"Pregnant Women Are Smug": Funny Cuz It's True

The only way to describe the hilarious YouTube sensation, “Pregnant Women Are Smug,” is with the cliched phrase: It’s funny because it’s true.

Listen, the “miracle of life” is amazing and all that, but hundreds of thousands of women give birth every day. And surely we all know women who act normally when knocked up. But there are the others, the ones who behave in a holier-than-thou, self-satisfied manner, those who comport themselves as though they have suddenly become royalty, and make it clear that they’re doing something incredible and you and your empty uterus are not worthwhile.

Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome are comedic actors and musicians who perform the ditty together as Garfunkel and Oates. The song is fairly straightforward; it begins, “Pregnant woman are smug/Everyone knows it/Nobody says it/Because they’re pregnant.” The ladies mock women who, when asked if they want a boy or a girl, answer, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s healthy.” They sing: “I can’t wait to hear someone say: ‘Don’t care if it’s brain dead, don’t care if it’s limbless, if it has a penis.”

Jokes aside, why is it that we feel the need to treat women differently when they are mothers? Not in terms of giving them a seat on the bus or letting them in front of you in a bathroom line — but when it comes to stuff like pretending to care that your coworker got a sonogram or acting excited that your friend from high school is naming her unborn Riyleigh? Should we put women on a pedestal and treat them as untouchable bastions of goodness just because some sperm managed to find an egg? Or are we allowed to make fun of the fact that sometimes, pregnant women are smug?