Life

Ladies, Ya Gotta Get Pregnant, But Not Look Like It

By Helen Chernikoff March 29, 2016

Amirite?

As a woman, many demands are laid upon you by glossy magazines and social media. Well, here’s a new one, and it’s a doozy.

You know you have to get pregnant. It doesn’t matter what else you have done, or who you are. If you don’t breed, you are lesser.

And when it’s over, of course, you have to look like it never happened. Right away.

But all that’s child’s play compared to the latest impossible standard, courtesy Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli’s Instagram feed. Get pregnant — and look like you’re not. Carry the baby outside your body. Test-drive some wacky “Start-Up Nation” science. Just figure it out. Get it done.

And then do it again. Right away.

Helen Chernikoff is a news editor at the Forward. Follow her @thesimplechild on Twitter.

Helen Chernikoff is the Forward’s News Editor. She came to the Forward from The Jewish Week, where she served as the first web director and created both a blog dedicated to disability issues and a food and wine website. Before that, she covered the housing, lodging and logistics industries for Reuters, where she could sit at her desk and watch her stories move the stock market. Helen has a Master’s of Public Administration from Columbia University and a BA in History and French from Amherst College. She is also a rabbinical school dropout. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at @thesimplechild.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO