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 }
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Oh, thanks! I was trying to pin down the sense of envy I got from the singers, and that’s it – they are blaming the cult of motherhood (that TOP talks about) on mothers themselves, and that’s like getting angry at sex-positive or sex-negative feminists because you hold the opposite position: it’s really the culture that’s pitted us against each other, so let’s get together and blame the culture instead of other women.
I think you have to already have smugness in you to get smug about being pregnant. I avoid smug people, and that may be why I’ve never met a smug pregnant woman.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
LUCKY YOU. VERY lucky. I’ve met two and had enough for a lifetime!
Nuria(Quote) (Reply)
Hmm, I’m just not sure why smug pregnant women are worse than other kinds of smug people…?
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
A big part of what bugs me with this is: they are taking the ultimate differentiation between the genders (carrying babies) and attaching it without qualification to an annoying trait no one likes (smugness).
Would it be as funny if the song was about men being smug when their team wins a game? Not really, because we’re taught to expect that. It’s just not cool for women to be smug, because that would be uppity.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
“Hmm, I’m just not sure why smug pregnant women are worse than other kinds of smug people…?”
DAT MISOGYNY, I reckon.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
I’m much more annoyed by how other people act around pregant women than I am by the pregnant women themselves. It’s like people can’t talk about anything else, and they assume that the oman has nothing else in her life except for the baby. And I think you’re right, that the pregnant women who do act this way probably do it because they’re just used to having everybody ask about the baby all the time.
Charlie(Quote) (Reply)
Singing women are smug.
(So are posting men!)
Brand Robins(Quote) (Reply)
They’re so smug that meeting TWO is like meeting EVERY SINGLE PREGNANT WOMAN IN THE HISTORY OF EVER at once. It’s like, pregnancy x 1 billionty.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Oooh, ooh, I think I know this one! Because if you dare imply that perhaps the entire world does not revolve around their child and/or views on parenthood YOU are clearly a monster who hates babies and happiness and shouldn’t be allowed out in public with normal people. At least with other people who are acting like this you can go find someone to complain to and commiserate with to dissipate the anger a little.
Of course I could still be bitter about the “friend” who felt that me just mentioning the adorableness of my then 5-week old kitten figuring out how to get on the couch without falling (on only the third try!) was the appropriate time to say something condescending about how different I’d feel when I had a “real” child. Despite knowing that I never want kids and claiming to be an animal lover.
MaggieCat(Quote) (Reply)
Maybe, in which case perhaps you’re projecting this onto every pregnant woman? Because, yeah, the attitudes you describe are popular in society, and I feel them. But personally, I’ve never had one of those conversations with a pregnant woman. I’ve seen TV pregnant women describe how in touch with nature they’re feeling and all that crap, but then I’ve never seen a realistic TV portrayal of pregnancy that I can recall. I’ve never had a pregnant woman lecture me about anything.
I think there is some conflation going on here: people reading warped cultural ideas about pregnancy into things pregnant women say. I’m certainly not arguing there’s never ever been a smug pregnant woman. I am saying we’re primed to see smugness by a culture that tells us constantly that pregnancy is something to be smug about. And I’m also saying, MY GOD MEN ARE SMUG about loads of things, all the time, things way sillier than pregnancy, and where’s the hate for that?
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
The second paragraph of my last post was half joking. After rereading, I realize that I failed to make it clear that I’m not projecting it onto “every pregnant woman” but referring to a very specfic subset. In the last few years several of my close or medium-close friends have had their first kids and none of them did it, hell most complained about this very phenomenon. Lack of tone-of-voice strikes again. *sigh*
But I have had conversations like that with more than one coworker/ accquaintence/ relative who was pregnant at the time and I did find it particularly annoying because apparently my opinion on people making speeches at me was irrelevant. At least when I have to listen to someone talk to me like I’m a toddler with a concussion because I hate Apple products other people will agree that it’s rude.
MaggieCat(Quote) (Reply)
Gotcha. I didn’t mean to come off like I was picking on you, but I am starting to wonder about us being *primed* to read smugness into the remarks of women who are pregnant, getting married, etc. Your comment was what got me thinking along those lines, so I used it as bridge to bringing that up.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Jenn, it goes even beyond that when you think about all the (negative) things attributed to women.
Assertiveness = bitchy.
Directness = rude or uppity.
Funny = dangerous.
