Pregnancy: A 9 month long hostage situation where you are both the hostage, and the building.

We see pregnant celebrities out doing their thing all the time: photographed by paparazzi while getting a coffee or walking out of a grocery store, but it’s less common to see them actually performing while pregnant. As the Fox article points out, Joan Rivers, perhaps the mother of this movement, did stand-up on The Ed Sullivan Show when she was seven or eight months pregnant with Melissa, in 1967. She didn’t mention the pregnancy directly, and later said that plenty of critics thought she shouldn’t have been on television in her condition. I hate the cliche of, "Oh, well it was a different time." Anyone who says this: immediately cancelled, I am not here for excuses.

Over 50 years later, the rogue pregnant woman still warrants critique due to the rarity, even though for most professional performers, there’s no physical danger involved in working well into their pregnancies. We can list a few now of the female comedians who have performed, worked, and totally killed it while rocking a baby bump. These include Ali Wong, Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph, just to name a few. Pregnant women have even graced the stage during musical performance such as Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and Cardi B. In the process of it all, these women have helped spark a broader conversation about the unique challenges faced by parents and parents-to-be in the performing arts – and their acute vulnerability to workplace discrimination. However, the problems facing these mothers simply do not end once the child is born. Lots of women tend to disappear from the spotlight to support a family, or because they are no longer seen as the right fit in their field. These women hope to normalize the maternal image and eliminate the taboo of an expectant mother on stage. I think we can get used to anything with a little bit of conditioning.

Childbearing is VITAL TO OUR EXISTENCE. So it makes me wonder why the heck it weirds people out. Backlash comments include that women are too delicate, or weak to perform. They should protect their bodies and the little vessel inside, not harm it by producing happiness for the mother and her audience! That would be insane! I'd argue that while pregnant a woman is at her strongest. 

Our modern obsession with distended bellies containing fetal goop is just another excuse for the desire to control women's bodies. It's pretty hard for people to mind their own business when you might as well have someone following you around spinning a sign very loudly stating, "I AM A WOMAN." To reiterate, queens like Ali Wong and Beyonce want this to be normalized. If we can make eating Tide Pods a thing, we can get used to a woman working while pregnant.