By Angela B. Ryan
Before I was pregnant, I judged colleagues who were. If they arrived late to court, looked disheveled, or weren’t as sharp as I was, I thought, “Pull it together. Women’s bodies were ‘designed for it,’ weren’t they?” I cringe now, but I admit it: I rolled my eyes. I was ignorant. Then I got pregnant.
Not once, not twice, but three times—in less than four years. I spent 27 months total as a pregnant working lawyer. Suddenly I was no longer the critical observer. I was the body under inspection, and I found, to my horror, that my body had become a commodity.
The courtroom stroke
When I practiced law and was not pregnant, I received the occasional compliment on a dress or a bag—nothing memorable, nothing unusual. So, I was unprepared when I first started showing, and suddenly, my appearance was fodder for courtroom discussion. Judges called me “cute,” and court criers talked at length about my “adorable” belly. Colleagues said I was “glowing,” or simply, “You look amazing!” As though appearing put together was an unexpected surprise.
Before one particularly contested hearing, opposing counsel reached across the table and stroked my stomach in front of the judge. He touched, he rubbed, he “thought he felt a kick!” He wasn’t being kind; he was performing. The courtroom laughed. My autonomy disappeared.
And here’s the irony: I never lost a hearing while visibly pregnant. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and it was definitely not because I was at my sharpest—I was nauseous, exhausted, sometimes barely holding on. I think it was the fear of emotional lability associated with “the pregnant woman,” or subconscious caution not to “upset” someone in a medically fragile state. No one wanted to be the judge who made an eight-month-pregnant lawyer cry in court. Pregnancy itself became my most persuasive exhibit. The advantage wasn’t rooted in merit but in spectacle. And the cost was my autonomy.
The Stroke, the Rub, the Rib Rub
It was a stroke not of luck, but of assault.
A stroke of the hand across my belly, in chambers, in public, in court. A stroke of my autonomy, a stroke too far.
Some call it the Rub—as though a softer word makes it less grotesque. The Rub. Like a massage. Like a joke. Like a barbecue ad. But it wasn’t friendly. It was colleagues, strangers, even opposing counsel laying claim to my body through my dress, my skirt, my suit—while I stood silent.
One friend called it the Rib Rub. Maybe that’s the most accurate, because it was exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds. Funny when you say it out loud, but invasive when it happened.
That’s the power of language. Stroke, rub, pat—euphemisms we use to sanitize what it really is: assault. And when you wrap assault in a word that sounds cozy, people stop seeing it. They stop naming it. They stop protecting you from it.
Though its title differs from woman to woman—the Stroke, the Rub, the Pat, the Belly Touch—what is universal is our hatred of it. We don’t laugh because it’s funny. We laugh because it’s absurd, because it’s sanctioned, because we have no choice but to swallow the rage. But underneath? We all hate it. Every single one of us.
A professional blind spot
In any other context, stroking a colleague’s body in chambers or in court would be recognized as harassment. Our profession demands more—we hold ourselves to standards that require avoiding not only impropriety, but even the appearance of impropriety. A lawyer stroking the abdomen of a pregnant colleague in court, or a judge allowing it, is improper by any measure.
The law already recognizes this. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination “because of pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions.” And the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has made clear that harassment based on pregnancy—including unwelcome physical conduct—can constitute unlawful sex discrimination. Yet in practice, the belly stroke is rarely addressed.
Anthropologists call pregnancy a “liminal state”—visible, symbolic, reframed as public property. Sociologists find that unwanted belly touching is one of the few forms of assault women describe as publicly sanctioned. Public health research shows that stress hormones triggered by violation don’t just affect mothers; they affect babies. This isn’t etiquette. It’s a workplace culture problem, a professionalism problem and a public health problem rolled into one.
The memo to the bar
What are we doing? You wouldn’t stroke a colleague’s arm in court. You wouldn’t stroke a stranger’s newborn without permission. And yet you can stroke the unborn through the mother’s body, while everyone else smiles? This is lunacy. It must end.
Here’s the memo I want sent:
SUBJECT: STOP TOUCHING PREGNANT WOMEN!!!
BODY: Do not touch a pregnant person without explicit consent. Period.
It’s small. It’s immediate. It’s enforceable. Train courthouse staff. Add it to HR manuals. Educate judges. Write it into workplace harassment policies. Put it in orientation binders. One line: Do not touch.
Closing argument
I am writing from the other side. I survived 27 months of sanctioned strokes. I am, in that sense, an assault survivor—not in the cinematic sense, but in the real one: My body was touched without consent, in front of colleagues and judges, while everyone smiled.
I confess my ignorance in the ways I viewed pregnant women in the workplace before I became one. I judged, and I wasn’t just unfair, I was wrong. There is no one worthy of more admiration in the workplace than the pregnant woman—showing up in discomfort, in pain, often without sleep and always without enough snacks. I am ashamed of my prior ignorance. But I am also angry at a wrong unchecked, which I now see so clearly. And, partially in penance for my former ignorance, I am here to set the record straight.
Pregnancy is hard. Consent does not end with conception. We need to do better. The legal profession should make overt, explicit attempts to redress this issue—in policy, in training and in culture.
We can debate forced births, reproductive rights and the bigger battles another day. For now, fix this smaller one. Abolish the Stroke. Abolish the Rub. Abolish the Rib Rub. Whatever you call it, stop touching pregnant women without consent. And yes, that includes women stroking other women’s bellies. Keep your hands to yourselves.
Because it was never sweet. It was never glowing. It was never your right.
It was assault. And it was a stroke too far.
Angela B. Ryan is a lawyer, a mother of four and a former adjunct law professor at Villanova University, where she taught about children and the law. She writes about the intersection of law, motherhood and professional culture.
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