Etc, etc. The pregnancy/marriage thing just exacerbates it, maybe.
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
This song bothers me. Mostly because of the part where they imply that when a pregnant says that they don’t care about the sex so long as the baby’s healthy, they really mean, “W actually want a boy, and we’ll take whatever kind of boy we get, but a girl had sure as Hell better be healthy, because we’re only going to raise her to be a breeder anyway!” (OK, the last part may be my own cranky add-on, because when I was pregnant with my boy, I kept hearing from my in-laws about how they wanted a girl to dress up like a baby doll and possibly “match” with the other baby boys their friends were having, which was creepy as all Hell, by the way.) I’ve always hated the “do you want a boy or a girl” question, anyway, as most people seem to REALLY be asking, “Which gender do you think is better? You DO know it’s male, right?” In truth, lots of parents really DON’T care about the sex of their child, and really DO just want to raise a healthy baby, but people don’t seem to buy that when they ask about the gender. (I have a friend that got so tired of that question, and the disbelieving response she would get when she told people she just wanted a healthy baby, she started telling people, “I don’t care as long as its got superpowers.” They would get so confused after that, that the conversation was then over!)
Mana G(Quote) (Reply)
ROFLMAO! If I were to ever get pregnant and people kept asking me whether I wanted a boy or girl, I’d just tell them “It doesn’t matter because it’s getting a farm-themed nursery regardless.” Because ALL kids love farms/farms are gender neutral…that’s actually what my parents did for me, they didn’t know what gender I was so they gave me a unisex name and unisex toys/clothes/blankets/ect…pretty transgressive considering how my parents still buy into a lot of anti-feminist rhetoric.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
The “ALL KIDS LOVE FARMS” thing was pseudo-sarcasm.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Actually, my parents almost went for the farm thing when I was a kid before deciding on crayon color hearts instead as a gender-neutral theme. It’s a good thing they didn’t, because I turned out to be allergic to everything, and I mean everything on a farm, which we found out when I was about 18 months old. Which made me hate farms.
My sister got a space program room, and my brother got a geology room. I didn’t think it was fair.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
It’s funny, I love my old farm stuff and I like the “concept” of farming/agriculture and livestock and the Harvest Moon series but I’m the least outdoors-y person ever and I get nervous when I feed horses by hand (damn nippers). When I got a little older I graduated from farm stuff to ballerina stuff and a canopy bed with white and rainbow-colored heart blankets…then artsy stuff ‘cuz I liked to draw.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Lol, I just had really really bad associations. Otherwise I probably would have been the same way. Also, first time I met a horse? It stepped on me.
When I got old enough to tell my parents what I wanted my room to look like, I went obsessively pink like my friends had, much to my feminist parents’ chagrin. My neighbor’s kid had a fake french provincial canopy bed, and my parents bought it from them when she got to old for it, and some really gauzy pale pink bedding and canopy, and pink walls, and pink rugs, and… and then I hit middle school and started hating pink. Over exposure.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
It’s always been one of my secret dreams to have a ridiculously, stereotypically girlish pink room, even when I went through the “little girls love pink” stage I still kept it in check and would think “not TOO much pink, that would be tacky! show some restraint!” (I was one finicky kid
) On all the social networking sites I’m on that have dress-up avatars and customizable rooms/channels, my stuff is usually pink, frilly and flowery, which REALLY raises the ire of my more Gothic, tomboy-ish friends who try to be exceptional females by loathing the color pink. (it’s one thing to simply not like a color and prefer black, I like black too but my friends hiss like vampires in the sun when they see all my pink shit 
)
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
“I don’t care as long as its got superpowers.” ::LOL:: I’m thinking, “I don’t care as long as it’s gay” would be also a good one! or “I think I’ll go with hermafrodite, so it can choose when it grows up”.
IMHO (maybe I should ask my friends who actually have children) the reticence to tell whether you want a boy or a girl is more about guilt. As if saying you want the former and then getting the latter would mean you love your child less. How dare you say you “want” your child to be a girl, or a boy, or have its father’s eyes? You have to embrace your child as it is! Oh, she wanted a girl and got a boy, I bet she’s miserable now!
I’m sure there are lots of people who truly don’t care about their baby’s sex, but the ones who do, voicing it is not a betrayal to your unborn child. Enough of clichés.
Nuria(Quote) (Reply)
And even if someone does prefer a boy, that doesn’t mean they think boys are ‘better’.
