Transcribed:
Two white women are in front the camera. The woman on the left has short dark hair and is wearing a yellow T-shirt with a brownish sweater. She’s sitting behind a keyboard. The woman on the right has long blonde hair, is wearing a green shirt with a black sweater and is holding a guitar. The woman on the left waves and says hi. The woman on the right announces, “This is a song for all you pregnant women out there.”
They begin to play their instruments, then sing:
I can’t wait to hear someone say
Don’t care if it’s brain dead
Don’t care if it’s limbless
If it has a penis.
‘Cause pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it
Nobody says it
because they’re pregnant.
Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it
Because they’re pregnant
Effing son of a gun
You think you’re so deep now, you give me the creeps
Now that you’re pregnant
I can’t count all the ways how
You speak in clichés now
They stop singing to have a mock conversation.
Blonde: So, do you want a boy or a girl?
Brunette, affecting an exaggerated tone: Oh, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s healthy, mmm.
Blonde: Really, because I don’t think those two things are related. It’s not like one or the other.
Brunette: No, really, as long as it’s healthy, mmmm.
I can’t wait to hear someone say
“Don’t care if it’s brain dead
Don’t care if it’s limbless
If it has a penis”
Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it
Because they’re pregnant
This zen world you’re enjoying
Makes you really annoying
Another cutaway convo:
Blonde: So, is it a boy or girl?
Brunette: Oh, we know, but we’re not telling.
Blonde: What you’re gonna name it?
Brunette: Oh, we know, but we’re not telling.
Blonde: Who’s the father?
Brunette: Oh, we know, but we’re not telling.
Bitch, I don’t really care
I was being polite
Since you have no life now
That you’re pregnant
You say you’re walking on air
You think that you’re glowing
But you’ve been ho’ing
And now you’re pregnant
You’re just giving birth now
You’re not Mother Earth now
Conversation:
Blonde: Oh my gosh, I’ve got so much going on. I got my novel published, I moved, I got married.
Brunette: Gosh, you know, everything seems so trivial now that I’m pregnant.
Blonde: Well, I also helped end gang violence in Mexico when…
Brunette: You know, I can’t even remember what I did before I was pregnant. Everything else seems so meaningless.
When they begin singing the refrain for the last time, their voices are softer.
Pregnant women are smug
Everyone knows it, nobody says it
Because they’re pregnant
Effing son of a gun
You think you’re so deep now, you give me the creeps now
Now that you’re pregnant
The women look at each other. The vid ends.
Now’s the time on THL when we discuss…
{ 76 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
I know, I was just pointing out that in reality, the only difference between raising a boy and raising a girl comes down to either instructing condom placement or tampon placement.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
Well, it should. But there’s also two other ways raising them ought to differ: boys ought to receive a conversation about what constitutes consent and what a disgusting unlovable bit of excrement a rapist is, and girls ought to receive the same conversation plus one about how to recognize an abusive personality from early warning signs.
Instead, most parents ignore both, and our culture carefully teaches girls that Abusive Men Are Awesome and Typically Gorgeous and Rich, Too, and teaches boys that Nice Guys Finish Last. And then people blame video games for the state shit’s in.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
I think my reading comprehension was at a low XD.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
Actually, I’d have the same conversations with both genders.
This is what consent means. This is what abuse is. Don’t quibble around with either, period. Get a clear yes and don’t mess around with people who don’t give them or the type of people who don’t respect them.
Chose a partner who treats both you and themselves with respect.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
I got a very clear consent talk with my grandmother that included the fact that girls could rape too, and if any one of my friends, boy or girl, came to me and told me about a girl having sex with them against their will, that was rape, and I should treat it that way. My brothers and I got very similar consent talks.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
our culture carefully teaches girls that Abusive Men Are Awesome and Typically Gorgeous and Rich
And so the Twilight books become a huge cultural juggernaut.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
“a few differences, but they are pretty minor”
No, they are not. While children are little, yes, you’re protecting them from the same dangers and teaching them the same values. But after the full blush of puberty you run into the hard fact that only one out of every ten rape victims is male, that a woman victim of violent crime is ten times more likely to be killed than her male counterpart, and that nine out of every ten who commit violent crimes are male. With a daughter/niece you spend eighteen years teaching her how to put up with the nudniks (or outright criminals) she’s going to face in the workplace and is facing in school, while simultaneously trying to teach her to ignore the social messages telling her she can only be a passive, needless doormat. With a son/nephew you spend eighteen years teaching him how not to BE a nudnik (or outright criminal) in the school or workdforce, while simultaneously trying to teach him to ignore the social messages that he must be a stoic, violent mooch. Two vastly different goals requiring vastly different approaches to explain, and two vastly different set of parental fears.
