By now, we know that unsolicited comments on women's bodies are completely inescapable in our modern patriarchal society. Just last Sunday, Fearne Cotton shared the stream of skinny-shaming comments she received on a recent Instagram post, trolling her ‘knobbly knees’, calling her ‘anorexic’ and labelling her a ‘bad role model for kids’. Fearne later called out the comments and condemned the constant judgement around women's bodies.
That's just one viral case of a woman in the public eye. Between then and now, there have undoubtedly been countless other comments about women on social media, on the street, on our screens. She's too fat, too thin, too curvy, not curvy enough, too saggy, too ‘plastic’, not toned enough, too athletic, not athletic enough, too much cellulite/ body hair/ scarring/ any other normal part of being a human that women are unrelentingly judged and ridiculed for.
But one part of female anatomy you may not think women receive such unwelcome comments on is their pregnant bellies. Yet that's exactly what happened to influencer Hannah Fallis Bronfman when she was pregnant with her first child, Preston, whom she welcomed with husband Brendan Fallis in November 2020 after struggling to conceive. It took the couple three years to get pregnant, after experiencing a miscarriage and various failed fertility treatments, before successfully conceiving Preston via IVF.
Hannah, who is now pregnant with their second child, took to her Instagram to share how the comments affected her.
“I'm going to share with you something that I have never shared before. And before I share it, I'm going to tell you what prompted it,” she said in the video shared on 1st February.
"Over the weekend, I was out and someone was congratulating me on my pregnancy, and someone else who I don't really know at all said: ‘Oh, are you sure you’re pregnant?' – as if to say that I'm not really showing. Now, I think that this guy meant it as a compliment, but I want to normalise just not commenting on women's bodies. We've been so conditioned as a society to think that the smaller we are, the better we are, the more attractive we are… and to me, that's bullsh*t.
“I have been waiting so long to have a belly. To me, it's a beautiful sign of fertility, goddess energy. You are giving life to a new human; that is beautiful. So, as I was thinking about how annoyed that comment made me – because I've worked so hard to become pregnant – I thought I would share something with you guys that I have never shared.”
Hannah continues: "When I was pregnant with Preston, I really wasn't showing until about 27 weeks. And I was so desperate to announce and share with the community that I was pregnant – I had already shared so much about our fertility journey – and at around 24 weeks, I was just getting really antsy, and I really wanted to take some pregnancy announcement photos.
“When I was looking back at the photos, there really wasn't a belly, and I just felt like I so desperately wanted this belly, I really didn't want to announce without the belly. The belly was the symbol for me.”
Hannah then becomes visibly teary, and after pausing the video, continues: “I realised these photos, you really couldn’t see a bump, so I Photoshopped my bump to be bigger. Anyway, it just goes to show that everyone's in a different mental state around pregnancy, so next time you want to comment on someone's pregnant body, just keep it to yourself.”
And it's not just Hannah who has experienced this sort of bump-shaming. The comments are full of women sharing their similar experiences, with one woman sharing: "I definitely had my share of unsolicited comments from many people and it made me sooo self conscious about my growing body!"
Another shared her story: “This literally happened to me yesterday. I told one of the nurses at my ENTs offices that I was was being induced next week and in shock, she told me I was “carrying well.” I’m like, if my (or any birthing person’s) baby’s doing well in there whatever shape my body looks to be in, then I’m carrying well… not because you think I look small… which is a NOT compliment. My first was stillborn and very small, my second, born living, was also small, and the stress of and anxiety around making sure this baby is healthy, growing, and alive is not helped by you commenting on the small size of my bump, even though you probably mean it in the best of ways.”
While another shared a similar experience: “When I was seven months pregnant people kept telling me that I didnt look pregnant and it gave me so much anxiety and made me feel so bad because (1) I wanted to look pregnant — it was a sign my child was growing and healthy and (2) it didn’t feel like I wasnt pregnant. I was sore, tired, and felt heavy. By the end of my pregnancy the comments were the opposite.”
It's clear that unsolicited comments on woman's pregnant body can have a profound and lasting impact on their confidence, and their experience of pregnancy – and we applaud Hannah Bronfman and all the women in the comments for speaking out. Can we all just agree that it's never OK to comment on a woman's body, pregnant or otherwise? And can we all make a pact to call it out next time we hear it?
Sincerely, women everywhere.
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