Melissa and Cara have already covered this one really well, but I couldn’t resist pointing out this article in the LA Times about post-abortion syndrome in men.
Now, “post-abortion syndrome” is bullshit — in women and men. That isn’t to say that some women don’t experience feelings of sadness, regret or depression after abortion — some do, and that should be recognized and honored. But it’s not a universal experience; the majority of women report “relief” as their chief post-abortion emotion. And more women experience depression after childbirth than after abortion.
But that’s not here nor there, since this article isn’t about women at all — it’s about men. Men whose partners terminated pregnancies, and who now want to tell other women that they can’t make the same choice.
Abortion is usually portrayed as a woman’s issue: her body, her choice, her relief or her regret. This new movement — both political and deeply personal in nature — contends that the pronoun is all wrong.
“We had abortions,” said Mark B. Morrow, a Christian counselor. “I’ve had abortions.”
This is kind of a nifty new argument — if I’m close to someone who has had a certain medical procedure, then I’ve had it, too! Especially if I shared my DNA with them in any way. If that’s the case, I’ve had two kids, surgery for a broken neck and the removal of a benign tumor. Hell, if an exchange of body fluids is all it takes to adopt someone else’s experience, then I’ve been to India and I speak fluent French.
I know women who have had abortions, too. I’ve been close with them. I’ve talked with them about their choice. But, having never had an abortion myself, I never thought to co-opt their experience and claim that because I know someone who underwent a particular procedure, I underwent it too. It smacks of total self-delusion and narcissism. Which, well:
Chris Aubert, a Houston lawyer, felt only indifference in 1985 when a girlfriend told him she was pregnant and planned on an abortion. When she asked if he wanted to come to the clinic, he said he couldn’t; he played softball on Saturdays. He stuck a check for $200 in her door and never talked to her again.
Aubert, 50, was equally untroubled when another girlfriend had an abortion in 1991. “It was a complete irrelevancy,” he said. But years later, Aubert felt a rising sense of unease. He and his wife were cooing at an ultrasound of their first baby when it struck him — “from the depths of my belly,” he said — that abortion was wrong.
Aubert has since converted to Catholicism. He and his wife have five children, and they sometimes protest in front of abortion clinics. Every now and then, though, Aubert wonders: What if his first girlfriend had not aborted? How would his life look different?
He might have endured a loveless marriage and, perhaps, a sad divorce. He might have been saddled with child support as he tried to build his legal practice. He might never have met his wife. Their children — Christine, Kyle, Roch, Paul, Vance — might not exist.
“I wouldn’t have the blessings I have now,” Aubert said. So in a way, he said, the two abortions may have cleared his path to future happiness.
“That’s an intellectual debate I have with myself,” he said. “I struggle with it.”
In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.
But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?
Aubert looks startled. “I never really thought about it for the woman,” he says slowly.
Well I am just dumbstruck.
I don’t doubt that there are some men out there who feel sad or depressed about the abortions their partners have had. Those feelings should be respected, and I hope the men do find ways to work through their feelings.
But this is about entitlement. It’s about men thinking that their feelings trump women’s most basic human rights. It’s about misogyny — and it’s no surprise that the men involved have long histories of it, well before their stints in the anti-choice movement.
Of course men have the right to political opinions. Of course they have the right to grieve, and to define their own experiences. But they don’t get to use their feelings as justification to curb my rights. Because at the end of the day, their co-opting of women’s actual experiences isn’t being used for healing; it’s being used as a tool to promote forced pregnancy. And that, no matter how you slice it, is a tool of oppression.
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I once told a pro-lifer who argued about father’s rights that one orgasm does not equal 9 months of morning sickness, bloating, discomfort, hemorrhoids, risk of pre-eclampsia, dizziness…..
Amazingly, it shut him up.
I’m sure many will disagree with me, but I actually have always had an aversion to couples saying “we’re pregnant,” too. I guess it’s nice for the man to participate (I mean, it sure beats him leaving her high and dry), but isn’t there a way for him to feel included without claiming that he’s going through the same physical experience?
After the well-deserved demise of MRA favorite “parental alienation syndrome,” I guess the desire for pseudo-science had to lead to something else.
Well said, Jill. And, to add to phinky’s comment, when a few people gazing at my newborn, congratulated my guy on a job well done after I had just endured a brutal 18-hour labour, I had to snap at them, “Yup, he came really well!”
Ages ago I wrote a post on grief after abortion and how I coped with it if you’re interested.
Oh, so the same guy who declined to go to the clinic with his girlfriend because he had a softball game is the same guy who, years later, admits to not thinking of his girlfriend’s perspective on the matter? Shocking.
Also, from the article:
I have one word: projection.
I read this over on Jezebel. Great comments ensued.
Keep in mind Jezebel’s main export is snark.
oh, wait – you mean the fuckhole? the fuckhole has feelings?
what a complete fuckwit.
I have no words.
And I love the picture.
When she asked if he wanted to come to the clinic, he said he couldn’t; he played softball on Saturdays. He stuck a check for $200 in her door and never talked to her again.
Someone you purportedly care about is going in for outpatient surgery and the best you’ve got is “I play softball on Saturday”? Really? Truly?
That last quote is absolutely astonishing. Is that the tail end of the article? (I can’t figure out my LA Times password and don’t want to re-register.) I mean really, when you have an interview subject THAT clueless — who’s talking about his intellectual debate with himself over what his life would have been like if there had been a child in it much earlier — how on earth do you spin the entire article as “men have abortions too.” What the FUCK?
Maybe the lesson he should have learned after fathering “four dead children” is USE A FUCKING CONDOM.
This is beyond disgusting!
Extreme masculine entitlement, insane self-absorbed obliviousness, utter stupidity…all dumped into one big mysogynistic, stinking pile of shit.
