Factual knowledge about birth cannot override visceral dread for girls

Evidence

And once the first surprise has passed, the monthly unpleasantness does not fade away at all: each time, the girl finds the same disgust when faced by this unappetizing and stagnant odor that comes from herself—a smell of swamps and wilted violets—this less red and more suspicious blood than that flowing from children’s cuts and scratches. Day and night she has to think of changing her protection, watching her underwear, her sheets, and solving a thousand little practical and repugnant problems; in thrifty families sanitary napkins are washed each month and take their place among the piles of handkerchiefs; this waste coming out of oneself has to be delivered to those handling the laundry: the laundress, servant, mother, or older sister. The types of bandages pharmacies sell in boxes named after flowers, Camellia or Edelweiss, are thrown out after use; but while traveling, on vacation, or on a trip it is not so easy to get rid of them, the toilet bowl being specifically prohibited. The young heroine of the Psychoanalytical Journal described her horror of the sanitary napkin; she did not even consent to undress in front of her sister except in the dark during these times. This bothersome, annoying object can come loose during violent exercise; it is a worse humiliation than losing one’s knickers in the middle of the street: this horrid possibility sometimes brings about fits of psychasthenia. By a kind of ill will of nature, indisposition and pain often do not begin until the initial bleeding—often hardly noticed—has passed; young girls are often irregular: they might be surprised during a walk, in the street, at friends’; they risk—like Mme de Chevreuse—dirtying their clothes or their seat; such a possibility makes one live in constant anxiety. The greater the young girl’s feeling of revulsion toward this feminine defect, the greater her obligation to pay careful attention to it so as not to expose herself to the awful humiliation of an accident or a little word of warning. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 750 (#expands, via linked claim)

Birth control and legal abortion would allow women to control their pregnancies freely. In fact, what decides woman’s fecundity is in part a considered desire and in part chance. As long as artificial insemination is not widely practiced, a woman might desire to become pregnant but be unable to—because either she does not have relations with men, or her husband is sterile, or she is unable to conceive. And, on the other hand, she is often forced to give birth against her will. Pregnancy and motherhood are experienced in very different ways depending on whether they take place in revolt, resignation, satisfaction, or enthusiasm. One must keep in mind that the decisions and feelings the young mother expresses do not always correspond to her deep desires. An unwed mother can be overwhelmed in material terms by the burden suddenly imposed on her, be openly distressed by it, and yet find in the child the satisfaction of secretly harbored dreams; inversely, a young married woman who joyfully and proudly welcomes her pregnancy can fear it in silence, hate it with obsessions, fantasies, and infantile memories that she herself refuses to recognize. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1433 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The reassurance offered by grown-ups leaves the child worried; growing up, she learns not to trust the word of adults; often it is on the very mysteries of her conception that she has caught them in lies; and she also knows that they consider the most frightening things normal; if she has ever experienced a violent physical shock—tonsils removed, tooth pulled, whitlow lanced—she will project the remembered anxiety onto childbirth. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 717 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Menstrual hygiene’s practical burdens transform girls’ bodily revulsion into chronic anxiety about discovery — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 750; Mistrust of adults about sexuality magnifies a girl’s fear of childbirth — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 717; Puberty’s bodily changes alienate the girl from herself and the world — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 835 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Menstrual hygiene’s practical burdens transform girls’ bodily revulsion into chronic anxiety about discovery #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 750
• Expressed attitudes toward pregnancy mask women’s contradictory and repressed inner feelings. #exemplifies (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1433
• Mistrust of adults about sexuality magnifies a girl’s fear of childbirth #corroborates (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 717
• Puberty’s bodily changes alienate the girl from herself and the world #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 835