She tweeted ‘I’m having a miscarriage’ while in a meeting

Oh where to start. It’s not often that issues like social media, miscarriage and abortion collide in one news story but welcome to The World 2.0. The short version of this story is that career ‘guru’ Penelope Trunk used Twitter to announce to her 20,000 followers that she was having a miscarriage while she sat in a board meeting.

The longer version is no less confronting although it is slightly more illuminating. And it certainly raises a few issues about taboos and what is appropriate to share online with strangers via Twitter.

Her actual tweet was this:

Penelope Trunk is a careers advisor who wrote a book in 2007 called ‘The Brazen Careerist’ , has a blog of the same name and was, until recently, CEO of her own company called, wait for it, The Brazen Careerist.

Well, we get the Brazen part. On the personal front, she is a divorced mother of two.

When the storm erupted, here’s what she said to CNN:

‘I have no regrets. I actually thought that having a miscarriage at work was no big shakes. It seems like everyone in the whole world would prefer a miscarriage over an abortion – even the Pope. It’s no different to me saying what I had for lunch. I am not really sure why people are offended. To those who don’t want to know, what would I say? Don’t log on.”

Here is her interview with CNN where she discusses what happened:

While the media explode with condemnation, Penelope Trunk used her own blog to give her side of the story. She wrote:

“Recently I ran the following twitter: “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.”

Why the uproar over this twitter?

Not only have bloggers written whole posts about the disgustingness of it, but 70 people unfollowed me, and people actually came to my blog and wrote complaints about the twitter on random, unrelated posts.

So, to all of you who think the twitter was outrageous, think about this:

Most miscarriages happen at work. Twenty-five percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Seventy-five percent of women who are of child-bearing age are working. Most miscarriages run their course over weeks. Even if you are someone who wanted the baby and are devastated by the loss, you’re not going to sit in bed for weeks. You are going to pick up your life and get back to it, which includes going back to work.

This means that there are thousands of miscarriages in progress, at work, on any given day. That we don’t acknowledge this is absurd. That it is such a common occurrence and no one thinks it’s okay to talk about is terrible for women.

Throughout history, the way women have gained control of the female experience is to talk about what is happening, and what it’s like. We see that women’s lives are more enjoyable, more full, and women are more able to summon resilience when women talk openly about their lives.

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? Wait. Here is a link I love, at askmen.com, telling men that women like it so much that men need to be aware of this preference.

To all of you who are aghast that I let myself get pregnant: having sex is playing with odds. There are no 100% sure methods of birth control. I am 42 years old. The likelihood of someone my age getting pregnant even with fertility treatment is less than 5%. The likelihood that a pregnancy in someone my age ends in a miscarriage is almost 75%. This means that even if I had done nothing for birth control it would have been as effective as a 25-year-old using a condom. So everyone who is complaining that I’m an idiot for getting pregnant should go buy a calculator.

To all of you who said I should not be happy about having a miscarriage: You are the ones short on empathy. Any woman who is pregnant but wishes she weren’t would of course be grateful when she has a miscarriage. Yes, there are many women who want the baby and have a miscarriage. I was one of them. I cried for days. I get it.

But if you have ever had an abortion, which I have, you would know that a miscarriage is preferable to an abortion. Even the Pope would agree with that.

And what is up with the fact that just one, single person commented about how Wisconsin has a three-week waiting period for abortions? It is absolutely outrageous how difficult it was going to be for me to get an abortion, and it’s outrageous that no one is outraged.

Wisconsin is one of twelve states that have 24-hour waiting periods. This puts a huge burden on an overworked system. These are also the states where there are few ways to get an abortion. For example, in Wisconsin, the only place to get abortion that is covered by insurance is at a Planned Parenthood clinic. There are 3 of them in all of Wisconsin. In Chicago, you can get an abortion at Planned Parenthood with less than 24 hours notice. In Wisconsin, there is a week and a half wait to get the first meeting and a week and half wait to get the abortion.

A digression: I’m linking to Planned Parenthood so everyone can make a donation. This organization is enabling women to have the right to abortion. Planned Parenthood seems to be the only effective, community-level force against states that are attempting to legislate the choice into oblivion.

To all of you who think this has nothing to do with work:

I think what really upsets people is the topic. We are not used to talking about the female experience, and especially not in the context of work. But so what? We can start now. The female experience is part of work. What we talk about when we talk about work defines how we integrate work into our lives. If work is going to support our lives, then we need to talk about how our lives interact with work. We need to be honest about the interaction if we hope to be honest about our work.

Where to start? After reading that, I’m currently sitting on my arse where I’ve been knocked over by the sheer enormity of issues here and my inablity to unpack them in 140 characters. What I think is most useful is to try and work out WHAT it is about this story that feels (to me anyway) so repugnant.

Yes, abortion and miscarriage are in many ways taboo. They are also, inherently, private. I guess it is every individual’s right to express whatever they want about their private lives and their bodies. It is also our right to choose what information we receive – hence the 70 out of 20,000 Penelope Trunk Twitter followers who chose to stop following her after receiving that Tweet.

Everyone has different lines about what they’re prepared to share. I don’t know many any people who would see Twitter as an appropriate forum to discuss miscarriage or abortion but….maybe this is really is Life 2.0?

For me, I think I find it awful and confronting because Twitter is such a disposible, public medium (that’s one of the reasons I love it) and it just clashes horribly with issues like abortion and miscarriage which, for most women, are so saturated in such deep emotion.

To be fair, she does make a distinction about having a miscarriage when the pregnancy was wanted (she had one of those previously and says she was very sad) and having one when it wasn’t and how that is more of a relief.

But I think she really loses me at the point where she mentions in her CNN interview that lots of women have miscarriages at work and that “it’s no big deal”. I’m here to say it is a HUGE deal. For me and for all the women I know who have had miscarriages at work or at home or anywhere, it is a HUGE MASSIVE GIGANTIC deal.

What do you think?

[thanks Jodie and all those other MM’ers who alerted me to this story via Twitter]