Pregnancy: A Condition, Not A Dress Code
Jordan admits that her style has changed a bit since becoming pregnant, as she finds herself putting on some flip flops or sneakers when running around New York City. She acknowledges the safety precautions in keeping herself in flats most of the time but, she says “I’m hardly throwing my heels in the trash.”
In response to antagonistic remarks on her fashionable attire, Jordan rattled off this:
Safety is one thing of course you shouldn’t wear dangerous shoes that could cause you to fall and hurt your baby, which is why I wear flip-flops or sneakers around town and change into heels when I get wherever it is that I’m going. But to say that just because someone’s pregnant, or a mother, means that they should tone it down? Dress more ”mother-like”? Bullshit.
I agree with Jordan in that motherhood proves to be realm in which women are inundated with all kinds of “shoulds.” Men by the way often get off with just a cigar and a handshake. I don’t have to tell you mommies that from the moment pregnancy is announced, a woman practically has to beat away unsolicited advice. Efforts, much like what happened on Jordan’s blog, to control the dress of women seek to make motherhood a one-track road. Establishing a uniform to which all pregnant must culturally adhere to fails to recognize that motherhood and pregnancy is a different experience for all women. By upholding one way of dressing that is befitted for moms, women who seek to express their maternity in other perhaps more creative ways are slandered for not behaving as “proper” mothers. Comfort is individual and shouldn’t be determined in sweeping generalizations about what a pregnant woman should look like. Ironically, it seems that the only people made uncomfortable by Jordan’s hot pants are the people not wearing them.
(photo: nydailynews.com)