DragonLady
DragonLady(Quote) (Reply)
I WISH that’s what my managers meant when they lamented their ineptitude and fears about raising girls.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
And GOD FORBID you cop an attitude when the people questioning you refer to your incumbent child/foetus as an “it,” ask you who the father is, other questions that aren’t any of their damn business, etc.
DON’T YOU KNOW YOU ARE A LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR A WOMB, LADY? GIMME MAH SONS.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
That gives me the hibbitiest of jibbities. And is why I was never a baby-doll playing child. When you have babies in your house, if you aren’t a creeping creeper, you don’t think of them as dress-up toys. (The other four-year-old girls thought I was weird for playing dinosaurs instead of house, but WHATEVER.)
PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE.
TOYS ARE TOYS.
PEOPLE ARE NOT TOYS.
FULL STOP.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
SO JEALOUS OF YOUR SISTER’S SPACE PROGRAM ROOM. AND YOUR BROTHER’S GEOLOGY ROOM.
I had a stereotypically girly room when I was little, because I wanted it that way. My door was yellow, my walls were pink, and all the accessories were either unicorns, stars, glowed in the dark, or some combination of the three. I picked everything out. It was awesome.
I went through my anti-establishment phase in middle school, but I worked it out pretty quickly, because I figured out that people being haters was just going to happen anyway, and I was allowed to like things my friends didn’t like. So, now I have hot pink curtains AND a tacky resin “dragon skull.” *shrugs*
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
Oh. My. God. This whole conversation is making me think that if I ever do want to have kids, I should really really really just go it alone. Because I have an extremely low tolerance for tamped-down personal issues rearing up in a way to control others’ lives, instead of, you know, handling that shit.
Culturally speaking, fatherly protection still = owning, while motherly protection = owning until pregnancy, then letting go. All other alternatives: deviant. BLEEUUUURGGGGH.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
When I first heard this song, I assumed it was about upper-middle class white women in pre-natal yoga, or something similarly privileged. Not that people can’t make their own choices, but ukele-playing hipsters can make their songs, too. I have a feeling that the ladies who wrote the song are in the same subset of people they’re dissing.
a.b.(Quote) (Reply)
Then they should have said so. It’s a sign of race, hetero, and class privilege that they felt they could offer the song as a universal.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
“Blonde: So, is it a boy or girl?
Brunette: Oh, we know, but we’re not telling.
Blonde: What you’re gonna name it?
Brunette: Oh, we know, but we’re not telling.
Blonde: Who’s the father?
Brunette: Oh, we know, but we’re not telling.
Bitch, I don’t really care
I was being polite
Since you have no life now
That you’re pregnant”
Wow, maybe she doesn’t want to talk about her pregnancy, ever think of that? Maybe she gets sick of other people “being polite” by nosing into her pregnancy. It’s impolite to ask people about their body in any other circumstance, but you get pregnant and suddenly everyone is all up in your bizness asking you about your baby-to-be. And then castigating you when that’s all you talk about when you have no choice because that’s all anyone around you wants to talk about.
You posted this song so we could rip it to pieces, right? I mean sure, there is probably a subset of pregnant women who this song applies to (and I think I see where it should have been aimed), but that doesn’t mean you should apply these assumptions to all of them, and as the song isn’t specific about which pregnant women it is aimed at, it means the singers are being bigoted.
Katherine(Quote) (Reply)
BUT pregnant women can’t hide that they’re pregnant! So that means it’s totally okay to invade their privacy/touch their bellies/pry into their lives, especially if you deride them for it later if you don’t like how they respond. Kind of like when fat people dare to go out in public or PoC exist, or if you’re a woman/look like what people think women should look like it’s totally your fault if men touch you/yell at you/won’t leave you alone.
I’m hoping this isn’t needed, but /sarcasm.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
← Previous Comments