‘My vagina split,” begins Keira Knightley in a rage-filled, amniotic fluid-soaked howl of an essay about childbirth, in her contribution to the book Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies. “You came out with your eyes open. Arms up in the air. Screaming.” Knightley, who recently spoke out about her psychological problems at the height of her fame and seems as if she is on some courageous #MeToo-inspired truth-telling binge, continues. She describes, “the shit, the vomit, the blood, the stitches”. The “blood running down my thighs, arse, cellulite”. The animal love and shock of motherhood, so dramatically opposed to the soft, bullshit version we are spoon-fed with our folic acid. It is one woman’s experience of birth, viscerally and breathlessly recounted – and it will be familiar to many. What to Expect When You’re Expecting, this is not.
Unfortunately, the response is equally familiar: the accusations of mum-shaming, the personal attacks barely hidden behind faux-feminist head-shaking, and the disavowals of Knightley’s feminism. Why? Because she dared to criticise the way another woman’s birth was circumscribed. Describing the experience of watching the Duchess of Cambridge (who gave birth the day after her) appearing from hospital “seven hours later with her face made up and high heels on”, Knightley writes: “Look beautiful, look stylish, don’t show your battleground Kate.” Meanwhile, Knightley’s own shoes remained “crusted and sticky with the amniotic fluid of yesterday. They smell.”
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