Maybe the lesson he should have learned after fathering “four dead children” is USE A FUCKING CONDOM.
Oh, his sperm only matter 22 years after the fact. It’s pro-life “logic”, remember.
(emphasis mine)
The attitude you’re addressing reminds me a whole lot of expectant fathers sometimes considering themselves pregnant (Hmm. Wasn’t sure whether to italicise ‘pregnant’ or ‘themselves’). Eg. ‘We’re pregnant!’ and language like ‘pregnant father’*. Totally erasing the no-brainer that out of the expecting parents, only the woman is pregnant; therefore, the woman, not the man, does the work of turning a zygote into a baby, her body, not the man’s, experiences the consequences of being pregnant, and she, not the man, deserves the credit for pregnancy. And birth.
* No shit… anecdote here, but I once found a short book called ‘The Pregnant Dad’ or something that repeatedly referred to expectant fathers as pregnant without reassuring quotation marks, so it wasn’t just a catchy title, and was sexist in a whole lot of other ways. One section was about how since your wife (marriage was assumed) couldn’t always do the cooking now, you should learn to cook for yourself! It reassured the reader that you didn’t have to be a 5 star chef or somesuch, and contained some recipes that blew me alway with the insult; they were basically kid’s recipes. I’m pretty sure one of them actually was baked beans on toast. Point is, it really assumed hubby barely knew how to light the stove! I had to stop reading after the bit on cravings… the explanations given were 1) – and it was #1 – attention seeking. or 2) Using pregnancy as an excuse to pig out… basically pooh-poohing the idea that cravings are real.
JG…this is just making me crazy! These guys in the article are so utterly oblivious to their own obliviousness, so supremely unaware of their own hypocrisy, so convinced that “their” wildly belated pain is the only thing that matters…
WHAT THE HELL?
No disagreement from me. In fact, I was going to mention the same thing after I read this post. I think it’s good for the male partner to be involved as much as he can, but whenever I hear someone say this, I want to say, “No, we are not pregnant. Sheis pregnant. That’s how it works.”
“Amazingly, it shut him up.”
Really? That’s never worked for me…
wall-flower – I understand where you’re coming from, but I can’t say that I agree. When I’m sick, my husband is right there with me, taking care of me and making sure I have everything I need. While he may not be the one actually going through the sickness, he’s certainly sharing a part of the experience. And while he doesn’t have to feel like crap, he is still inconvenienced. If he behaves the same way if/when I ever get pregnant, I have absolutely no problem sharing some of the pregnancy-credit with him. Obviously, it’s not 50/50, but he’s still sharing a part of it.
I would object to someone else doing the same to us because, as you say, it does make a lot of assumptions. If I’m in the room and someone says to my husband “nice work,” I’d be pretty offended. If a stranger referred to my husband and I as collectively pregnant without me first showing that it’s OK, I’d be offended then as well.
It’s a bit like calling a fetus a “baby.” I’d probably call my own fetus a baby because that’s how I would feel about it, but I’d be very offended if some stranger told me that my fetus should be legally equal to a baby. Essentially, it’s all about the emotional perspective of the individual/couple.
Err… that was length. I hope it makes some sense.
SarahMC – but he couldn’t learn that lesson. He only learned that abortion was wrong when he became Catholic – so using birth control would have been wrong too!
Personally I think the lesson to be learned is don’t be a complete ass – but that’s just me.
I recall reading once that the men who are most likely to experience “sympathetic pregnancy” are the most likely to believe strongly in enforced gender roles. Which makes sense — if the woman is suddenly getting a lot of attention that should be his, of course he’s going to develop symptoms to make himself as much like her as possible so he can get that attention back.
I have no problem with “expectant father” — after all, that’s exactly what the guy is, expecting to be a father. “Pregnant father”? Er, no.
In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.
But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?
Aubert looks startled. “I never really thought about it for the woman,” he says slowly.
Oh no, of course not! Just think of the mindless, imaginary fetus (always a son, for some reason), not the real, live woman.
(always a son, for some reason)
Gee…why is that?
God, I’m coming to detest recovering _________________(fill in the blank)
That reminds me of a conversation I had with a fairly conservative couple who recently became parents. The topic turned to childbirth and, feeling that the husband was inappropriately dominating the conversation while the wife sat mute, I looked directly at her and asked: “What’s it like having an epidural?”. Needless to say I was not too surprised when he answered for her. He went on an on about the experience of childbirth and was oblivious to the fact that he was not the actual person who was, you know, pregnant.
Wow I had so many different questions I would want to ask this guy. How does someone go through law school (Aubert had been out a year in 1985) and not give a lot of thought to abortion and the issues around it? How do not ever speak to a woman again after she gets pregnant? How could you not go with her? Why don’t you feel guilt about that?
But if I was only able to ask him one question, the best would be of course (following some recent discussions):
How much jail time should he get for aiding and abetting two murders?
I guess the old saying “once an asshole, always an asshole” describes this best.
And while men aren’t pregnant like women, they encounter changing hormone levels similar to what happens during pregnancy when living with a pregnant woman. Even if the baby is not their own. It might be an idea to find a word to describe this.
SoE–Does “couvade” apply?
…and is anyone else thinking of “First, He Cries,” the old SNL sketch about how awful his wife’s breast cancer is for a man? Classic.
These guys would love my mother, who for YEARS remembered the day my sister got an abortion, then tacked on the months to get to 9 months, then MOURNED her ‘dead grandson” on that day… and of course call me so I, as this fetus’ aunt, could share her grief.
When it got to “his 15th birthday”, I finally told her to STFU and remember that I had her “only” REAL grandkids; sorry they were GIRLS and not BOYS. Subject was then DROPPED.
Trailer park, I wonder if the grief is magnified when the “fathers of dead babies” imagine the potential children as boys.
Ack, I lied. I don’t wonder. I’m certain.
