WSJ published a really great article that debunks all of the myths surrounding the need for pregnant women to police what they eat or drink. I made a decision very early on that the rules of how to be pregnant “correctly” would not be a part of my experience and feel very happy that I did so. Of course, if you enjoy the lists and the rules, knock yourself out because this is your pregnancy and it is none of anybody’s business how you manage it. Women who suffer because of the completely baseless restrictions on foods and beverages they can consume while pregnant, however, should read Emily Oster’s article and forget about curtailing their lives needlessly.
One thing that bothered me in this otherwise great article is the author’s insistence on cultivating a public image of herself as a beleaguered Little Red Riding Hood who cannot get anybody to treat her with respect. Oster teaches Economics at the University of Chicago and writes a column for WSJ. I find it very hard to believe that this kind of person would be treated “like a child” just because she was pregnant, would put up with a situation where “there was always someone telling me what to do,” would allow a doctor to give her “a serious scolding” and call her “so fat!”, would agree to be patronized by a guest at her own house, etc.
I’m not nearly the kind of a shark one needs to be to teach Economics at the University of Chicago and write for WSJ. I’m just a quiet literature professor who has a tendency to look like a very angelic Sophomore. Yet I cannot even begin to imagine anybody trying to visit these humiliations upon me. My guess is that Oster is creating this victimized persona in order to make her article more attractive. I can really understand the compulsion to get more readers, but when a brilliant, highly successful woman makes it seem perfectly acceptable to be condescended to and insulted, this sends a very dangerous message about the way it is OK to treat women.
There is this widely held belief that unless a woman positions herself as Little Orphan Annie and whines about her complete and total victimhood in direct proportion to how rich and successful she is, nobody will listen to her. Oster is very good at debunking such mythology, though. I wish she had allowed herself to drop the victimized persona together with the list of pregnancy rules.
Clarissa's Blog 
I read the article and the passage and I’m not reading the tone the same way you do.
I see a highly educated woman who realizes that all of these educated authorities have conflicting advice and she decided to pick through the studies herself to figure out what to do or not do. I hardly see someone putting on a victimized persona in this article.
In those examples, she doesn’t mention what she did after the guest said what he said, or what she did after the “serious scolding.”
Should she have included her response? “And then I told the doctor he was wrong about his studies and needed to take statistics again and my butt was awesome, and I told my guest to go imbibe liquified rocks, elsewhere” :p
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I don’t think any of this happened at all because I can’t imagine a serious, adult woman with the personality and intelligence needed for this kind of a brilliant career becoming an object of this sort of treatment on a regular basis. I believe this is a persona she cultivates because of a deeply ingrained belief that a competent woman who does not get victimized every 3 seconds will be too threatening.
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