress those
kinds of gendered boundaries when you are so clearly biologically female.
Um and and this reminds me too of career advice
that some young women are given when they are fresh
out of college that if they are engaged, leave that
(28:06):
ring at home. If you go on a job interview,
because someone sees an engagement ring or a wedding band
and will immediately start thinking, when is this person going
to get pregnant and then have to leave work? I
will hire someone else. Yeah, well then, but then that
gets you into a whole thing of like Okay, well
she doesn't have a ring. She's a dangerous single person,
(28:29):
so then that I won't go off on it. Or
she she's a single person so she can just work
over all the holidays. Right, Oh yeah, double binds again.
Invite us to your Mother's Day, brunches. We're fun, we're fresh,
got lots of ideas. Oh yeah, we're full of something,
including a speed bump called a baby bump. Right um, right,
(28:52):
But you know, we mentioned the Pregnancy Discrimination Act from
n and I teased that we would get back to it.
That did not end discrimination against pregnant people by any means. Apparently,
according to a study, pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rose by thirty nine percent from
(29:14):
to two thousand three. Oh yeah, I'm not surprised at
all by that. But what about pregnant women themselves? How
is all of this baby bump culture influencing them and
their process of being pregnant and how they feel about it? Well, again,
Caroline and I cannot tell you firsthand because we have
(29:35):
never experienced that. But thankfully, uh Meredith Nash, who was
a sociologist, wrote the book Making Postmodern Mothers pregnant embodiment,
baby bumps, and body image. And in the process, she
talked to a bunch of pregnant women for her book
and found, based on interviews with them, that the baby
(29:57):
bump stage was relieving Yeah, because they were able to
transition finally from just feeling like, oh, I just look
chubby too. Oh no, but now I have a very
easy to see and uh decipher excuse for being bigger. Look,
I have a baby bump. I'm pregnant. I'm not just chubby. Yeah,
(30:17):
because in reverse, I mean, think about the the ultimate
faux pa of asking a woman if she is pregnant
and the answer is no, Yeah, there's yeah exactly, and
and Nash reports that the presence of the baby bump
quote was psychologically uncomfortable but also familiar to women who
were used to monitoring their bellies anyway, and that women
(30:40):
reported feeling anxious whenever there was the possibility that their
pregnant bodies might be mistaken for being fat instead of pregnant. Yeah.
I mean. Devora Meyers sort of along those same lines,
does point out, going back to our discussion on celebrity tabloids,
that in a lot of those magazines they talk about.
Part of the bump Watch is determining is she pregnant
(31:03):
or is she just fat? They call it like it
was it burrito or baby is one of the magazine's
UH photo spreads that they frequently do. But moving on,
moving on from just fat fears and concerns about body image,
we've also got to talk about ideas about femininity and sexuality.
When Nash discusses maternity clothes and quote managing the pregnant body,
(31:27):
she highlights that the pregnant and very visibly pregnant body
can be a spectacle, and she says that it's wedged
between two uncomfortable norms of femininity as simultaneously de sexualized
and an object of desire. And she says that women
who are visibly pregnant should be in any way de
sexualized is very strange, as surely pregnancy is is a
(31:51):
quite visible expression of sexuality. Well, that's been a really
fascinating thing to see as well, in terms of the
evolution of maternity clothes and the fact that we now
have maternity clothes that are not just like the Princess
Diana moo moves intents, which honestly, I love the idea
of lounging and a pregnancy MoMu um, and how a
(32:14):
lot of these styles are more are more fitted where
you see they're they're also the tabloid spreads of the
pregnant woman, the pregnant celebrity who's in a bikini on
the beach. At the Oscars, Benedict Cumberbatch's pregnant wife was
wearing a dress that had a high slit up the
side and it was called daring for a pregnant woman
(32:37):
to be showing that skin. Because to me, that that's
the definitely highlights this conflict we have about well can
a pregnant woman still be sexual? And especially by the
choice of clothes she wears. It does seem radical for
a pregnant woman to wear, say a skin tight or
leg revealing or cleavage revealing garment, because it goes back
(33:01):
to our discomfort with pregnancy and how people how people
might have gotten I don't know, how do you get pregnant? Oh,
I don't want to think about it. Well. And also maternity,
the idea of like a mom is canna momby sexy?
Is that is that strange for us to even think about? Yeah,
we're trying to put you in a category. Why won't
(33:22):
you go in a single category. And that's another thing
that Nash points out, that pregnant women are encouraged to
maintain bodies that are thin, proudly displayed, and in control.
And that's a concept that we've talked about on the
podcast before in terms of overweight people being judged to
be out of control. And it seems kind of strange
to me that we would put pregnant women in that
(33:44):
category two of like, oh, she's out of control, and
it's like, well, no, but society says she has to
get pregnant, she should have a baby, she should become
a mother. But now we're saying that she's got to
be simultaneously like thin and well groomed, but also like
big and pregnant. Yeah. I mean. And I can tell
you both anecdotally and also empirically that pregnant women absolutely
(34:05):
feel a lot of appearance related pressure because it is
so much of a tight rope. And this was something
confirmed um by a study presented in two thousand three
at the Women's Studies International Forum, in a paper that
concluded that pregnant women adopt a quote pragmatic approach of
both selective resistance to a sexualization and selective compliance with
(34:31):
the pressure to be slim. Well, that sounds so tiring,
and being pregnant is already so tiring. Yeah, I mean,
I can't imagine. I can't imagine, but you know, I mean,
you see it. You see it everywhere. People like Drew
Barrymore and Kim Kardashian faced so much public shaming and
(34:54):
abuse for gaining weight. Oh my god, gaining weight during pregnancy.