YOu know in some sense he may be correct, but not in the way HE thinks. There may be a scar the woman feels but not from the abortion – rather from his callousness and outwright disposal of her at a time when she may have needed his support. Abandonment comes to mind.
I’m sure when she thinks back perhaps it is not the abortion that may haunt her but the fact she shared her bed with such an incredible prick who left her hanging with a check of $200 for her trouble.
I’m sure the fact she was treated like a commoditity that was easily disposed of never painfuly crosses her mind.
I know when I look back on my own experience it isn’t the abortion that was the problem or the “scar” – it is the memory of how my then SO treated me and left me shortly thereafter. The safe, legal abortion was a fucking godsend. And considering how he has fathered at least one child and abandoned her since we split years ago I am confident I made the best choice possible.
Good grief…
“We’re pregnant” bugs me too.
I have a wonderfully sympathetic and supportive husband as I’m pregnant right now. He’s awesome without being the “I’m pregnant too” type.
It really bugs people that I often refer to my gestation as, well, gestating, and that it’s still a fetus. Sure, I wax emotional and get all baby-baby and stuff, but my perspective is realistic for me. It also bothered others that when we decided to do a CVS (early chromosomal test at 11-13 weeks) it was so we would be able to choose to abort if there was something seriously wrong without me suffering too much physically. No one wants to hear that, but it’s not their body and their life that is altered, is it?
This guy needs serious slapping and perhaps some reality checks from the ex-fuckbuddies.
I got a “We’re pregnant” phone call from my brother a few years ago.
I should get a medal for heroically refraining from making snarky comments.
Another interesting dimension of this “men have abortions too” rhetoric is that by co-opting women’s experience, the men in question don’t have to (or are not given a chance to) do the hard work of figuring out what it means to grieve an abortion (which they have every right to do) from their own perspective. They don’t have to think about what the loss of a potential child, the loss of a chance to be a father, means to them as men, not pregnant women. They just graft women’s experience into their own lives.
I think that’s tremendously sad.
I had a vasectomy and my vagina really hurts.
did any of these men ever consider that the guilt they are experiencing might be because they treated other human beings who happened to be female like trash? because that’s the explanation that makes the most sense to me.
Ditto to the anti-”we’re pregnant” feelings. The problem with comparing it to the situation of a caregiver when a spouse is ill is that no one says “we’re sick” when the wife has the flu.
What infuriates me most at the moment (and this article gives me new things to be infuriated about every time I think about it) is how for this asshole, suddenly an embryo is a potential child is a baaaybeee* when he has emotional investment. Suddenly, when he wants to be a father and he can relate to the pregnancy as something he wants, it’s real.
And I have to disagree, annajcook. These men aren’t grafting women’s experience into their own lives. To do that, they would have to take into account the actual women’s experiences. They don’t even acknowledge them. They are doing exactly the opposite, taking what it means for them and assuming it’s the same for the women.
*Oh, lord, now I have an image of prolifers looming over the belly of a pregant woman, hissing “Mmmmyyyy precioussssssss.” I’m going to have nightmares.
Post-abortion syndrome, eh? Sounds like it has the same effects as when I got post-when-Georgia-lost-to-Tennessee-in-football syndrome. Someone should do a study.
(not discounting anyone’s feelings, of course, but rather attributing a “syndrome” where there is none in hopes for anti-choice political gain)
While he may not be the one actually going through the sickness, he’s certainly sharing a part of the experience. And while he doesn’t have to feel like crap, he is still inconvenienced. If he behaves the same way if/when I ever get pregnant, I have absolutely no problem sharing some of the pregnancy-credit with him.
Honoring him for loving and caring for you, and recognizing him as your child’s father, is not exactly the same as giving him credit for being pregnant. Big difference.
You just know how Mr. Consideration would react if his wife said “We’re having a colonoscopy!” or “We’re undergoing chemo for prostate cancer!”
Another thing that bugs me with the “we” mess… There’s a history of using “the royal we” in a condescending way — which implies that someone is being bratty and immature. The mix of that usage with the presumption involved in a man using it referring to pregnancy… just yuck.
“We’re having morning sickness.”
No you’re not, because if you were you’d be in the bathroom puking, not standing here talking to me with that smug look on your face. (Based on a true exchange with my BiL…)
When I was married in June, my wife and I had the priest say this prayer that likened us to sturdy columns- in service of the same goals (holding up a roof; having a happy and fulfilling partnership) but NOT held solely upright by each other.
Doesn’t seem very romantic on the surface, but I think it’s a sentiment that works well here. Should my wife and I ever decide to have a child, she will be pregnant and I will help care for her (and later the child). We will have our own personal duties in service of one goal. It’s an important distinction to make.
This is why Feminism is more important now than ever.
=/
Yep. And apparently there’s at least one severely misogynist culture that anthropologists have studied where the men go through labor when women do, and take longer to recover, and need more medical assistance.
Thanks, Astraea, I thought of that after I posted. Clearly the men in the article are not thinking about actual women and their actual feelings. My point (which I made poorly) was that these guys aren’t doing the work of thinking about what it means to feel bad about an abortion as a man who wasn’t and can never be pregnant. Instead, they’re just taking an abortion discourse that focuses on women’s experience (however wrong and objectifying that discourse can be at times) and applying it to themselves.
This is the same MRA argument that it’s unfair that the sperm injector has no say in deciding whether to carry the pregnancy to term or not. This is usually followed by the conclusion that he should not have to pay child support because he has no right to force the woman to have an abortion.
Annajcook, I think I know what you’re getting at. They are totally co-opting women’s experiences and making it about them and they’re using the experiences projected onto women by the prolifers and applying it to themselves.
Makes my head hurt.
