For real, I sincerely want an answer to this question. I’m sure it’s complicated, and I can make a lot of guesses about roles and how the male/female relationship developed and evolved and so on. Being honest, I’ve thought about this a lot, but here’s how I started down this path of thought:

When I was pregnant with the older son, I had a moment during the second trimester, when I was feeling great and watching my belly grow and was all glowy and stuff, when it struck me that I was literally creating life, something that no man could do. Why were women not FREAKING WORSHIPPED for this amazing ability of our bodies? We are the reason human life persists. We can do this incredible thing, and instead of being revered and adored, we’re made to feel less than and held back in our careers. WHAT. THE. HELL. 

It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about those things separately. It just hit me like a flash of lightning that the amazing thing my body was doing deserved praise from everyone. I felt so powerful, like an angry goddess. I wanted to exact righteous wrath upon the masses. And then I took a deep breath and looked down upon the world from my mountain, and I saw all of these women feeling the same things with the same pregnant glow, and I felt this really lovely connection. Then the vision faded, and I was back in my apartment in Chicago. 

Weird? Yes. True though? Also yes. 

Then, Baby was born, and I started breastfeeding. It was the same deal with that. My body had this amazing ability that I never realized it could do, and instead of being praised and made to feel incredible, I just felt tired. Like really, deeply tired. Listen, not everyone has the same relationship with breastfeeding that I did. I have spoken to real live women who loved the experience and did it for as long as possible. I do not think these women are crazy or wrong or bad in any sense. It’s probably mostly a matter of attitude, i.e. they had a WAY BETTER attitude about it at the time. 

Regardless, the point is that women are amazing, whether we can have babies or breastfeed or not, and it seems high time that there’s some blanket recognition of this fact. I know this post is kind of silly in tone, but a very real part of me is baffled by the way the entire subclass of humanity – women, half of the human race – are treated by society. Even women buy into it, it’s so ingrained! I don’t actually expect to be worshipped for having a baby, but I do hope that these little posts make even a couple of women think about how awesome they are and that reading them is the impetus for a confidence boost. I’ve gotten a boost by writing it. Hope the love spreads a bit.