I don’t like to make generalizations, but…
women sure are nosy.
Today, three women–THREE!–none of whom I knew well, pointed at or touched my stomach and asked if I was “working on something.”
Yes, those are actually the words they used.
There were plenty of men around, but none of them asked me if I had a bun in the oven. Nah. We talked about films and race and politics and work.
I could be reading this all wrong. Maybe women are more observant (in fact, I’m pretty sure they are, generalizations be damned). Maybe they’re more open.
But I can’t help but feel that being pregnant has–quite unexpectedly–introduced somewhat prescribed, scripted notions of gender into my life for the first time in ages.
Or maybe it’s just that I got way too deep into Adrienne Rich’s foreword to her book of essays, Arts of the Possible, on the bus yesterday, in which she articulated some fundamental shift in her conceptualization of feminism that I’ve also been feeling, yet which I’d been unable to explain.
Anyhow, that’s all too heady for 10:24 in the evening. And besides, my friend, Teresa, who’s also pregnant, wrote about all this stuff a lot more beautifully here. I hope you’ll click on over and read it now.
