Social order of sympathy
A pregnant woman came on a train full of commuters, and she stood there for 10-15 minutes, before a seat finally opened up for her to sit down. I usually sleep through my train rides, so I had no reading materials — for all I know I was the only one who noticed this. Everyone else in the her proximity and could have offered her their seat in a conveniet manner was either too consumed with reading a book or just pretending not to notice. (Now it may be presumptuous of me to think that a pregnant woman would wish to sit down rather than stand — in fact, she didn’t seem strained in any way. But her pregnancy was rather visible, and I always think it’s a good idea to offer, so they can accept or decline the seat.) The interesting thing about it was that all but one of the seated people — those who chose to ignore the standing pregnant woman in front of them — were women. I know the stereotype goes that some women are socially competitive with each other and all that, but isn’t pregnancy something they should all sympathize with? And as far as social taboo goes, are men supposed to be MORE sympathetic with the hardships that go with pregnancy than are women? I feel pretty ignorant in this area, so I wish somebody will enlighten me here. I will definitely bring this up with Lucretia for a discussion….
