What is more life-affirming, more wondrous or more family-friendly than pregnancy?
Denise van Outen, happy, radiant and beautifully glowing as she expects a baby in May, is learning the ugly truth about pregnancy on television. Most TV producers and even many viewers think its disgusting. Of course they won’t admit it openly, their hostility will simply rise and fall in a roughly nine-month cycle. A pregnant TV presenter or actress will fall out of favour until she’s ready to objectify again in her sexless, unsullied slimness and in utter denial of ever being in the family way. Denise was hoping to repeat her success as a talent show judge in the next Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacular, “Over The Rainbow” which this time is searching for a new Dorothy for the West End’s ”Wizard of Oz”. She was a wow in “Any Dream Will Do” (which found new talent for Jospeh) and “I’d Do Anyhting” (which did a similar job for Oliver!) but when she asked if she’d be appearing in the new show, she got the distinct impression her unborn baby was persona non grata. The BBC has denied she’s been dumped because of her bump. So perhaps it was her hormones that caused her to imagine a senior producer saying: ”You're pregnant, so of course there's no way you can do the show.” This was then apparently repeated to her by another producer. Denise got the message. And no matter how much they protest, their attitude rings true to me. Pregnancy phobia is a fact, a nasty little reality in the world of “reality” television. I think it pervades much of society too. Most people would still like a woman to disappear “into confinement” when they are visibly pregnant, just as in Victorian times. In 1987, whilst anchoring breakfast TV five days a week to an audience of a refular 14 million, I announced that I was expecting my first child, and the news made headlines on every front page in the UK. At first, reactions from both the media and the viewers was overwhelmingly supportive. I was inundated with flowers, cards and hand-knitted bootees from every corner of Britain. Jasper Carrot, Michael Aspel and Terry Wogan mentioned my pregnancy in the opening routines of their live talk shows. But after a few days, the celebratory atmosphere changed. It was as though my colleagues, and even some viewers, were expecting me to retire gracefully from the public scene. “Are you going to continue on TV?” I was asked. “What? Every day?” I was darn sure I would. WE had a HUGE general election coming up, and I wanted to be part of it. No way was I going to take time off – and anyway, hadn’t a whole generation of bra burners taught me that I was a woman and I had a right to work? As long as I was healthy and my growing baby happy, I was prepared to take it to the line. My pregnancy was even the subject of a leader article in the Guardian, along the lines of “what is the world coming to when an openly pregnant woman expects to continue with her high profile job as though nothing has changed?” I was astonished to find I was the first TV presenter in Britain to be pregnant and to go on doing my job on TV every day. Surely this must have happened before, I wondered? But it hadn’t – yet this was only 22 years ago, and a whole generation after the women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s which had paved the way for my impetuous confidence. It was a shock to find we weren;t so liberated after all, not even in the overconfident Eighties with the UK’s first ever female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, firmly in Number Ten Downing Street. Obviously pregnant women had appeared from time to time on TV, in one-off appearances, perhaps on Baby programmes and in the occasional drama portraying a pregnancy. But never in a daily job, live, every day of the week and before millions. Of course, in my case, I was also unmarried – which added height to the headlines. I was, as the tabloids dubbed me, “Britain’s most famous unmarried mother”. A small and hopefully unrepresentative group of the Catholic Women’s League wrote to my mother on letterheaded paper expressing their hope that my child would be born dead or deformed. But I think that was more about my unmarried state than my pregnancy. All part of the learning curve, though, about what its like to be high profile, and pregnant! So a certain amount of controversy was only to be expected. What truly shocked me was the attitude, which also continued through my four later pregnancies, to the pregnancy itself. In the words of one young producer, shocked that I was continuing my job to the very end, it was “a bit icky”. Another wardrobe mistress, a genius at choosing my daily outfits and styling me from day to day, became flustered and uncomfortable at my growing girth. She simply couldn’t handle my changing shape. She backed off, as though I had become something slightly distasteful. In response to viewer demand, I – just once – showed off my ultrasound pictures. I was hurt then, that on Gloria Hunniford’s afternoon show on which