This is not likely to be a classic post on Infertility in Media: A Story on Stereotypes.
No Sir, since my shallow self is out right now...I better not look for clay in the quicksand that my mind has become..
Day before yesterday, somewhere in the evening, I froze on to a TV Show (a four-times a week soap), which I catch very rarely. Anyways, guess what the lovely story was...
Oh hell! No more progeny...the family will die with its current people and nobody will carry the family name forward...hell...doom... death!
Guess what the obedient now-p-nownot-p woman does...
What? What century is this?
Considering that the show is prime-time, and has not been phased out yet, I guess there are loads of families drinking on the story.
There are no IF treatments?
Women who are barren, become useless - A dead wood for the families that they are wedded into?
Barren Women have no children and must lose the love of their life to women who have a working apparatus?
There are no options at all in case a woman can't bear kids....I heard a whisper called surrogacy ....
There are donor eggs...
A man does not have to sleep with a woman to impregnate her...
Serve me the truth....
Making a Freak Show out of infertile women is so pinching!
Listen!
^WiseGuy^
No Sir, since my shallow self is out right now...I better not look for clay in the quicksand that my mind has become..
Day before yesterday, somewhere in the evening, I froze on to a TV Show (a four-times a week soap), which I catch very rarely. Anyways, guess what the lovely story was...
Woman preggers by elder bro (her then spouse)...hubby dies and baby dies in an accident...woman now married to younger bro and is preggers again... Husband alive but the baby dies inside the uterus....Next, the drama peaks when the doctors reveal that this woman has lost the ability to conceive/carry to term any pregnancy (becoming pregnant could be fatal for the mother)..
Oh hell! No more progeny...the family will die with its current people and nobody will carry the family name forward...hell...doom... death!
Guess what the obedient now-p-nownot-p woman does...
she hires a woman to tempt her husband like a nymph, into her bed, in the quest of procuring a heir for the family, [a child that will fill the courtyard with his pooey diapers, get sucky grades and get bullied by all the chuckpots around]...
What? What century is this?
Considering that the show is prime-time, and has not been phased out yet, I guess there are loads of families drinking on the story.
There are no IF treatments?
Women who are barren, become useless - A dead wood for the families that they are wedded into?
Barren Women have no children and must lose the love of their life to women who have a working apparatus?
There are no options at all in case a woman can't bear kids....I heard a whisper called surrogacy ....
There are donor eggs...
A man does not have to sleep with a woman to impregnate her...
Serve me the truth....
Making a Freak Show out of infertile women is so pinching!
Listen!
^WiseGuy^
Ugh! Awful!
ReplyDeleteNo kidding: that is awful. It feeds into public misconceptions about infertility, surrogacy, donor gametes ... and I could go on...
ReplyDeletethat's mindnumbingly hurtful. exactly why I don't watch tv. its perpetuating the myth that just because we cannot conceive naturally, we are less 'woman' than 'woman'. Procreation is deemed to be our raison d'etre and if we fail at that, we are failures as women.
ReplyDeleteWell, fuck that, I say!
there was an ad on tv tonight (normally dont watch tv, but DH was watching football and I was reading on the sofa)... on 60 minutes, a gay couple went to india "the one stop shop for surrogate babies"... the very phrase pissed me off. the media is in a feeding frenzy with this surrogacy / india thing.
to end with some humor... "A man does not have to sleep with a woman to impregnate her..." - this is too true. the last time I had sex with the male was over a month go, on april 4 to be exact, and he's shooting blanks. so there!
We should ALL write a post about this show and then send them all to the company. THEN they would know exactly how much smarter they COULD be! Happy ICLW!
ReplyDelete*HUGS*
Wow, talk about behind the times.
ReplyDeletexxx
television makes me so angry sometimes, what a joke.
ReplyDeletewow. just, wow.
ReplyDelete~ICLW
*sigh* I don't miss much about tv. Especially the fake but anger raising drama!
ReplyDeleteThat's awful!
ReplyDeleteWow...that is rough...I hate it when IF issues aren't presented in a factual manner.
ReplyDelete*ICLW*
Why am I not surprised by this? I have yet to relate to a story of infertility in the media or hollywood.
ReplyDeleteWill they ever get it "right"?
ICLW
My husband (of all people) has a daytime soap opera he can't stop watching. He tries, but somehow it keeps sucking him back in.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, anytime I an unlucky enough to catch a scene or two I shake my head with disbelief. Fortunantly, they aren't working the plotline you mentioned or else I would have put my foot through the TV by now.
I don't even know what to think of all that! :) How awful. You'd think in this day and age, they'd at least make an attempt to portray IF in somewhat realistic terms. But, I guess that's too much to ask, huh?
ReplyDelete*ICLW*
All this time and I never knew...I'm supposed to get some chicklet to go to bed with my husband, so he can father a child. Why has my RE not mentioned this?? Guess I didn't get the memo.
ReplyDeleteInfertility plotlines like this make me so mad. I'm sure next week, they will adopt (easily and overnight), and then find out that the woman is pregnant and everything is fine. Who writes this stuff??? (ICLW)
OMG...that is so absurd! I mean, I know soaps are the model of reality and all, but they couldn't try to make it just a little out there?!
ReplyDeleteICLW
Talk about anachronistic.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the things I have a really hard time with, the perception of IF: We used donor sperm (azoo dx) and there are two movies coming up highlighting women (J lo and Jen anniston) who are desperate to have a kid and use DS. I can hardly wait for the back lash on this one.
ReplyDeleteICLW
Do "they" not get how widespread this is?? Do "they" not care?? "They" put all this useless info out, and someone, somewhere actually believes that shit!!!!!
ReplyDeleteIgnorance!!!
ICLW
I love the tone of this post- it feels like you went into my brain and pulled out all the babble that goes on. This was my favorite: Barren Women have no children and must lose the love of their life to women who have a working apparatus?
ReplyDeleteThat is sooooo soap opera. And working apparatus? Who needs it?
Signed: a proud mama through adoption
ICLW
How irritating. I can't watch medical shows for this reason either. I work in a hospital and I actually have people ask me (patients and employees) if I've seen Grey's Anatomy. My stock answer is no, because I live it. Anyway, thanks for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteLMAO Interesting. But it's not new.
ReplyDeleteCrazy.....just like life.
ReplyDeleteBeen reading your blog today, lovin' it!
ICLW
oh of course. insult to injury! salt and maybe some lemon juice in the wound! don't these people research anything?!? arg.
ReplyDeleteplease tell what show it was so i can boycott them, their broadcast channel, their studio, their advertisers!! gah!!
I don't know why I immediately thought of Bold and the Beautiful (I don't even watch that show).
ReplyDeleteEverytime I see a show with a plot like this I just change the channels. Argh.