I agree that some of the outrage towards People's Trunk's tweeted miscarriage is because she wasn't more upset about losing a baby. But I think some of the upset is the medium, not the message: I am among those who finds Twitter to be an unfortunate place for the dissemination of this sort of information. I applaud Trunk's openness about her miscarriage, and think women should be encouraged to talk about their experiences. However, 140 characters does not leave a person much room to discuss the nuances of their situations.

After her notorious Tweet, Penelope Trunk wrote an eloquent blog post about her miscarriage and how miscarriages affect working women. However, in her post, she also writes, "To all of you who said a miscarriage is gross: Are you unaware that the same blood you expel from a miscarriage is what you expel during menstruation? Are you aware that many people are having sex during menstruation and getting it on the sheets? Are you aware that many women actually like period sex?" I don't find miscarriage gross or talking about it to be wrong, but I don't want to read Tweets about period sex either. Or a male equivalent: I have no desire to see a Tweet about your vasectomy or your swamp butt. I find Trunk making her Tweet into a moment about reproductive freedom is somewhat disengenuous. Am I trying to silence Trunk? No way. Am I saying her experience is wrong or invalid? Not remotely. Am I turned off by her tweet and some of the more extreme aspects of our too-much-information culture? Absolutely.

Tags: miscarriage, Penelope Trunk, reproductive freedom

Blogger Penelope Trunk should feel free to tweet her miscarriage. Because women have miscarriages and abortions. And then don't talk about it. But we should.

When I first read Penelope Trunk's tweet, I winced. Overshare seemed like an understatement. But Trunk shares most details of her life, so why shouldn't she put this one out there? If you've had a miscarriage or abortion, for any reason, then you know that they have one thing in common besides the obvious: Before it happens, you don't think you know anyone else who's lost or aborted a fetus. Afterward, you find out you're far from alone. Women aren't very open about their experiences with miscarriage, and we're even less open about our abortions: Since 28 percent of women have had an abortion (40 percent of women between 40 and 55) and 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, then every one of us knows someone who's been there. It's just that your friend—your mom, your grandmother—never talks about it.

Pregnancy, miscarriage, and menstruation are all just bodily functions, and like all bodily functions, our control over them is more imprecise and tenuous than we would like. But we seem to reserve a special layer of shame and condemnation for the bodily functions that happen only to women. So here's my second thought for Penelope Trunk: Thanks. Because not talking about a miscarriage or an abortion—or all the complicated feelings that can get rolled up in both—because it's just too personal is fine. But not talking about it because no one else ever talks about it—so maybe we're just not supposed too—is not. Which makes living in a world where Penelope Trunk can toss off a miscarriage, a desired abortion, and her generally cranky feelings about both in 140 characters or less ... priceless.

Tags: abortion, miscarriage, Penelope Trunk

Apparently, I'm one of the few people who read Penelope Trunk's now infamous tweet ("I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.") who wasn't even remotely bothered by it. I found it to be an elegant instance of the power of Twitter and the way people have learned to pack so much information into 140 characters. We as a culture applaud men who come up with choice quotes to describe death, courage, and war, but if a woman employs brevity to express relief at a miscarriage, suddenly there's an outcry against the dangers of getting to the point.

Trunk has rounded up some of the responses she received on Twitter, in blog comments, and on other blogs. Mainly, the scolding seemed to be focused on her tone. She was instructed to be sadder, or at least perform emotions she wasn't experiencing in order to placate those who want women to always be mindful that our reproductive functions are both disgusting and sacrosanct. She also got some anti-abortion sentimental nonsense, but Trunk understands that's just the most severe expression of the idea that women's bodies are both disgusting and sacrosanct. We as a nation are confused, and we expect women having "female troubles" to do a tap-dance around our confusion. Whether it's pregnancy, periods, miscarriage, or abortion, we're both supposed to adhere to the idea that the uterus is the most serious of organs (beating out the brain by a long shot), and to feel guilty and ashamed for being gross.

And it's not just women who don't want to be mothers right now who face this sort of nastiness. When I put the link of Trunk's retort onto Twitter, I got a response from a woman who told me her recent hellish story of flying while pregnant. She got her boarding pass, only to discover that they had put her in the dreaded center seat, which would have been OK if she weren't suffering from severe morning sickness exacerbated by the motion of the plane. When she politely asked her male seatmates if they would mind shuffling around so she could have the aisle, they acted disgusted that she even dare draw attention to her condition and refused. She did not say whether she punished them by using every slight bump of the plane as an excuse to get up and run to the bathroom, but I kind of hope she did.

When will we as a nation grow up and accept that the uterus is just another organ, even though it's an important one? Female owners of uteruses should be allowed to regard them as we do any other body part, as part of our subjective experience in life. If I break my leg, I'm permitted the right to define that experience, and if I felt a lot or a little pain and fear, no one will insist that I do some sort of kabuki of the emotions they want me to have. Why can't a miscarriage receive the same level of respect? Truth be told, I wish more women were open about their experiences with miscarriage. If the public at large had to face up to the fact that not every miscarriage is met with a vale of tears, that could have a dramatic impact on how we regard pregnancy, abortion, and women's diverse experiences with our reproductive functions.

Tags: miscarriage, Penelope Trunk, reproductive freedom

Via Gawker, the wife of Twitter founder Ev Williams, Sara Morishige Williams, tweeted last night about her water breaking. "Dear Twitter, My water broke. It wasn't like Charlotte in Sex and the City. Now timing contractions on an iPhone app." This reads like a New Yorker parody of Silicon Alley power couples. First she tweeted the gush of water from her loins, then she let the public know: "Epidural, yes please."

Nina and Emily wrote yesterday about parents who are so glued to their laptops in the early morning hours that they're not having as much breakfast quality time. This flurry of Tweets makes me wonder: Will my generation put their iPhones away long enough to even hold their babies once they're pushed out? I understand wanting to document a meaningful event in your life, but there is something to be said for actually experiencing these sorts of things, rather than furiously documenting them while they're happening.

Tags: ev williams