Notes from Underground
Subway riders love babies. So why do they hate pregnant women?
by Lynn Harris
June 14, 2007
So, fair enough. "Often I'm like, 'Is she preggers? Or is it just the empire-waist top from Anthropologie?'" says my friend Paula. "So I'll get up very casual-like and sort of slink down to the other end of the subway car. I think I fear accusing non-pregnant women of being pregnant more than I fear letting a pregnant woman stand on the subway."
Yep, the "fat" theory is a good theory. Except for this: Why would I be fat below ground yet pregnant above? In other words, for every stranger who failed to offer me a subway seat, there was another out in the world who held a door, moved a table, asked me if I was preparing for birth by doing Kegels. (This is a separate problem.) Explain that. If I am pregnant enough for someone to offer me first place in line, and there is always a line, for the bathroom at Starbucks, I am pregnant enough for someone to offer me a goddamn subway seat.
Now, for some even more puzzling nuance. If anyone did offer a seat — which did happen, on days when there was a partial eclipse, a unicorn sighting, and alternate-side parking suspended — or when, finally, I started asking ("Would anyone mind offering me a place to sit?") — the Samaritans Why would I be fat below ground yet pregnant above?appeared in this order of likelihood:
1. an older woman
2. a younger woman
3. a man of color
A white man? Not on the list. Didn't happen. Not once. Oh wait, once. That guy with a Playbill from Hairspray. Not a local.
I am telling you, it's not just me. "Latin and African-American men have always seemed more than happy to give up their seat to a woman, pregnant or not. Whiteys? Forget about it," recalls my friend Dorre. Likewise, my friend Martha: "Even at thirty-two weeks along, I had young, suited, fair, hearty-looking, Wall Street Journal-reading men literally outsprint me for a seat on a crowded train."
And my friend Laurie: "The first person who ever offered me a seat was an old Chinese woman with a lot of bags who looked so frail that I insisted she sit back down."
What are older women doing offering up their seats in the first place? Honestly, it's impressive. I can only guess that they are following the Golden Rule. And that the white guys are . . . not. As for the racial variance, I am left only with cursory and glib suggestions involving the word "culture." Honestly, I do not get it.
©2007 Lynn Harris and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Lynn Harris is author of the new satirical novel Death By Chick Lit and its prequel, Miss Media . A regular contributor to
Glamour, Salon, The New York Times, Nerve, Babble and many others,
she also writes the "Rabbi's Wife" column for Nextbook.org. Visit her at
LynnHarris.net.
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