Pregnant meteorologist turns body-shaming bullying from viewers into a teachable moment
Meteorologist Kristi Gordon of Canada’s Global BC News recently had some hate mail sent her way in response to her visibly pregnant frame. As Yahoo reports, she read excerpts of these cruel missives in an on-air segment:
“Nowhere on North America TV have we seen a weather reader so gross as you,” she read from one letter. “Your front end looks like the Hindenburg and your rear end looks like a brick @#$%& house…”
Another piece of mail read “Buy some decent clothes and have some respect for your unborn child. You’re not the first pregnant woman. OMG.”
“We were expecting this because it happened to me last time I was pregnant, ” Gordon explained on-air. “As I got bigger I got more and more bad notes from people, saying this… there’s something about the belly, and by the way,” she says, as she stands up, turns profile, and gestures to her pregnant mid-sectiong, “you can’t hide something like this.”
She later admitted that even though she thinks the letter-writers are “crazy,” their cruel words did affect her and though she doesn’t want to give her bullies the “satisfaction” of knowing they got to her, she has found herself scrutinizing her appearance in the mirror recently, and asking her husband if she’s gotten “too big.”
“It’s amazing, when you say something mean about someone, it still affects them,” Gordon admits. “…even if you’re joking about something, it sinks in at some level, and I was not impressed with myself…it obviously had affected me.”
We are so impressed with Gordon for speaking up for herself and speaking out against bullying. It’s hard to admit how much cruel words hurt, even if you know those words are coming from a place of ignorance, and Gordon sets a great example here: acknowledge your feelings and let yourself be human for a second, and then brush off the nastiness and move the heck on.
The full video below, props are also in order for two co-anchors, hooray for sweet and supportive co-workers!