Modern Fashion: No Dignity for the Pregnant Woman

I recently came across a new type of conversation on 𝕏: the pregnancy “body horror” discourse. The term practically explains itself, but in case it still remains unclear, it refers to conversations where women express their disgust with—and probably hatred toward—pregnancy because of how a woman’s body changes throughout the process. While it took me a moment to understand the concept, I cannot say I was surprised at its existence.

Horrifying as it might be, the modern woman’s hatred for her very own childbearing abilities—abilities which used to be treasured and esteemed so highly—is a fascinating phenomenon that deserves to be examined. Why, and how, did we get here? There are certainly many possible explanations and theories, all of which point to one ideology whose effects on society have not left any room to doubt that it originated from the very pit of Hell: feminism.

Looking back over the history of the past few decades, or perhaps over the extent of a century, it is not difficult to see that society underwent a collective feminist indoctrination. In our day, it is very difficult, if it is possible at all, for a young woman to escape the grasp of feminism. Its influence is everywhere—from the entertainment she is exposed to when she is a girl to the education system, which is steeped in turning women away from their natural inclinations, one of which is motherhood, and instead convincing them that a life of slavery to the corporate world (or, even worse, of individualistic success in the corporate world) is the epitome of female liberty.

And yet I wonder if there are more influences driving women away from motherhood, emphasizing “body horror.” (As if it were possible for there to be yet more influences!) In order to explain this, I will need to introduce a concept. 

It is possible for someone to develop disgust for something that is actually good if exposed to it in an improper form. This is something author Megha Lillywhite lays out in her essay, “In Defense of the Girly Girl” (a piece I have only read excerpts of, given I do not have a paid subscription to her newsletter, Classical Ideals). In an excerpt Lillywhite posted last year, which resonated with me entirely, she details how it is normal for young women to be uncomfortable with the fact that they are becoming women as they grow up but that this discomfort can cease with the right amount of guidance and good examples. If guidance and good examples aren’t present, and the only type of women a girl is exposed to are promiscuous women who misuse their femininity, she writes, young women can resort to tomboyishness to “protect” their “innocence in a world that does not ever demonstrate femininity and innocence together.” We shall return to this later.

A few years ago, I read an article on a Catholic blog regarding the importance of modesty even during pregnancy. The article made the point that celebrities popularized women showing off their “baby bump” in public in the 1990s. While the article was written in a tone which could have been considered quite biting for an issue as delicate as this, the main point of the piece stayed with me and has been a constant point of consideration ever since because it made me realize how immodesty is, indeed, an issue for pregnant women—yet no one seems to discuss, or even think of, it.

No one, that is, except Anna Kalinowska. I was overjoyed to see her address this issue in her new book, Clothed with Beauty: A Catholic Philosophy of Dress.

During my teenage years, I found myself increasingly bothered by the way maternity clothing accentuated a pregnant woman’s growing middle. At first, I thought I was being a typical Gen Z woman: hateful of the pregnant state. I remember seeing the maternity photo shoot of a friend of my mother’s and thinking, “How is this not immodest?”

Pregnancy is a beautiful thing, yes. But what if, like sexuality, it is one of those things so sacred that it is proper for it to be “veiled”? What if it being exposed in the wrong way, to use Lillywhite’s idea—such as by women exposing their baby bumps—can lead some women to be disgusted with something they should otherwise be able to embrace?

I have many issues with the pro-life movement which I will not attempt to detail here, other than how, in an attempt to discourage women from abortion, it has adopted romanticizing pregnancy and motherhood as its main tactic against abortion. (Edward Feser has similarly posted about this here.) I am not saying the ability to give life is not a beautiful thing, but there are small inconveniences that come with it that we should be able to recognize.

Being concerned with the bodily changes that occur during pregnancy isn’t newfangled liberal hogwash—it was, actually, considered a normal thing for a woman to experience. An example of this comes from the 1952 sequel to Father of the Bride—Father’s Little Dividend. The film series is about a father learning to deal with his daughter growing up, and, in the second film specifically, transitioning into the role of grandfather as his daughter has a child. During a scene in Father’s Little Dividend, the expecting young woman, Kay Banks (played by Elizabeth Taylor) tearfully tells her father, portrayed by Spencer Tracy in one of the best roles of his career:

I felt fine, everybody was so sweet to me. It takes too long, that’s all—drags out too long. I’m ugly now—and clumsy. I know what I look like. I’m dull and stupid. I can’t do any of the things I used to do.

Our ancestors didn’t shy away from the challenges of pregnancy. And we can call our ancestors anything but antinatalist.

At one point in the aforementioned scene, Tracy’s character interrupts Kay’s speech and says to her, in one of the most beautiful, concise speeches I have ever heard regarding expectant mothers, “Oh, darling, darling—don’t say that! Don’t you know that you have a beauty now that you never had before?” [emphasis added].

Her father does not ignore the fact that her body has changed and that there are difficulties that come with that. Instead, he counters with a different sort of truth: she is beautiful in a different way now.

I give my readers leave to call me not-pro-life for this—I don’t like seeing exposed baby bumps. I just don’t. I think it’s in poor taste, just as I think seeing any woman’s exposed midriff is a false intimacy no one is entitled to but her spouse or perhaps a doctor. Yes, I am pro-life; yes, I’m happy that the woman is pregnant and did not abort her baby. But that does not mean I think she ought to be exposing parts of her body she should not be exposing or that it is beautiful simply because I am pro-life. As a Catholic 𝕏 user put it upon seeing images of actress Anne Hathaway showing her bare bump: it’s “trashy.”

We all agree that women should not be walking around with exposed midriffs. I have even heard the argument made that one of the reasons why a woman ought to keep her midriff covered is because her womb is a sacred part of her body that ought to be kept out of view, or “veiled.” Why should that change when it comes to pregnant women—when the womb is doing its sacred work?

Modern society often looks with disdain upon the restraint that used to surround how people spoke about expectant mothers. Yet I find it tragically ironic that it is our age, and not the age that looked upon pregnancy with so-called embarrassment, that has a phobia and hatred toward pregnancy and the bearing of children. Perhaps there are certain matters in which restraint is not so bad after all?

In chapter three of Clothed with Beauty, Kalinowska references the work of the Goldstein sisters in order to draw a standard of dress for expectant mothers. Drawing from their recommendations for stout women, she writes,

The use of these elements does not attempt to hide pregnancy, but, rather, creates an effect that protects the mother’s sense of modesty and helps the viewer see the mother as a whole person.

It is not supporting abortion to accept that women struggle throughout pregnancy. An expectant mother might feel like her body has already been taken over by all the changes she is undergoing. Does it really help that the clothing she wears reduces her to nothing but an exposition of those changes?

Whereas the fashion industry’s design for expectant mothers used to be that of an elegant, clever disguise, maternity clothes now seem to reduce pregnant mothers to just that: the fact that they are pregnant. But a woman is still a woman, pregnant or not; and she likes to feel beautiful, not exposed and badly dressed because she has temporarily grown large. Pregnancy hatred and the pregnancy “body horror” crowd deserve to be censured, but one wonders whether factors such as the shameful state of maternity clothing serve to plunge women into the antinatalist mindset instead of making pregnancy as beautiful and enjoyable for the mother as possible.

It is for this reason that I commend Miss Kalinowska and stand wholeheartedly with her when she writes, “Where her pregnancy draws much attention to her body, simple techniques of dress can help draw the eye back to her face, the window of her soul”[emphasis added].