The comment from a car salesman that made Shelly Horton break down: 'This must end'
By Shelly Horton|
Never, ever, EVER ask if a woman is pregnant. Never even speculate.
It is 2022, and it is WILD to me that people are still blatantly judging women's bodies publicly for what seems to be absolutely no rhyme or reason.
To me, it is quite possibly the rudest and most invasive assumption you can make or question that you can ask of a woman.
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This week we have seen the media and public speculating (yet again) whether former Bachelorette Georgia Love is pregnant with her partner Lee Elliott, after she hit a red carpet and dared to wear a billowing flowy dress, changing it up from her usual tight-fitting outfits.
Comments flowed in on social media, "Is this congratulations?", "Ooh is there news?" These comments turned into headlines, and in one plummeting judgement we were back at this 1950s way of thinking, with public scrutiny of a woman's body and of her reproduction.
Georgia isn't a stranger to these sorts of speculations, telling WHO magazine in 2021 that since getting married she often is asked about starting a family, especially when she doesn't have a drink or has a big lunch and gets photographed.
"It just needs to be learnt and taught that it's never OK to ask anyone if they're pregnant or when they're planning to be," she pleaded last year. Yet here we are again.
I don't want to know if she is pregnant, I don't want to know if she's not จC I just hope she is happy จC and that's how it should be.
The truth is you never know what a woman is going through in their life by just looking at them.?
It could be they are trying for a baby and are struggling to fall pregnant, maybe they're bloated from the hormones that are involved in treacherous IVF rounds, perhaps they've had multiple miscarriages and they are pregnant again but not wanting to talk about it in case something terrible happens. Even if they've simply put on some weight and they're feeling insecure about themselves, it's never OK to blurt out your thoughts about their body shape.
Recently we saw Kourtney Kardashian speak about the scrutiny surrounding her body as she went through her own IVF journey with now-husband Travis Barker.
"Every single person on social media is always like, 'Kourtney's pregnant. Kourtney's gained so much weight,'" she told her mother Kris Jenner on the latest season of The Kardashian's. "It's so rude to comment on people when you have no idea what they're actually going through."
She also spoke about her new "thicker body" and how looking back on photos of herself when she was skinny made her cringe.
The fact that a woman is still being forced to discuss or defend their body is utterly mind-blowing.
It is a particularly sore point for me จC and many other women I know จC as it isn't just happening to high profile women, it's happening to everyday women who are being subjected to these humiliating and invasive comments on a daily basis.
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Years ago, I was with my first husband shopping for a car wearing an A-line dress. I was looking at different car models in the yard when the sleazy salesman slinked over to us with his creepy little smirk and said, "Well, I guess you'll be looking at a family wagon now that you have a baby on the way?"
I was completely winded by his words but managed to collect myself quick enough to snap back to him, "Well, I am actually NOT pregnant, but I will be accepting tinted windows and a six-stacker CD player (yes I am that old) as an apology gift for making such a rude judgement of me."
Once home having signed the papers on my new car with my freebies included, I still couldn't quite get past how awful that salesman had made me feel with just a few words.?
I sat there bawling my eyes out for hours hating my body. Definitely not worth the six-stacker CD player.
It happened a second time a few years later when I was getting into a small elevator at a Sydney shopping centre with a rather large man. I was toward the back of the lift, which was a little bit unstable.
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The overweight man turned around to me and with a chuckle said, "At least you've got a reason, you're pregnant, I am just fat."
This time, rather than rebutting with a witty comeback I puffed out my belly and rubbed it with a loving grin toward the man. I have no idea what came over me. I was just completely mortified.?
Again, I went home and cried and immediately went on a crash diet.
Many of my girlfriends, and probably a lot of women reading this have had similar experiences with people making these careless, clumsy comments and while it is tiring to remind people of what common decency is, it needs to be said.
You would never walk up to a man and ask if his reproductive organs are working, so stop doing the same to women.
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