I was invited as a guest, she put it to me that I “ was flaunting my pregnancy” and she actually asked me why I didn’t take the next few months off screen, and not return to TV until the baby was born – “like actresses do”. I don’t think for a second she meant to be unkind, but her attitude worried me. Actresses retire from the spotlight when they are pregnant because it doesn’t suit their profession, unless they;re playing a pregnant woman. I was appearing on TV to do a job, presenting and interviewing, which was entirely unaffected by the size of my stomach. I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t continue until the last moment – so I was shocked to find that a large section of society, including many women, wanted me to hide myself away until the swelling subsided. Luckily I had the most amazing boss, Bruce Gyngell, an Australian maverick who enjoyed putting two fingers up to what he perceived as British squeamishness. He reckoned pregnancy was a natural joy to be shared. He never once asked me to rethink my TV appearances – although I did overhear one of his deputies, a well-known mysogenist who hated us campaigning “about anything to do with women’s bits”, suggest that perhaps it would be nicer if I presented the programme from behind a desk rather than the TVam sofa, so that my bump could be better camouflaged. To him, and I suspect to many others too ashamed to openly admit it, pregnancy is a “woman’s problem” like periods and menopause. Necessary, even vital – but rather distasteful. That’s probably why women have sought to conceal what should be a delight, at least until they cannot cover up any longer! Many Victorian women apparently commissioned special corsets to cover up their pregnancies for at least the first six months, so they could continue their social lives without risk of scrutiny. Queen Victoria, though, wasn’t as Victorian about pregnancy as you might think. In 1840, when she was pregnant herself, she made a point of inviting the famous social moderniser Lady Charlotte Guest, then six months pregnant with one of her ten children, to a ball at the palace, which caused a buzz in society at the time! Throughout history, society has had a drastically ambivalent attitude towards pregnancy. Of course, there’s been a centuries old perception that pregnancy is an illness or disorder. Or perhaps we think of pregnancy as a turn off because pregnancy is evidence of sexuality, and we Brits still can’t handle such things. But this is a mood which ebbs and flows with fashion and the incursion of science and male-dominated medicine. Even in eras which have welcomed and celebrated pregnancy, women have been alternately encouraged to take exercise for the health and well being of both mother and baby, and then later forced to “convalesce” for fear they might hurt the unborn baby or cause a miscarriage or stillbirth. Any self-respecting women’s libber might be forgiven for thinking it was always a way to entrap women within their own bodies, and make them feel guilty about the outcome. But hang on girls, haven’t we come a long way since those days? Haven’t we earned the right to be proud of our bumps, and show them off to a delighted world? Well, yes actually, we have already done all that. I remember wonderful pictures of a nine months pregnant and stark naked Demi Moore, on the front cover of Vanity Fair in 1991. Since then we’ve seen literally hundreds of young famous mums proud to show off their bumps in maternity wear that deliberately displays, rather than conceals – witness almost iconic pictures of Spice Girls and All Saints – great role models for young mums. I always felt proud that I’d paved the way for generations of young female TV presenters to go on doing their jobs unquestioned. Every time I saw the likes of Lorraine Kelly, or Kate Garraway on breakfast TV, happily patting their baby bumps to the chuckles of a delighted studio, I felt I’d done my bit for pregnancy liberation. So I am disappointed and depressed to find the cycle of opinion grinding around again, to the point of denying Denise Van Outen a glamorous, high profile TV appearance because her pregnant form is somehow offputting. No-one in the media, nor in the audience, will ever admit to being revolted by pregnancy – which is why the next few days will see nothing but contradiction and denial on this topic. But take it from one woman who dared to be pregnant five times whilst also expecting to continue in her career – it is a prejudice that pervades. And we wonder what’s wrong with our society? Bumps aren’t a turn-off, they’re a cause for celebration. They’re a baby in the making – and what is more life-affirming, more wondrous, more family-friendly than that? Never mind, Denise. This debate will probably assure you at least a couple of job offers, from companies now wanting to prove their pro-baby credentials. Enjoy it while you can. Next, those same producers will start telling you you’re too old and that’s a condition that lasts a lot longer than nine months! |
