Attitudes Toward Pregnancy

I took this picture about a week ago, just an hour or two after I received an email from woman about a post that I recently wrote on my art history blog about depictions of pregnant women in art. This woman, who has three children, thanked me for my post and told me that she feels like pregnancy isn't celebrated enough in our society. She also feels like some cultural attitudes should shift in relation to how women are perceived. In her opinion, she feels like a woman loses her identity while pregnant, because there is so much focus on the growing fetus. In other words, current culture causes the pregnant woman to change from an individual to a mere "vessel."

I can see this woman's point of view. From a cultural standpoint, there is a lot of focus on the unborn baby when a woman is pregnant. When I was pregnant with Sam (and even the mother of a newborn), I think I was overly sensitive to how my socio-cultural identity had somewhat changed, at least in how I felt like I was treated and perceived by others. Really, I was kinda grumpy. But I do understand why people asked me so much about my pregnancy and the like. After all, the baby's somewhat-unseen presence affects the lifestyle, physical appearance, and sometimes health of the pregnant woman. But, at the same time, the pregnant woman, in terms of her character and personality, usually is still very much the same as her pre-pregnant self.

So pregnancy is a period which is tricky in terms of a woman's identity. One of the things that is inherent to a woman's body is the potential for it temporarily to be not one individual, but two. So should individualism (and personal capabilities that are not gender-specific) be celebrated, or should the inherent capabilities of a woman's body be celebrated during this temporary period? It seems like kind of a conundrum from a feminist's perspective, although it doesn't need to be.

I think there needs to be a balance between celebrating the individualism of the pregnant woman, while still recognizing the characteristics of her body which are inherently feminine. And, as a result, I realized that I should spend more time celebrating this second pregnancy and the changes that are taking place in my body. I had a hard time doing that when I was pregnant the first time. But I've been through one pregnancy and now realize that my inherent identity won't really change, so I don't need to feel so defensive and touchy at shifts in cultural attitudes (although I realize that I'm writing this at an optimistic point in the second trimester - I may get grumpy as the weeks roll on!). Nonetheless, I'm going to try and enjoy this time being pregnant and document it more than I did when I was pregnant with Sam. Hence, the selfie picture at seventeen weeks.