Jokes about Pregnant Women

I read a blog where a pregnant woman was ranting about how everybody makes fun of her for being pregnant. She told stories of how her awful 13 year old son would try to walk like her, how, at family reunion, people joked about how much she ate, whether she wore shirts or parachutes, how she couldn’t tie her own shoes, stuff like that. She filled a goodly amount of writing about how she could not believe that anyone would think it was funny to make fun of her for her condition. The article itself mostly irritated me because she seemed like such a whiney b..., and I don’t believe that her own family would make those comments maliciously unless she talked to them the way she blogged, in which case, she probably deserved to be treated like that.


Every time I see a pregnant woman who walks funny, though, I think of that and wonder if it’s OK to make a joke about it. Who else in society walks awkwardly? Old people. Handicapped people. Injured people.

Old people and handicapped people are an obvious no-joke zone, mostly because their conditions are not theirs by choice. (Well, technically, old age is a choice if you consider suicide a reasonable alternative, but I do not.) It is inappropriate to make fun of people for things that are out of their control and that cause them difficulty, frustration, or pain. But what about conditions of choice? I know for sure people make fun of me whenever I have a broken bone, and I not only take it in stride, but also recognize it as a form of friendship. The people who make jokes about whether I am clumsy or luckless would never make those jokes about a stranger. In a world where it is becoming ever more difficult to express platonic love, good-natured ribbing among friends is one of the bastions of loving expression. The jokes are not hurtful, primarily because I recognize that my condition is not permanent and it was probably my fault, either because of my poor judgment or lack of skill in avoiding the accident.

Because of this logic, at first I was inclined to think that pregnancy is fair game. All the pregnant people I know made a conscious decision to participate in behaviors which resulted in the condition—quite similar to me choosing to snowboard and breaking my ribs. Choice + funny consequence = fair game for good natured joking. Couple that with the familiarity of family, and it would seem to be ok. How does one express affection for an aunt or sister-in-law, anyway?

The problem I came up with today was a mild shift in perspective. If you are going to joke about a pregnant woman, the problem is not that pregnancy is the subject; the problem is that a woman is the subject. Out of respect for women, it could be considered inappropriate subject matter for joking. Women and men are disparate creatures, and while I may be able to recognize a joke as an acknowledgement of affection, a woman may perceive the same thing through an entirely different lens. The subject is still under consideration.