I'm gettin' really fuckin' perturbed by all the pregnancy websites/books I've been reading which use he/him as the default gender of the fetus/child. I can hardly keep reading the article or book if it's author keeps insisting on supporting this patriarchal bullshit.
Anyone else getting pissed off by all the nonsense?
Are there any books you'd recommend I read which wouldn't make me so frustrated?
Huh, I haven't really noticed a lot of that, seriously what decade is it? I can't believe people still write like that. I don't read a lot of pregnancy stuff though right now. Although! I read something about birth that talked about natural homebirth with the father catching the baby, about how the father is like harvesting the seed he had planted 9 months ago, and I gagged a little. I mean, as flattering as it is to have my role as the freaking creator of life here reduced to that of dirt. *gag*
What kind of pregnancy books are you interested in? Like general info on pregnancy, or birth, parenting, etc?
I haven't personally read The Mother Of All Pregnancy Books by Ann Douglas, but I've read her book about toddlers and found it to be pretty great. It's Canadian though, so some of the info will be Canadian (not a biggie to me because of course Canadians are used to consuming American media LMAO so if you read it, you'll know what it feels like to be Canadian LOL), but I think most of the recommendations are either the same or similar anyways.
Oh, I know! What about Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth.
Everything and anything about pregnancy and child rearing will often use he/him as the default for a fetus/child.
I got a march for dimes magazine in the mail, yep used exclusive male pronouns for the fetus/child. Got two books given to me by my ex-midwife, yep, both used male pronouns exclusively. Tons of articles online do it. Yesterday I was reading about co-sleeping and kept happening upon it at every website I read, grrrr. I'm pretty sure it's the norm when writing about pregnancy and child rearing.
And hell yeah for Our Bodies, Ourselves, I checked out the 1970s version at my university, and it's awesome. Though I do want the specific one your talking about, more up to date I'm sure.
I probably will refrain from reading most pregnancy material until I find stuff that wont do that gender bias stuff.
Alright so the websites I always went to... alternated he and she. Try I-am-pregnant.com and babycenter.com I am huge on analyzing things like that and I acutally was very impressed that not everything was he he he.