Halle Berry: blah blah blah

Excuse my cynicism but I find Halle Berry's constant glowing exhortations about how magnificent it is to be pregnant a bit unsettling (almost as unsettling as the relentless surveillance of J.Lo's womb). Surely, she is excited to be having a baby. That's great. However, I find this recent comment from People absolutely ridiculous:

"There's no bad," the Oscar winner, 41, said Sunday at a press gathering for her new movie, Things We Lost in the Fire, which opens Oct. 19. "There is nothing bad about it. The morning sickness and the vomiting and the hot sweats. Nothing's been bad about it. I've loved every second of it," she said.

Find me a woman that loves to puke without warning and I'll start to believe that there's nothing 'bad' (or at least marginally inconvenient) about being pregnant. It is one thing to be completely 'over the moon' (cringe!) with the idea of becoming a mother. It is another thng entirely to suggest that the physical signs of pregnancy are not at all inconvenient as if Berry is so worried about being perceived as a selfless, 'good' mother she could never even admit that some physical aspects of pregnancy can be wonderful and even (shock! horror!) terrible. I am yet to find a woman (in my research or otherwise) who has 'loved' every physical experience associated with pregnancy (particularly the more unpleasant ones). Seriously, it's like saying that a Brazillian wax doesn't hurt or slamming your hand in a car door is fun and you would do it again.

Even though I'm sure Berry never intended someone like me to read so deeply into her verbal diarrhea, I think this sort of statement reinforces the idea that women must be pregnant (physically, psychologically and emotionally) selflessly; that they must embody 'goodness' at all costs and never 'complain' like obedient little women. It does not do justice to the enormous physical burden (that's right, i said 'burden'..I think housing another human for 9 months and then pushing it out is physically taxing...and I doubt many women would argue) women endure. Pregnancy is like having a full-time job in addition to the full-time paid work most women do daily except being pregnant (or being a mother) is not recognised or valued as 'work'.

Berry actually contradicts her image of 'goodness' or 'selflessness' later in this particular article by saying:

"I crave things daily. It changes every day, and I try to listen to my body and not overdo it so I don't become too big."

Clearly, 'bigness' or 'fatness' are negative aspects of pregnancy for Berry. Women are not supposed to take up too much space. Whereas vomitting and nausea associated with pregnancy are constructed as being out of a woman's control in early pregnancy, eating and body size are perceived as being within her control. Becoming 'too big' for Berry would suggest that she is not a mother that is in control of her body or her life. Berry does not identify her fear of fat as something particularly negative because women are supposed to be consumed with thinness and body size. Of course, Berry doesn't want to get too 'fat'. That's just part of being a 'woman'.

Source: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20151100,00.html