No. Our buddy Aubert was honestly surprised by someone asking him what his long-ago girlfriends would think, so much so that he couldn’t think of an answer. It never even occurred to him that “saving the babies” would mean forcing the baby-vessels to continue a pregnancy they might not want. Those women weren’t even there as far as he was concerned, and he’s in a movement that encourages such though.
Besides, if they’re anything like standard-issue MRA’s, there’s no such thing as human beings who happen to be female. Just a strange race of humanlike creatures who have sex with men for the sole reason of accusing them of rape the next day (sometimes telling him to stop in the midst of previously-consensual coitus so her accusation can have the added substance of “he didn’t stop soon enough); take on the enormous responsibility of single parenthood just so they can “saddle” a man with child-support payments (the easy path to riches, donchaknow?); and would be completely happy with being submissive housekeepers and breeders if they aren’t corrupted by feminism.
Yes, but you have some degree of empathy. These guys don’t.
I recall reading once that the men who are most likely to experience “sympathetic pregnancy” are the most likely to believe strongly in enforced gender roles. Which makes sense — if the woman is suddenly getting a lot of attention that should be his, of course he’s going to develop symptoms to make himself as much like her as possible so he can get that attention back.
On the flip side, I recall reading once that the men who experience couvade symptoms tend to have more empathy and produce more estrogen than those who don’t. Then again, considering the book where I read it was written by a prominent male member of ACOG and looking at the anecdata evidence of my husband’s complete lack of couvade symptoms*… I like your explanation better.
*Strangely, it’s all he gets teased about.
I find it interesting that, in complaining that these men are invalidating the experiences of women during pregnancy/abortion, you are in effect doing the same thing. When I say that when I am pregnant, my husband will be a large part of my experience and I will think of us as collectively pregnant, that is an emotion that I, as a woman, am entitled to. To invalidate this perception because you disagree with it deprives my emotions of legitimacy.
We may not have an equal share in the responsibilities of pregnancy and we may not have the same roles in the experience, but through mutual support and shared experience, we are collectively pregnant. I’m sorry if my personal feelings regarding my personal relationship offend anyone.
Pregnancy is not a state of mind, M. It’s a physical condition.
Nobody’s invalidating your perception that he’s part of your experience. All anyone is saying is that unless you’re somehow sharing a womb, he ain’t pregnant.
Huh, Wikipedia claims that “Couvade is more common where sex roles are flexible and the female is of a dominant status” but there’s a citation needed note. This is kind of interesting and I’d be curious to know if anyone has more information on what it correlates with and whether it affects anyone besides close heterosexual partners of pregnant women. Like, do lesbians ever have sympathetic pregnancy syndromes? I feel like I’ve heard anecdotes about prolactin levels in the non-childbearing partner, but nothing solid or even a solid anecdote.
Wah, fuckin’ wah.
When I worked at the Evil Empire, two of the senior associates in my department were pregnant at the same time as the wives of a partner and a counsel.
Guess who missed more work for pregnancy-related issues?
I think maybe the disjuncture here is that M is referring to pregnancy as the entire experience of being pregnant, not just the physical parts. I do think it’s legitimate for someone to say that they feel the whole picture is more important to focus on than just the biological nitty-gritty, which usually gets the spotlight. At the same time, I think there’s a reason for this “we’re pregnant” trend that goes beyond what M is describing as shared experience. I think that’s clear from the article and a lot of what people are describing in comments, and it has to do with some men asserting an ancient right to control things they actually can’t and shouldn’t control. Not all men, but I think the “we’re pregnant” thing has unavoidable ties into the rest of this stuff.
I think some of the posters are referring to Stephen Ducat’s The Wimp Factor, which I just finished reading. He’s the one who makes the claim that couvade symptoms are a form of misogyny. I’m a little skeptical at this blanket assertion, although I think some of the points he makes are good ones.
Exactly. M, your experience sounds like one I hope to have if the kid thing ever happens, so don’t go around changing the way you FEEL. But an important semantic line has to be drawn between sharing the experience and sharing pregnancy/birth. When men wash this line away, it’s another method of controlling what a woman does with her body; since they’re “sharing” the pregnancy, it’s his body, too! And you see how that’s not a good thing.
My husband does have some of that regret for an abortion a girlfriend had when he was 18. Except he wasn’t the sort of scum to dump her at that point. She had the abortion because her parents had long ago made it clear that if she got pregnant in college they would disown her.
Does he now wish it had happened otherwise? In some ways he does, and we talk about it once in a while. But he understood and still understands that it was her choice to make. He is the one who took her to the clinic when she made that decision.
He made mistakes during my pregnancies, although I was glad to have him by my side. I reamed him for ignoring my *&#% college graduation, which passed unnoticed because he was so focused on the upcoming baby. But I think he knew better than to claim too much credit for the work my body had to do.
A long time ago, I had a friend who told me this story about a guy who lied to his girlfriend during sex about what was actually happening so that he could get her pregnant. He then intended to propose to her several weeks later, but when he told her she was pregnant, she looked surprised and asked how he knew, because she had terminated the pregnancy already.
And that poor virtuous guy dumped her and lived happily ever after with a different woman who didn’t mind being deceived and dependent.
Except, she was telling the story to convince me that abortion was wrong, because, see, it hurts men, too.
I never heard of couvade before I read this thread. Checked it out on Wikipedia. Hope it doesn’t happen to me (if it is, in fact a physical/hormonal thing) when my wife and I decide to have kids. It would render me halfway to bloody useless for helping the person who’s actually pregnant.
M., you seem to argue that people must either agree with you or STFU, lest they “invalidate your feelings”. Is that really what you’re trying to say?
Ignoring the rather large role of the “biological nitty-gritty” creeps me out in another way: it’s almost as if the woman is trying to appease her partner because she might actually have an experience that he can’t share, dominate or otherwise be The Most Important Person in. It’s not that *she’s* the center of attention because *he’s* pregnant, too!
