Pregnant Meteorologist Fires Back at Critics

It's no secret that women who work on camera have it tougher than their male counterparts.

Men age gracefully, while women are pressured to keep looking young. A man with wrinkles is distinguished, while a woman with wrinkles is old.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to me then that pregnant women newscasters are often targets of vile, hate-filled comments about their appearance. It shouldn't surprise me, yet it does. It also makes me sad, both as a woman and a someone who is currently pregnant.

No one I work with, or for, has called me names since my belly started growing. Instead, people have been gracious. Telling me I'm glowing or how great I look, or questioning I'm really as far along as I say I am because I'm tiny.

But for Katie Fehlinger, a meteorologist at a CBS affiliate in Philadelphia, that hasn't been the case.

Thirty-five weeks pregnant with twin girls, Fehlinger said she tried to ignore the negative comments she received. Comments like she looked like a "sausage in casing," or "sticking (her) pregnant abdomen out like that is disgusting." Finally, Fehlinger answered back on her Facebook page, in a message meant more for pregnant women out there, rather than her haters.

"You are beautiful," she wrote. "Even during the most uncomfortable - and let's face it, less than glamorous - symptoms of pregnancy, what women go through to bring their precious children into the world is, simply put, AMAZING and you should be lauded.

"Frankly, I don't care how 'terrible' or 'inappropriate' anyone thinks I look. I will gladly gain 50 pounds & suffer sleepless, uncomfortable nights if it means upping my chances to deliver 2 healthy baby girls."

She notes that while everyone has a right to their opinion, it's also worth remembering the old-age advice: If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Fehlinger is not the only pregnant meteorologist (seriously, why do weather women get such a beating about their appearance!) who has stepped up this year to tackle the abuse viewers have been giving her about her image.

Back in April, Global BC's Kristi Gordon responded on the air to similar comments viewers had about her image. One viewer wrote: "Nowhere on North American TV have we seen a weather reader as gross as you. Your front end looks like the Hindenburg and your rear end looks like a brick s**t-house. We now turn off Global." And I thought us Canadians were nice folk.

Gordon said she was prepared for some of the negativity, because she had gotten it the last time she was pregnant as well. But this time, the criticism seemed to be hitting a little too close to home.

“I feel like I’m a pretty confident person, I wouldn’t be in this industry if I wasn’t. I don’t feel like this is affecting me, or has affected me,” she said on air. “But I thought about some of the things I did last night: I checked the mirror to see how big I’m getting, I asked my husband, ‘Am I not seeing it? Am I getting really big?’ It wasn’t until I went to bed that I realized that - despite us saying that these guys are crazy — it’s amazing that when you say something mean about someone it still affects them."

Pregnancy affects everyone differently. Some women gain a lot of weight, others not so much. Some women show everywhere, while others carry it all in their tummy. Like everyone else on the planet, there are days that some of my clothes fit me better than other days. My belly is growing a person after all, so it's not going to look the same way every day or every second of every day.

Let's stop judging and shaming pregnant women — both those who are on the airwaves and those who are not. There's just no need to be judgmental about something like that.

^{Image Source: Facebook}