The One Time Oprah Winfrey Stumbled, Perhaps Unawares

 

The One Time Oprah Winfrey Stumbled, Perhaps Unawares

This was some time in the late 1980s. Why am I raking up such an old instance? Old or not, unless corrected it perpetuates and repeats endlessly; hence it is a current issue and not an old one.

It is about the troubles women face during pregnancy – head to toe.  At the lower end, they cannot look at their toes or wear socks in winter, I remember Oprah telling the audience and everyone, including the men, agreeing. The problem with her argument arose when she tried demonstrating the significant burden women faces, in the later part of pregnancy, around the midriff. This post is this about that difficulty.

What was the demonstration? A big load of about the same weight as that carried by a woman towards the time of delivery around the midriff was tied to the midriff of a man. Obviously he could not balance it, and fell forward. A huge roar of laughter and “I told you so!”s.

I was at the university student centre and was watching the show eating some French fries, as I needed my regular fix of salt! The above were the gleeful murmurs among a number of female students having their fixes in front of the TV.

That was when I began my defence of the man, and many heard me saying to Oprah (as though she could hear me), “You are being unfair!” I did not elaborate how she was being unfair. This write-up is to put down my points on record.  

“Oh, my! Wearing socks is the least of a pregnant woman’s worries. Who is he to even point out the things Oprah said? He lacks empathy. Doesn’t he know that billions of women look up to her? Is he going to insult Oprah?” This was what I heard from the TV audience.

They could have gone further (and did, per my memory; also out of my ear shot), “He is an MCP. Leave him in the drain pipe, where he came from, to wade through!”

I am here to defend myself nearly four decades later and far away from the original scene of action.

A pregnant woman comes to bear that load incrementally. Her body adjusts to the changing positions of her centre of mass (weight distribution), again, incrementally, all through her pregnancy. In the demonstration, on the other hand, the man was asked to make the necessarily huge adjustment instantaneously. No wonder he failed.

Of course, the woman also undergoes changes in every other element of her internal systems. This the man can never experience. Therefore, it is prudent for the man to accept his wife’s statements at face value.

When I got married, the only condition I imposed on my then future wife was that I would not have any children. Do not even try to attribute any reason that you may be aware of onto my decision and demand. You would fail as the reason is far from being mundane, yet not spiritual. I see you scratching your head. Yet, no woman can even assess much less appreciate how empathetic I am to the travails of a pregnant woman. I am also capable, not from a doctor’s perspective but as an informed engineering professional with a fair taint of empathy, to defend my case. This is what you are going to see below, be warned.

My idea is rooted in issues half mental and half physical. On both these counts, a pregnant woman is given the time, even for morning sickness, to prepare herself gradually. This is obviously not so for the man who got her impregnated (to be deliberately crude about it).

The difference in the gradient (in mathematics, the change in the slope of the curve, as shown) between pregnancy in women and as “demonstrated” through a man’s weight gain should give anyone a pause to think. The slope is steeper, meaning the weight gain is more in the same duration for the woman.

Does a man gain weight during his wife’s pregnancy? Yes, if you go by the so-called “sympathy pregnancy” (Couvade syndrome) argument. I have accommodated this male weight gain in the figure, as the reader can see.

Oprah Winfrey, as good as she has been in bringing out the problems only women face during a pregnancy, seems not to account for the time frame, perhaps too long. If one looks at it in evolutionary terms, this longish gestation is a requirement for the survival of the human species. How is it so, think on this. Perhaps another write-up.

To conclude, in trying to dramatize what women go through pregnancy Oprah undermined the issue. One slip, though unnoticed, in a stellar career.

Raghuram Ekambaram