(And fwiw, I was happy to “honor” and appreciate how attentive and caring my partner was throughout all three pregnancies, but we were both pretty clear on the fact that only one of us was dealing with morning sickness, Braxton-Hicks, the risk of dying of complications or in childbirth, etc. It didn’t diminish his role as a father to acknowledge that.)
All I can say is, anything that keeps this Chris Aubert from reproducing can’t be bad.
How would the guy have known if she did not told him? Fertilization is not automatic. Did he steal her urine? Pay off her gynecologist?
No matter how supportive and helpful and fully participatory a man is, his involvement with the pregnancy is always a choice. He can turn around and walk away if he wants to; if he’s too upset by the sight of labor, he can leave the room. A pregnant woman can’t walk away. That’s the difference between involvement and pregnancy.
You know, I used to fell skeptical whenever someone mentioned the concept of womb envy.
Now I’d like to apologise for being so stupid as to doubt its existence.
It’s sort of like bacon and eggs: the chicken participates, but the pig is committed.
Thank you, Holly. That’s exactly what I meant. The experience of pregnancy is very large, larger than just biology.
And I do agree with you that if the dad is imposing this image onto the woman and assuming the shared experience of pregnancy as something that privileges him, accords him more (or even the same) amount of hardship, that’s just plain wrong. But in a loving and supportive relationship, sharing the experience (even if it’s obviously not a 50/50 sort of sharing) can be a positive thing. And if a couple chooses to acknowledge this sharing of experience by saying that “they” are pregnant, I think it’s childish to be “barely able to hold back a snarky comment.”
DN Nation – Absolutely. Just as long as we remember that not all men are like this, that some men totally acknowledge that their wife/girlfriend is the one going through the entire physical portion, but they are also part of the experience of pregnancy.
Mythago – No, that’s not what I am trying to say. I am in no way trying to impose my will on others. However, to be told that my feelings are invalid or wrong by the very people who should be protecting me right to choice and my right to think of MY OWN pregnancy in whatever terms I please is rather unnerving. I think that I should be free to think of my pregnancy as being shared with my husband without people “barely able to hold back a snarky comment.” You can think of your own pregnancy, or pregnancies in general, in whatever terms you wish. But when discussing MY pregnancy, I should be allowed to use the terms I deem appropriate without being told that I am wrong.
And fyi, this has nothing to do with “ignoring the biological nitty-gritty.” Rather, it has to do with acknowledging that there is more to a pregnancy than just the biological aspect and that a partner can share in that other part of the experience.
EG – Yes, a man can just walk away. But when a man chooses to stay with me through thick and thin, provide for my physical and emotional comfort, and be emotionally as involved in the pregnancy as I am, he is still sharing part of the pregnancy experience. Even if he can stop at any time, until he does so he is sharing in part of the experience.
No one here is trying to argue that the biological aspect is insignificant. No one here is trying to claim that men and women are equal in pregnancy. No one is saying that the amount of work they put in is equal or that their risks are equal. No one is trying to ignore the physical aspects. I am merely acknowledging that there *is* more to a pregnancy than just the biological. That’s it. I don’t understand why this is so inflammatory.
Because the physical aspect of pregnancy, which is unique to women, has been routinely minimized and dismissed as unimportant within a patriarchal culture. “Just have the baby and give it up for adoption,” “The baby is as much his as hers,” the lack of any sort of liveable maternal leave policies, husband notification laws, the Baby M case–these are all examples of ingrained, institutional, cultural ways in which the uniquely female experience pregnancy and childbirth is dismissed and ignored.
It would be unnecessarily nasty and unpleasant actually to make a snarky comment, but I fail to see what’s so childish about holding one back, even if it is by the skin of one’s teeth. Are people not allowed to feel strongly about this issue if they disagree with you?
Don’t invalidate my feelings!
EG – But haven’t I specifically been referring to my personal relationship in which neither myself nor my husband has any intention (explicit or implicit) of dismissing or ignoring the uniquely female experience of pregnancy and childbirth? This is what really bothers me about some of the comments here – YOU are the ones ignoring and dismissing my experiences by denying that my feelings are legitimate.
Holding back isn’t the issue. The issue is one person, a supposed feminist, feels that she is entitled to dictate how I, as a women, ought to feel. That she barely manages to keep herself from saying anything hardly commendable.
Can she feel strongly about an issue? Sure. But it’s not her place to tell me (as she did in this thread – which was not holding back) that my feelings regarding my own pregnancy are illegitimate.
Actually, M., someone said they didn’t like the “we’re pregnant” formulation and stated why, and you decided to personalize it and complain that you were being told what to do.
You can feel however you want about your own pregnancy. Other people are entitled to disagree with you, and say so.
Zuzu – that was incredibly immature of you. I have to say that I am incredibly disappointed with you. As a poster in this blog, you ought to be intimately aware of the damage denying women their own experiences and feelings and dictating to them what is “proper” can do. That you would resort to petty mocking in a discussion such as this shows extreme immaturity.
I don’t think anyone meant to target your feelings particularly, M. It’s understandable how it came across that way to you, but I really do think everyone was talking about the social trend of “we’re pregnant” and why there are problems with some men using this as a lever, especially given we live in the kind of sexist woman-controlling world that we do. So maybe we can all assume best intentions and that subjective feelings about one’s own relationship were not, in fact, the subject of debate or critique, and that M was talking about her own personal experience and not a wider problematic social trend? I think that’s usually the best way out of this sort of clash.
Every anti-abortion argument I’ve ever read glosses over the fact that the “unborn child” is living in, and dependent for its life upon, a thinking, feeling, sentient being who has the right of self-determination morally, legally and practically. This just strikes me as another subterfuge to divert attention from this inconvenient fact. Instead of framing an anti-abortion slant as the government protecting the “unborn” against abortion providers (mother? what mother?), it’s just being framed as the government protecting the rights of the father against abortion providers, once again denying any consideration of the mother’s legitimate, independent interests.
