I've noticed that too often, I will complain to someone of some sort of ailment, and their first thought is that I am probably pregnant. Seriously, anything-- "my stomach feels a little off," "I'm tired," "my head hurts." While of course being pregnant is technically a possibility, I find it sexist that people's immediate thought is that whatever I'm experiencing must be based in something female-specific. Like, "well, you're female and you have a headache, therefore the headache must be related to being female." It's especially stupid because while it's true that my listed ailments could potentially be symptoms of pregnancy (this is really lazy thinking, by the way-- pregnancy symptoms are so varied from woman to woman that you could make a lazy case for pretty much anything being a symptom of pregnancy), they are such common aches or pains that they could be caused by any number of factors. Couldn't my headache or tiredness could have to do with my being a college student? Or with job stress? Or my nightly downing of 13 beers in periods of 3 hours or less?
The pregnancy assumption is Othering, and is just one more way that people equate women with some sort of baby-producing machine. "Anything women do or experience is related to having babies."
Has anyone else experienced this?
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Absolutely! It happens to me all the time. Sometimes people just say "maybe you're pregnant!" as a joke, but others really seem to think that. How is that the immediate reaction to a headache???
Additionally, when I was in college every time I went to our student health center, I ended up having to take a pregnancy test--- for the most random symptoms ever!
The pregnancy assumption is Othering, and is just one more way that people equate women with some sort of baby-producing machine. "Anything women do or experience is related to having babies."
I feel like you hit the nail on the head there. I can get why maybe feeling nauseous could mean pregnancy, but tiredness and headaches? That's a pretty huge jump. It could also mean you have a sinus cold or something. So in addition to being sexist, honestly I just think it's silly to assume you're pregnant from tiny symptoms like that.
ohhhhh how many times i have heard this.
another piece to this is the weight gain = pregnancy thing. i hear this at work A LOT. any time a girl puts on 5+ pounds people mutter about whether or not she is pregnant. or worse, they ask her outright. *cringe*.
I worked at a grocery store about 5 years ago when I was 19. I was taking medication that made me nauseous and I had been vomiting all morning before work. My supervisor refused to let me have a bottle of water with me to suppress the urge to vom every fifteen minutes, so at a peak time of business, I had to call her over and ask permission to vomit in the bathroom.
Her response was to yell (with a tone disgust), "WHAT? ARE YOU PREGNANT?" In front of a line of customers and three co-workers. I was embarrassed and firmly informed her that I was taking medication to which she replied with a very bored, "oh."
Whoa, that sounds like pretty much the worst working environment possible. Denying your employees access to water?! That doesn't even sound legal!
You know I don't do this to myself, because its not possible for me to become pregnant, but anything that I experience gets waived off as pregnancy by the people who don't know me that well. At which time I end up having to explain to almost complete strangers that I can't be pregnant. As someone who is infertile and has a very difficult time dealing with that fact, I really wish we did not assume that any time a woman is experiecing any kind of symptom she is automatically pregnant, because it forces those of us who cannot get pregnant to answer any number of people's questions about our bodies, and to deal with the reality of the situation every time we have a swollen ankle or a headache.
I got this reply just the other day. I'd eaten something that didn't agree with me and was being pretty violently sick at work. Of course, the first thing my colleagues did was rub their hands with glee and ask when I was due. I replied that since I was having a pretty heavy period with blood clots the size of egg yolks, it was unlikely. Faces dropped. At least one person couldn't eat lunch after that (egg salad - hehe).Ask a personal question, better expect a personal answer.
YES. How annoying is this assumption that any symptom in a female of childbearing age means she must be pregnant.
I have had this when I vomited. Er no it's called MIGRAINE.
And thanks for that post rebekah, as someone who also is very unlikely to get pregnant for medical reasons, it is a doubly harsh assumption.