I’m really starting to wonder how uptight women have become today when a woman posting a picture of herself several days after giving birth is called “an act of war“.
I’m referring to Caroline Berg Eriksen and the picture she posted last week, a mirror self picture (i.e. “selfie”) of her wearing only a bra and panties showing her athletic figure and the caption “I feel so empty, and still not 4 days after birth”. Many of the comments on the Instagram picture are, thankfully, quite positive, and many have instead taken to other venues to express their animosity regarding this.
And it’s rage that I don’t understand. It’s almost as if women are no longer allowed to be thin post-partum.
And if that’s the case, then someone needs to tell my sister-in-law. After her first child, a son, several years ago, she bounced back to her normal thinner figure in less than a month, likely in less than a couple weeks. When I first saw her after giving birth, you could hardly tell she had even been pregnant. She’s recently given birth to a second child, a daughter this time, and I’ve yet to see her so I don’t know if that still holds true.
So the question then is whether all this animosity is over the fact that Eriksen and other women like her have achieved their pre-pregnancy weight (or pretty close to it), or that they have the audacity to show it off.
Claire Mysko chimed in for Yahoo! Shine:
While I don’t think it’s helpful to shame the individual mothers who choose to post pictures of themselves, I do think the pushback signals a healthy reaction to some very unhealthy and unrealistic cultural expectations.
Cultural expectations? Since when are women expected to have Olympiad bodies not long after giving birth? Did I miss a memo?
Here’s the thing: if you’re intimidated by other women posting pictures of themselves post-partum looking thin and fit, it is you who has the problem. Evidence of that fact is the animosity you display in response to it. That is what is unhealthy, because it implies you have a need to prop yourself up by bringing down someone who you perceive as being superior to you. Perhaps discussing with someone whatever inferiority complex you might have would be well worth your time.
I mean I thought the whole idea is to accept what you have while not feeling intimidated, envious or jealous of what someone else has. Apparently I’ve missed something.
A couple years ago, in response to Glenn Beck’s disgusting on-air response to Meghan McCain’s appearance in a skin cancer PSA television ad, I said (from “Nudity and Prudery“) “Sometimes the best response to something you dislike is just walking away from it.” In this instance, I think that would have been the best response to this image and the seemingly ongoing controversy over this whole exercise.