Even as a not-so-politically correct guy, this seems elemental to me. I love my wife, but that doesn’t give me the right to usurp her basic right of self-determination.
Trying to shame me into agreeing with you isn’t going to work.
You’re taking a generalized statement and personalizing it, and expecting everyone to dance attendance on you because you personalized a generalized statement. Do whatever you want with your own pregnancy, but just because you feel strongly about something doesn’t change biology. Nor does it give you the right to try to silence other women who are really rather uncomfortable with the implications of the whole “we’re pregnant!” business by squalling about how hurt your feelings are because someone disagreed with you.
And BTW, M, congratulations on derailing the thread into a discussion not of the issues presented in the article but of your wounded feelings because people here won’t validate your decision to declare that your husband is pregnant.
Wow, this is kind of weird. Someone said they dislike it when a couple says “We’re pregnant”; M. said she doesn’t dislike it and will say it about her own pregnancy; lots of people told M. she should dislike it and shouldn’t say it.
Personally, I agree with Miss Manners that “we’re pregnant,” however odd, is better than the more old-fashioned “She went and got herself pregnant.” Until reading this thread, it never crossed my mind that it could be interpreted as the man taking *credit* for the pregnancy, rather than very rightly taking (with the woman) *responsibility* for the pregnancy/child.
No, lots of people pointed out to M. that she was wrong, and drew the distinction between sharing in the overall experience and sharing in the physical condition of pregnancy, and a lot of people bent over backwards to say that she can feel however she likes about it, but it doesn’t make her husband pregnant.
In fact, a whole lot of people didn’t address what M. said at all and continued talking about the post or about co-option in general.
How is that “telling M. she should dislike it and shouldn’t say it”? The only person telling people to shut up was M., who didn’t want anyone else to express an opinion if it was contrary to hers and didn’t sufficiently stroke her ego.
Karen, actually, no one directly responded to M at all except for my pretty polite (and brief) comment that I didn’t think comparing it to a caregiver and a sick spouse made sense. There was some more discussion of the “we’re pregnant” idea, but none of it was directed toward M. Then M. claimed that because no one agreed with her, we were “invalidating” her feelings.
And since when do we have to accept that the only choice is between two sexist points of view?
The alternative to “we’re pregnant” should be, “we’re having a baby”. That way, the shared emotional experience and responsibility of having a child is acknowledged without suggesting that the physical condition of pregnancy can be shared.
Exactly.
I am currently pregnant, and *we* are expecting a baby. My husband has been an absolute gem during this time– and I’m glad. But ultimately, I am taking on the risks– getting the blood tests, getting the scares about liver function, having to deliver the baby. He is an amazing support and will be an amazing father. He’s done a fabulous job of helping me when I was so nauseous I couldn’t do the basics, and is planning to be great moral support through delivery. In NO WAY do I discredit all the wonderful work he’s doing by refusing to give him credit for the part of this that I’m doing.
We’re a team. I’m glad to be doing this with a partner. But my role and his in this pregnancy thing are just different. I imagine they’ll get a bit more similar as the child grows… but at this stage? As he’s told me, he’s quite relieved *I’m* the one with the uterus b/c he wouldn’t want to do this part!
No. We’re disagreeing with them. Your feelings are what they are; it doesn’t mean that I or anybody else has to accept them as an accurate assessment of the situation.
Silly men being upset about their children being aborted. Bullshit indeed, after all, men aren’t allowed to have opinions or feelings about their own child being aborted . . .
Remind me when you got your first period, Tony?
Ya’ll, be nice.
Except you, Tony. That was just dumb.
I think I’ve seen this troll before. Oh, yes, on every single thread where a man decides us evil feminists aren’t taking enough care of their feelings.
I think it’s perfectly fine for men to have feelings about the fact that they’re not going to have children that “might have been.” It’s good to have feelings about that. It’s better to have feelings about someone you inseminated having an abortion than to have zero feelings at all, I’d say.
What’s bullshit is trying to pretend those feelings are at all comparable or can be lumped into the same category as the feelings of the WOMAN, the one who is PREGNANT and whose BODY is involved, at stake, at risk and the one who either has the ABORTION or has to GIVE BIRTH. All of those words in capital letters? Not part of the man’s experience at all, except indirectly. It’s not that hard to understand the difference between experiencing something as an observer and experiencing it as the person it’s happening to, is it? It’s ludicrous to even pretend that they’re the same, or should be considered as being at the same level, or anything like that.
And that’s exactly why it’s ludicrous to think that men should get to decide for a woman whether or not she goes through with a pregnancy.
Dude, if all you’ve got is a take off on a CSI:Miami rerun, you might want to brush up on your game.
I can’t even express the contempt I have towards these men right now. The more I think about it, the more disgusted I become.
“I wonder how things would have turned out had my ex not had an abortion” is a sympathetic sentiment re: abortion. “Maybe I would have been a good father to those potential children.”
What THESE sacks of shit expressed is vile.
To the emosogynists: The women who aborted your “dead children” probably sensed their potential children would have a lousy dad good for nothing more than a $200 check under the door once in a while.
what Holly said. yeah, you can have feelings, menz. what you can’t have is control. it’s not your body. deal.
there is also that.
Tony, I don’t feel that the problem is that the men are upset over abortions, the problem is they expect the woman to make a choice without taking HER feelings into account even though she’s the one carrying the fetus then giving birth. See how that’s a problem?
Oh yeah. He’d be a GREAT Dad.
or, on second thought, maybe he needs to stick to his damn Playstation. and his hand, from now on, while we’re at it.
jesus.
Not only that, they feel bad about the abortion 20 years after the fact, so they decide that no woman can get one. Even when their own sperm wasn’t involved.
