For this week's Ask Cristen question I'm going to talk about something that I haven't really
talked about before partially because it is a highly polarizing topic that tends to get
a lot of people riled up.
Rather superficial week on Stuff Mom Never Told You because on Monday I kicked things
off with '5 Girly Fashions That Men Wore First'. Then I followed that up with 'Do Women Wear
Too Much Makeup?' Then on Friday it was '7 Ways Shy People Say Hello' because guess what
y'all I'm shy and I sometimes have trouble saying hello. Now onto Ask Cristen first of
all thanks to everybody who watched and commented on last week's Ask Cristen video 'Are Pretty
People Stupid?' Couple comments jumped out to me about not just face stereotyping but
boob stereotyping. Thalia Irwin said, 'From my experience it's worse when you are busty
and pretty. I'm an hourglass figure with straight A's for grades but f cup breasts and people
tend to assume that my bust size is the same as my letter grade.' Mrs3horn said, 'I'm a
moderately attractive, DD, brunette woman in her early twenties. Many people at work
think I'm a complete airhead. They are genuinely surprised when I talk about computers and
ask me how I know so much like they are talking to a toddler.' Clearly though it's not just
limited to Mrs3horn's workplace, I'm curious if other busty ladies out there have experienced
similar kind of boob-related stereotyping. Let me know in the comments. Now for this
week's Ask Cristen question. Kiba Flame wants to know, 'Do you think men should have a say
in abortion?' Yes up to a point, up to the ultimate decision whether or not to carry
a pregnancy to term. I don't think that women should be forced against their will to complete
a pregnancy. However I don't that is a sufficient answer because it is such a polarizing and
now such a politicized, well kind of always such a politicized topic, we spend all of
our energy just getting to that point and yelling of each of like 'no', 'yes', that
there's little if any energy left to talk about more of the nuances of men and abortion.
If we societally to raise up men to be good and active and interested fathers, I think
that this is also another piece of that too of leading up to that as part of comprehensive
sex education men need to know about abortion as well. This is also an area though that
would benefit from more scholarly research and empirical data about men's roles in abortion.
In the small number of studies that have been conducted on this do find that men experience
emotions around this in the same way that say in the case of miscarriages. I think it's
important to take that into account, I think it's important particularly for couples who
are going through this and who make that decision to have a more holistic approach so that your
relationship moves on from it more smoothly. Professor Boyfriend and I in my experience
we have had the abortion talk and we've had it at multiple times down the road as our
relationship has gotten more and more serious. Ultimately, if we are at a point of disagreement,
well, the tie goes to the uterus. I'm honestly sweating talking about this, I think I'm getting,
I think I'm getting an abortion flush. It shouldn't be this hard to talk about. All
the more reason why abortion should probably be something that you should talk about in
maybe even in the earlier phases of dating when you're deciding whether you want to actually
be in a real deal hoyfield kind of relationship with that person. If he is of a differing
opinion as you, well. And I also think it's important to discuss men's roles in abortion
in the context of not being in a relationship with that person if it's the result of a hook-up.
For what I think is a very responsible portrayal of that you can watch the hilarious comedy
starring the wonderful Jenny Slate called 'Obvious Child' which was all about that and
it was so refreshing to watch because a) she was not demonized for wanting to have an abortion
and the guy was involved. It also seems like with this question of should men have a say
in abortions there is attached to that this assumption that women aren't telling men when
they decide to terminate a pregnancy and actually the limited research that has been conducted
on that suggests just the opposite. There was a 2011 study out of the Guttmacher Institute
looking at this. Based on a nationally representative study of almost ninety-five hundred women
who had gone through with abortions, almost all of them had consulted or alerted their
male partners to this. Almost all of them said the men were completely supportive of
their decisions. Exposure to intimate partner violence was a major contributing factor in
this study for women who did not tell the biological father about the pregnancy. Seven
percent of the women reported post-abortion intimate partner violence. But on the whole
it seems like when abortion happens a majority of the time men are involved in that conversation
and are typically supportive of the woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy. In fact
there was one study I was looking at to where I think it was forty percent of the women
were fully convinced to get an abortion because of the influence of their male partner who
was not ready to become a father. I do think that there is a critical need for this to
be less of taboo topic that we really only fight about and that we polarize and that
we flame in these very black and white terms. It should be part of comprehensive sex education
and it should also be part of conversations with partners, if there is a possibility of
pregnancy happening between two people those two people should know where the other person
stands. Is it the most fun topic to discuss, no. But I think it is highly important that
we talk about it and that we talk about it with each other and that we talk about it
with men too. Guys I don't want to speak on your behalf so let me know your thoughts in
the comments below and hey, let's see if it's possible to have a conversation about abortion
that doesn't get real mean and nasty and name-cally. That would be amazing. Please make it happen
in the comments below. Ask me your questions so I can give you some answers and sometimes
rashes if I'm talking about something I'm a little nervous about.