Don't You Know You Can't Get Fat, Even If You're Pregnant?

I had the following conversation with a co-worker of mine yesterday that is still making me seethe with rage.

This co-worker announced earlier in the week that she is pregnant, and my initial reaction was to bang my head repeatedly against my desk. I work with an office full of women suffering from a rabid case of baby rabies, to the point where all they can talk about are their children, their pregnancies while we're supposed to be working. Regardless of the fact that I do not give a SHIT about how badly their vaginas tore while giving birth, the cold hard truth is that any kind of conversation that puts a damper on productivity really, really pisses me off, because it means that I end up having to pick up their slack.

What made it even worse is the fact that there's another woman in the office who is about to go on maternity leave, and I had already endured nine months of hearing about every single disgusting factoid concerning pregnancy. I thought I was going to get a reprieve from it, but since Other Co-Worker just announced her pregnancy, I get to go through another nine months hearing about bodily functions that don't need to be discussed in the workplace. Lovely. Not to mention Other Co-Worker is apparently under the impression that she is the only woman in the world to ever go through pregnancy, considering it is ALL she's talked about since she made the announcement. Fabulous.

So yesterday while everyone else was at a lunch, I was the unfortunate party that Other Co-Worker rambled about her pregnancy too. I was handling it the best way I could, until she dropped this gem on me.

"...he doesn't want me to eat fast food, because his friend's girlfriend ate nothing but Taco Bell, and she gained SOOO much weight that she hasn't lost at all. He doesn't want me to get fat."

.....I swear to God, I almost fell out of my chair while my head simultaneously started to spin and I started to spew green pea soup, I was so pissed.

As much as I would love to say otherwise, this sort of mentality is not something new. I can't begin to count how many times I've heard women, pregnant or not, make what they think are seemingly innocent comments about their significant other's concerns about their weight.

Because...you know...God forbid a woman gain weight. I mean, what am I thinking, believing that a woman's weight is not the business of any man out there? What a radical notion, surely!

This sort of shit just absolutely disgusts me. I think what puts on the icing on this proverbial cake is that Other Co-Worker has mentioned before that while she's the one who works the full-time job, her other half sits at home, plays video games, invites his friends over to their home without asking her for permission, and does absolutely nothing if these friends of his oogle her and try to grope her if she's wearing a robe in her own home. So this latest example is just the last in a line of inconsiderate, privileged behavior that is quite frankly setting off warning bells in my head concerning her safety.

Despite what others may think, it is not her significant other, or any other man who has stated something similar along these lines, considers her health, or the health of their child, to be the top priority. Oh no. His, and other men's, top priority is making sure that the incubator...I mean... his woman looks good and is ripe and freshly fuckable at all times. His primary concern is doing everything in his power to control how she looks, even though she's entered a stage in which she doesn't have a whole lot of control over her weight, i.e. pregnancy.

It seriously concerns me that it seems as if she's in a situation that could, quite possibly, become dangerous for her, and for her child as well. I'm still trying to find a way to gently explain to her that his behavior is not acceptable, that she doesn't deserve to put up with this, and to warn her that this sort of control could possibly escalate into a situation that could possibly harm her and the child. However, most people don't want to hear about these sort of things, so I know I'm going to have tread carefully, especially since she's not a friend, but a co-worker whom I'm not extremely close to.

But this does remind me how I myself could never, in good conscience, have children of my own. It only reaffirms to me that men for the most part do not care about being good husbands, partners, or fathers; it only reminds me that in the grand scheme of things, women are nothing but metaphorical fire hydrants for them to piss on and mark as their own territory.