Euryale the Gorgon

The man in this video acts as if having a child is something both he and his wife are participants in, but after the act of unprotected sex, which of the two is putting their body through pregnancy? Which is putting up with swollen ankles and morning sickness and the threat of devastating complications for nine months, again and again? Bearing a child is a solo act. This man is not a participant.

He smiles because he wanted a boy, and boy did he get what he wanted. This is not a good man. This is a cruelty.

And this still happens.

There's a woman who comes into my work with ten kids - and she's pregnant again. I have never, in all these years, seen her NOT pregnant. Even when she was supposed to stay in bed because of complications, she would drive her kids to my store and send in the oldest daughter in with a credit card and several of the younger kids in tow.

She is not the only woman I have met with children in the double digits. She will not be the last.

It does not matter if it's two kids or twelve: No woman should have to bear any number of children because it's what a man wants from her.

There is no cruelty a man can face that is anywhere near the same level of cruelty he can inflict on a woman.

There's simply nothing similar to this that a man will ever face in his lifetime. No bad job or unjust boss or angry father or poor circumstance. A man can never know this same pain that the woman in the video has lived. That the women across the world and throughout time have lived. That the woman who comes in my store still lives.

And this woman in the video - I frankly don't know how she lived it. I can't say I'd survive in this same situation. I'd go mad, try to kill this man while he slept, or ultimately try to kill myself. Eleven children, and fourteen abortions.

Bronze bracelets with gold ram's head terminals, Cyprus, 450-400 BC

Bronze sword and axes uncovered near Hajdúsámson-Hegedűs-hegy, Hungary, circa 1700-1600 BC

Egyptian vessel with a shell

1st century BCE

Gold ring with pearls and a sapphire, Italy, 16th century

Gold dragon head ornament with silver teeth, China, Six Dynasties Period, 220-589 AD

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