Imagine that. This reminds me though, speaking of stuff mom
never told you. Something my mom did tell me was
when she was first pregnant with my oldest sibling, when
the doctor told her that she should gain some extra
(35:16):
weight because she was always very slim, slender, and she
was delighted by that news. She was like, my entire life,
I had to be thin, I had to stay thin,
and here was a doctor telling me, prescribing me to
gain weight, and she loved it. She was like, I
went a little overboard, to be honest, but it was
so fun. Well, I mean that is that. I think
(35:39):
that is so interesting, and that illustrates a critical point
in talking about women's bodies, that you no matter sort
of at what point you are whether you're pregnant or not,
that you do feel like you've got to still fit
into these these images somehow, but also that you might
need permission to kind of eat what you want or
(36:00):
let your body do what it's going to do naturally. Yeah,
I mean, and at this point, I think we need
to hear from some some humans who have been pregnant. Yeah,
I'm really curious to know what what it is like,
what that kind of body monitoring is like, and if
you do feel like celebrity tabloid culture has intensified it
(36:20):
at all, And also for people like Carolin Amy, who
have been more observers than participants in this whole thing,
What do you think? What do you think about this
whole bump watch culture that we live in. Moms Stuff
at how stuff works dot Com is our email address,
and you can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast
(36:41):
or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
messages to share with you when we come right back
from a quick break. Well, I've got to let her
here from Zoe about our episodes on science fiction and
social justice. She says, I've been on the internet since
i was around ten years old, and yes, I had
a live journal, and yes I have a Tumbler and Twitter. Now.
(37:03):
I've never been directly called a social justice warrior to
my face, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was,
as I have always been interested in various social justice issues.
I've also had friends that have been called derisive lye
social justice warriors, and had friends who have called people
that I've also had friends started out the ladder and
became the former. I used to think the term was
(37:24):
very specific to a type of hyper aggressive activist, ally
with misguided views, similar to the definition you gave. But
part of my problem with the term is I soon
discovered that not everybody defines it the same way. Some
people define it solely as people who only fight for
social justice in fandom, like a quote meat Space activist
friend of mine who works with serious legal issues, and
(37:47):
others use it toward anybody interested in social justice at all,
especially if they're younger than thirty, and still more seem
to use it as anybody who's doing social justice differently
than I am. It can be difficult to navigate the
online sphere. I think part of the problem is that everything,
especially stuff like Tumbler and Twitter, is public. If you
make a mistake with a few friends, you apologize no biggie.
(38:09):
But when you have a public platform, you can never
know who you might be hurting with your words, or
where they are or how bad their day was. As well,
It's sometimes hard to know when you're being too aggressive,
because some people will perceive any sort of correction or
common about this sort of thing is being too aggressive.
I feel this is especially true if you're a woman
or queer person like I am, or part of other
(38:29):
marginalized groups. Sometimes you're being too aggressive and need to chill.
Other times, though, people perceive being assertive as being hyper aggressive.
I think it's important to try to be polite when
sending messages, but also make sure you're not making that
mistake when you're getting one. Assertiveness versus aggressiveness sounds like
it could be an episode on your podcast. I firmly
believe stuff like death threats, harassment, and ignoring boundaries like
(38:52):
using sock puppets to get around someone's block is not okay,
and that's important to remember. On a lighter note, I
like your science fiction episode a lot. I've heard about
a lot of the fiction discussed in it, but I've
been meaning to read some of the books you mentioned,
and we'll try to do so. I'm a bit passionate
about comics in general, and there seems to be a
resurgence of comics of all genres, including sci fi. I'm
(39:13):
a huge fan of web comics and indie comics. One
of my favorite is oh Human Star, which explores the
nature of people and their relationships in a robotic future.
I'm also really excited about a couple of upcoming anthologies,
such as New World, which is being headed by Spike Trotman,
who I believe was mentioned in your episode about comics.
I'm also really excited for and backed Beyond, an anthology
(39:34):
of sci fi and fantasy with a queer theme. Love
the podcast, Thank you so much for it, and thank
you Zoe Well. I've got a letter here from Robin,
also about our science fiction episode, and Robin writes, I
wanted to mention how much science fiction changed my life.
My dad is the biggest science fiction fan I know.
(39:55):
He also has six daughters. Raising us on science fiction
has inadvertently made all of us feminists and shaped our
own lives and relationships for the better. We would spend
hours watching Star Trek together, and when I was eight,
Jake Lloyd was my first crush. I remember him handing
me Ender's Game when I was just nine years old,
and ever since then have had such a passion for
(40:16):
this genre. It's helped me examine the world critically and
inevitably has led to some very interesting conversations throughout my
life on gender especially. I don't think my dad expected
any of this, but I'm happy, nonetheless that he did
bestow this onto us as children, as it has shaped
our lives so much. Ps. My favorite book is The
Left Hand of Darkness by earthlaky La Gwin, which you mentioned.
(40:39):
I also love Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card,
even though he's a staunch Mormon who uses his profit
to fund anti gay marriage legislation. That's all things that
much for your podcast. I was very excited for this topic,
So thank you Robin, and also Robin's dad for being
a rad dad. We love red Dad's and if you
want to email Mom stuff at how stuff works dot
(41:02):
com is the address and for links to all of
our social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
and podcast including this one. So you can also take
a look at that ninety one Vanity Fair newe to
Me more cover. Head on over to stuff Mom Never
told You dot com for more on this and thousands
(41:23):
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
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