I hoped the ultrasound would show a penis for the simple reason that I didn’t want my mother nagging me to name a little girl after my grandmother.
Because really, I’m going to saddle some poor little girl with the name of Dorcas Carnita. Yes, I know it’s pronounced DARcus. She’d still be called Dork-ass Piggy her entire life. It’s bad enough the poor kid would have been saddled with geeky, terminally un-hip parents. Lets give the kid a chance alright?
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
So they sparkle near pink?
sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
D: My coworkers and managers (all men) had the weirdest conversation around me. My manager’s wife is pregnant, and I think it’s a girl, and he was like, “I’m glad! I really wanted a girl.” And my other coworker was like, “I think I’d want a girl too!” and my manager was like, “I’d like one of each, but I’m glad this one’s a girl.” and my coworker was like, “that’s kind of intimidating, isn’t it? How do you raise a girl? I only know how boys are because I am one! My mom wanted a girl but she got me instead.” And my manager was like, “Yeah I dunno! My wife’s worried she’ll be a girlie girl. She (his wife) was a tom-boy growing up, and only had brothers. I have sisters.”
And I just sat there like D: Wuh? You don’t raise girls and boys differently! It made me think back real hard to how I was raised. The first girl grandchild, first girl on my dad’s side of the family (he has two brothers–my grandma wanted a daughter so bad!). Um…it’s not different. You love them and provide for them and give us bandaids when we fall in our adventures and we might like dolls, (but so do boys, it’s just that their dolls stereotypically kill each other), and we might like cars, or wading through swamps to catch frogs and salamanders (and leeches), and we might like hiking, or watching movies, or TV, or reading, or writing, or drawing, or playing make-believe, or riding in cars, or learning, or maths, or science, or philosophy, or english, or french, or latin, or german or japanese or arabic or we might like skiing or snowboarding or paragliding or rock climbing or kissing boys or kissing girls or rebelling or arguing or clothes or fashion or photography or knitting or sewing or baking or chemistry. Or anything. I couldn’t comprehend this weird idea that raising a girl would be somehow different/more alien than raising a boy. But then, as a girl, I’m trained that I am an other and boys are the default norm.
Not really to do with smug mothers, but it seemed pertinant.
The two smug mothers I know were smug people. They just changed what they were smug about. And I’ve known non-smug mothers, so I have no reason to believe it has anything to do with being pregnant.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
There are a few differences, but they are pretty minor. When we discussed the possibility of having a girl, my husband commented that he was dreading the day 11-12 years down the road when he might have to explain to his darling little baby how to insert a tampon and thus would probably be one of those cruel fathers who made his daughter wear pads her whole life just to avoid having that conversation. I told him I wasn’t much looking forward to explain proper placement and removal of a condom either, but was informed that’s why cucumbers were ‘invented’. At which point I realized that while my husband has the right to remain silent, he very rarely has the ability.
GardenGoblin(Quote) (Reply)
The implied part of the conversation was that they didn’t think they’d be able to relate to daughters like they could to sons as though the differences weren’t in the types of awkward conversations, but in the “fact” that girly girls are like a different species or something and they’d only know how to raise tomboys and boys.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
OH YOU~!!
If you made a smart remark to them about being Twilight-esque…they’d probably shrivel up into dust!
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
The other thing that pisses me off is when fathers-to-be say in a stupid off-hand joke that having a daughter would be like some form of karmic punishment/retribution for their pasts…of being disrespectful, misogynist douche-hats, I suppose? WELL IF YOU WEREN’T A JERK IN THE FIRST PLACE THEN IT WOULDN’T BE A “PUNISHMENT” IT WOULD JUST BE HAVING A KID.
Another problematic meme I’ve heard are guys saying they hope/wish their daughters are lesbians…because it’s safer or something. IDK, it’s just weird.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
Guys get all fucked up over daughters because it combines all the worst of their sexism and privilege with all the best of their hopes and ideals.
When the two combine most guys just get confused and say stupid shit at random. Its easier than actually trying to solve the conundrum or change how you think.
Brand Robins(Quote) (Reply)
When the two combine most guys just get confused and say stupid shit at random. Its easier than actually trying to solve the conundrum or change how you think.
Brand, you’ve just described the plot (term used loosely) of each and every episode of Everybody Loves Raymond…
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
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