Name for It: Misogyny

Just a thing on my mind.
It's been on my mind for years.

When I was young, I got pregnant. Right?
I had so much pain and judgement from that. People who labeled me whore.

But it was like it happened to me alone. I carried the stigma. I lived with the so-called disgrace. I was humiliated in a million different ways, and for years. In my family, I was smeared and stigmatized...I became the pariah. It was actually weird because I clearly wasn't the worst kid in the world, but being sexually active...oh geez, we can't have that! I wasn't even the only kid in the family (sibs, cousins, others, etc) who was sexually active. I mean, really, the stories I knew about other people... I was treated like tramp even though I was in a long-term relationship with the guy. Sheesh.

Anyway, both during and after my pregnancy I was person who was labeled; I was the besmirched name; * I was the ne'er-do-well. 

Guess who didn't lose either face or reputation.
My boyfriend.

Oh sure, he got some crap up front. Sure, his mother gave him the omnipresent Catholic guilt, but over all he was fine. The long run? He went on with his life. No problems with work. No problems with friends. No lingering problems with his family. He didn't even seem to have any depression, as I did for years. And no names. He was called no names. Not a single one.

Why is that?
No, really?
Why is it that the mother gets to be, as his mother called me, The Whore of Babylon? Why was he allowed to just skip away? No, I care enough for him that I truly didn't want him to have this same problem, but why is it this way? I carried that letter A for many years, many, many years, while he just walked away unscathed**. 

I don't know, just an old, never before voiced, rant.

In the meantime, the baby?
She was adopted as a newborn.
She's now 41 years old, married, mother of two. If she EVER comes here and sees this picture, she'll be angry. And rightly so. 
But here she is, my daughter and her beautiful family.   --------------------------->


* ME! I mean, do you know me? Geeeesh.
** Actually there is a name for this, it's misogyny, gender inequality, sexism.

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