Magic jizz, I tells ya.
Personally, I agree with Miss Manners that “we’re pregnant,” however odd, is better than the more old-fashioned “She went and got herself pregnant.”
I’m pretty sure those aren’t the only two choices.
Usually one hears “we’re pregnant!” from couples as a cutesy way of saying “we’re going to be new parents!”. The creepy factor comes in when it stops being a cute expression and starts being a point of view: that the father-to-be’s experience is pretty much just like the mother-to-be’s experience. Is there really any other explanation for desperately minimizing the physical aspects of pregnancy and childbirth?
“She went and got herself pregnant.”
Been masturbating since I was 11 and never managed THAT!! ;)
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/every-sperm-is-sacred.html
I thought Monty Python was supposed to be funny, not rule of law?
Exactly. I had to say at least once(*) “No no, J. is pregnant.” (gesture significantly to my gut which, while not exactly small, is clearly not distended with pregnancy) “We are expecting.”
(*) Good Lord, that was four-and-a-half years ago. How did I get to be the father of a four-year-old who dresses herself and goes to pre-school? Where did that time go? How’d she get so tall?
Any bets that “M” is reallly male? Honestly. “Her” comments feel strongly like an intentional derail.
We’re not even talkingabout loving and supportive partners to a wanted pregnancy, we’re talking about men appropriating women’s experience of pregnancy and their right to choose to continue said pregnancy to get more attention for themselves (and to try to control women). Nobody’s discounting your feelings, we’re just talking about a whole other topic.
Damn, that post I made was unclear. Men can’t be pregnant, and shouldn’t act like they can, and shouldn’t say they had abortions when their partner was the one who went through the physical experience. If they have such strong feelings about their sperm being sacred, they should keep the sperm to themselves instead of just letting it fly willy nilly.
And, Tony, fuck off.
On this the occasion of 100 commentary Reactions (in a Progressive way of course) to yet another in a series of carefully searched out neanderthal male boneheaded remarks, one could summarize the sentiments expressed as simply “Hell hath no fury like a woman upstaged”.
What’s the man even doing in the play, Fran?
Good grid, zuzu, you’re not suggesting that something important might happen unless a man is present?!
*applauds!*
What’s the man even doing in the play, Fran?
What play are you referring to zuzu…..
the runup?
the ecstatic moment?
the pregnancy?
the delivery?
the the not-less-than 18 years and probably-a-lifetime period of caring for, educating, sharing the joy with, leading by example, being there for, enjoying the company of, and ultimately cherishing a beautiful product of something formerly unquestioned as ‘a union’. For which of these events are you suggesting ‘the man’ NOT be there?
The pregnancy, obviously.
That’s a one-woman show.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman upstaged”
Upstaged? By a dude claiming that he’s had abortions? How did that work?
For which of these events are you suggesting ‘the man’ NOT be there?
*eyeroll* Jesus, are all you people equally incompetent and illiterate? Read before you spew.
I’m still trying to figure out why the obstetrician doesn’t get custody of the child if the important thing is to be there during the delivery. After all, s/he does a lot more work than the husband, and you’d think work would count for more than mere presence.
“The runup”? WTF is that? Does Fran think the man takes a running leap and dives at the woman penis-first to have sex?
Succinct response, zuzu….some might discern an element of evasiveness.
“Read”? Goff…as in ‘read all the responses not just the thread starter? Or did you fail to notice the customary tone change as the scope evolved from Reacting against a single doltish male to a smackdown of the entire gender (for trying to muscle in on their action). And what’s with the “you people” from you…(oh, the irony).
Nice strawperson, Mnemsoyne. No one said it was important for the man to be there during delivery, certainly not the noncommital zuzu. But it does seem society kinda expects the man to be there these days; pacing in the waiting room having been deemed ’so yesterday’.
Didn’t like (or understand) the metaphor, mythago? Perhaps you think “Courtship” have worked better in this venue. Nice Beavis/Butthead-esque comeback from you though.
Evasiveness? No, dear.
You know, it does help if you RTFP. Because what we have there is a bunch of guys who are trying to co-opt the actual pregnancy by saying that they, personally, had abortions. Which is of course impossible because men, lacking uteri, don’t have pregnancies, and abortions terminate a pregnancy.
Nobody’s saying that men can’t be supportive during a pregnancy, nor that they’re not part of the parenting experience. But to insist that they share the actual pregnancy, which is a function of a woman’s body, diminishes the sheer physical work that occurs during a pregnancy.
Besides, aren’t you antifeminists always the ones freaking out because you think feminists are trying to erase the differences between men and women? Seems that trying to share in the pregnancy is the ultimate erasure of that line, since it’s the major physical difference.
But then again, consistency was never really y’all’s strong point.
Haha, that’s some gorgeous projection, Fran. Yes, zuzu’s the one being evasive!*chuckles*
One person said it — you. You may want to scroll up to your comment and refresh your memory about what you posted, since you don’t seem to remember.
Hey, why be there at all? After all, you’re planning to put the entire burden of childrearing on your wife anyway. Just go to work as usual and let the hospital call and let you know if it’s a boy or a girl.
I know that it’s difficult for you to even pretend that you’re worried about your wife being in pain and possibly dying, but it is considered good form to fake it in public.
I know that it’s difficult for you to even pretend that you’re worried about your wife being in pain and possibly dying, but it is considered good form to fake it in public.
delivery room hijack:
true enough, but frankly I don’t want my husband anywhere NEAR me in the delivery room. I’ll have enough to worry about without the fear that he’s going to pass out and crack his skull on the linoleum right in front of a busy nurse, or throw up on an otherwise-sanitary doc, or similar shenanigans. he can pace – at least he’ll be out of the way. he knows where to find me when it’s over (I’ll be the one holding the baby, if all goes well.)
