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Giving your seat up on the tube.

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17:32 / 08.05.06

4) Therefore, it is statisticaly likely that a majority of posters reading a particular thread, depending in part but not entirely on context, have not experienced late-term pregnancy.

I agree. This is, however, a qualitatively different statement from "there are only about 4 people on Barbelith who have actually been pregnant" - which is really the only point I'm making here.

17:52 / 08.05.06

Yeah, that's a much better way of putting it, and frankly had I been posting with a little less haste and a little more sobriety I probably would've forumulated my assertion rather differently. I was just trying to say that I don't think that there are many people posting regularly on the 'lith who have experienced late term pregnancy. I also think that Whiskey was wrong to tacitly suggest that the Barbebaby threads point to a significant number of posters who have.

I hope I've not given anyone the impression that I think people who haven't experienced late term pregnancy should be disqualified from talking about the subject. That would be fucking absurd.

13:58 / 09.05.06

4) Therefore, it is statisticaly likely that a majority of posters reading a particular thread, depending in part but not entirely on context, have not experienced late-term pregnancy.

However,

5) That does not necessarily entirely disqualify one from speaking about issues relating to pregnancy.

I feel a touch misrepresented by this, as I did not say that not experiencing late term pregnancy disqualified you from speaking about issues relating to pregnancy. The point of my linking to the mumsnet thread was giving pregnant women an opportunity to reply to the comments Jub made as he's clearly ill informed and bigoted about pregnancy and pregnant women. I stand by my comment that there are probably, at most, four women on Barbelith who'd be qualified to talk from experience about the discomfort and disabilities of late pregnancy, so in my estimation Jub was hardly going to hear about it from this forum.

Lets face it, Barbelith is almost exclusively made up of "Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens and Gays".

14:13 / 09.05.06

I stand by my comment that there are probably, at most, four women on Barbelith who'd be qualified to talk from experience about the discomfort and disabilities of late pregnancy, so in my estimation Jub was hardly going to hear about it from this forum.

That's rather a qualified reworking of your original comment, which was

there's probably only about four people on Barbelith who've actually been pregnant

but I appreciate the revision. I'm still uncertain how you or anyone else can know with any degree of certainty how many female posters have experienced late pregnancy - but I take your basic point.

Lets face it, Barbelith is almost exclusively made up of "Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens and Gays".

If we're discounting couples with children, isn't the world almost exclusively made up of the above? Which is, presumably, the joke in the Simpsons reference.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:20 / 09.05.06

I apologise; it was not my intention to misrepresent you. In fact, I do not believe that my point 5 was intended to represent or misrepresent any viewpoint expressed here; it was a proviso.

On Marge - shall we not face that? There are a fair few people here able and willing to talk about childrearing from experience - Sax, Saveloy, grant, Jack Fear, Boboss, alas, Tango-Mango and Lilly, just off the top of my head and hjust including the people who talk about it on the board. I think you might be right that the set of "women who have carried a child to term in their wombs" may not be great, certainly if we add the proviso "and want to talk about it". Four is an arbitrary figure, as far as I can tell, but the actual number is incalculable, so it will do as well as any.

As Ganesh says above, the response from mumsnet is salutary, not least because it did not lead to an undifferentiated chorus of condemnation - some other interesting discussions about how easy it is to identify "need to sit down" have sprung up. Certainly, a narrative in which people are invited to condemn is often gooing to lead to condemnation. However, I don't think "bigot" is a useful term to employ here, any more than I think the discussion of how many people on Barbelith have experienced late-term pregnancy on Barbelith is a very useful discussion to have, in particular if it is not relevant to one's competence to discuss this issue.

14:48 / 09.05.06

Hello, hello. Sorry for not getting back sooner. Overall wanted to say sorry if I got anyone's back up. Partly was feeling a little odd that day and partly just hacked off with a whole load of things, and the thread was ill-conceived admittedly. Of course it’s selfish – I know that!! My conclusion then, is I am selfish and kind of stupid too for inviting others to tell me how selfish I am.

I probably would give my seat up really but at the time of my thread, really felt disinclined to do so. It seems roughly 4% of people are as selfish. There is ample evidence to suggest however people do move when you ask them for whatever reason – be it pregnancy or just because you feel like a seat – as per Stanley Milgram’s famous underground test.

14:57 / 09.05.06

I suspect there's probably quite a difference, percentage-wise, between those who'll give up their seat when explicitly asked and those who'll actually initiate the interaction, the former being, I expect, higher than the latter. And, as Milgram's always been good at demonstrating, the power of situation is likely to prevail over all.

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