After reading a bunch of comments, let me say this for clarification:
I don’t have any major beef with Nat Portman. A lot of award winners forget to thank major people in their lives when they’re up at the podium, pregnant or not (remember Hilary Swank forgetting to thank her husband Chad Lowe?).
Maybe I should have said that I wish women would be careful where we use the term “pregnancy brain” because if it is used in a professional setting, it can be a way of saying, “This woman is knocked up and therefore can’t do her job right.”
I also think that the modern Western world still have embedded Victorian notions of womanhood, and that women should understand that when we frame any phase of our reproductive rights as making us intellectually inferior (to our former selves or to men), we’re not doing ourselves any favors in the upward climb toward equality.
I think this is a “strictly us gals” conversation. Like, if I was pregnant and forgot something for church and my intern (I don’t have an intern, so don’t freak!) said, “Oh, Vicki forgot about the auction… she has pregnancy brain” I would have every right to feel far more undermined in a more serious and insidious way than if that person had said, “I don’t know. I guess she forgot to put it on her calendar.”
Tossing around “pregnancy brain” and other cute phrases among girlfriends is one thing. Used in a professional or public setting it’s like saying, “Well, for the next nine months and possibly for a long time thereafter, I’m seriously intellectually impaired.”
I hope that helps you understand where I was coming from. I hope you will all read Tavris’ book.