I am told by reliable sources (family members who observed it) that witnessing the miracle of life at a dairy farm one afternoon left him a trembling, shambling, sweating, vomiting wreck. I don’t want to make him go through that again! I know he loves me and cares about me and doesn’t want me to die – he doesn’t need to “fake it” in public. I don’t require that kind of proof.
you would not believe the amount of shit I get for being okay with him absent from the delivery room until afterwards. I may as well get an epidural and not exclusively breastfeed…
It’s okay — medical excuses are accepted. ;-) But I don’t think our trollish little friend is arguing for medical excuses anyway — he’s arguing for “shut up, have the kid, and bring me a beer.”
I wish I could find the clip from “The Daily Show,” but there was an episode where Jason Jones was maundering on about children and how important they are when his wife (Samantha Bee) enters the apartment with a baby carrier and says, “It’s a girl.” And he goes back to his navel-gazing as though nothing had happened.
(for trying to muscle in on their action).
Again, I’m not seeing where any male can ever say that they are pregnant. You can’t muscle in on any “action” if you don’t have a leg to stand on logically or factually. There is no way I will ever be pregnant. I may experience life and emotions with someone who’s pregnant, but that doesn’t mean I am pregnant. As I said elsewhere, I may as well say I’ve had cancer, numerous surgeries, three heart attacks, and have died.
antiprincess, most people are probably figuring your guy is weaseling out and you’re blinded by LUV.
And I have to say that I’ve never heard anyone refer to courtship as a “runup”, or as some kind of sports-play-like metaphor for getting a woman softened up enough so that she’ll bear your children for you. Maybe I should have watched Beavis and Butthead? Is that where “the runup” comes from?
antiprincess, most people are probably figuring your guy is weaseling out and you’re blinded by LUV.
snerk – it’s been five years plus…the honeymoon (such as may have existed) is long over.
hey – my birthing room, my rules. it’s my party and if I don’t want two hundred and fifty pounds of pale trembling sweaty nauseated totally-pitiful husband getting in my way, I don’t hafta have him there just because fathers SHOULD be in the delivery room, according to some conventional wisdom or other.
I’m led to believe that the folks you want in the delivery room are those folks who will be able to advocate for you. it’s going to be hard for the guy to advocate for me with his head in a bucket. I’d rather he “weasel”, unless he really really wants to be there for his own reasons and can overcome his issues for his own reasons.
I’m not going to love him any more for being there, nor any less for waiting outside. and he’ll have plenty of opportunities to step up, so to speak, as a parent.
I just get annoyed when folks want to get all pushy about how my family’s birth experience should be.
Huh, didn’t really have time to check back on any answers but “couvade” isn’t what I mean. Studies have shown that men experience a drop in testosteron levels and more of “female” hormones in their blood (i don’t recall which ones so its just this stupid term) when living with a pregnant woman.
It’s observed even when the man is not the father (and knows this) and it isn’t reversed until some time after the child is born. I am not sure whether this happens with men that are only seeing their wife on the weekend or something.
So these men are not pregnant but undergoing a major change that effects their bodies, brain chemistry and behaviour and couvade seems to be about cultural traditions after the births, so it’s completely different.
I can’t find it now, but I remember hearing an interview on NPR with a scientist studying brain activity during conversations. They found that brain waves or brain activity actually changed between two people who were engaged in conversation to become more alike. More for some pairs than others. They were suggesting this may be a reason some people connect more than others and can really pick up small signals or finish each others sentences.
I wish I could find it, because I don’t think I’m explaining it well. But the discussion of “couvade” made me think of it.
Possibly I’m excessively vindictive, but my automatic internal response to “we are pregnant” or “we had an abortion” is “so, if I snipped your dick off right now, would your wife be able to say ‘we’ were castrated?”
Occasionally I think all of patriarchy can be boiled down to a few men who have a complex about their relative unimportance to the reproductive process. Stuff like this just confirms it.
“Studies have shown that men experience a drop in testosteron levels and more of “female” hormones in their blood (i don’t recall which ones so its just this stupid term) when living with a pregnant woman.”
Do you happen to remember if they controlled for changes in eating habits, activity, sleep patterns, etc.?
zuzu,
I take back what I said about your being evasive. And I can respond in kind to your element of cordiality. As distinguished from the pure snark, misreads, and general crying out in pain of the others.
We seem to have honest differences in what we see in the trail of posts submitted above. To use your reference, I can only say that I view the”bunch of guys” a tiny irrelevant group who represent only a small fraction of decent guys out there. You seem to assign more significance.
Besides I see most of the “guys” as really strawguys. What starts out as an anecdotal “he” becomes a “they” and “these men” as everyone tries to regale the group with their own negative life experience, adding layers to the vindictiveness.
Much the way that you polluted an otherwise sustantial question on how this topic might be part of larger equality of the sexes issue. By prejudging my thoughts (as a possible “other kind of feminist”) with the “you antifeminists”, you give license to the inevitable words being put into my mouth as “one of them”. And the multitude of Reactive venom sure to follow.
It may be a good way to enhance the vibrancy of a weblog, but it certainly doesn’t add anything to real knowledge and understanding.
Like I care about your civility trolling, fran.
Again, succinct, zuzu
(dang, sometimes the fish just don’t bit…..)
Have a good one
I just get annoyed when folks want to get all pushy about how my family’s birth experience should be.
Sure–and again, I’m not saying anything about *your* situation. But enough guys use the “ooh, I might get all unmanly seeing you in pain, honey” excuse that I suspect people are assuming the worst about Mr. Princess.
But enough guys use the “ooh, I might get all unmanly seeing you in pain, honey” excuse
Heh…given that I twice gave birth within 90 minutes of being admitted…the BH came pretty close to having to deliver his own children. Mr antiprincess is gettin’ off easy.
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