It’s interesting that no one cares very much about women doing anything “naturally” until it involves their being in excruciating pain.

No one ever asks a man if he’s having a “natural root canal.” No one ever asks if a man is having a “natural vasectomy.”

This is why I generally believe, and of course I know there are exceptions, but I’m just saying, usually, you should get the epidural.

The criterion for whether we are doing our jobs as women “correctly”— and, yes, it’s a job — is more often than not how many of our own wants and needs we are putting aside. We want to eat, but since everyone likes us better when our weight is the same number as our body temperature, we must learn to be hungry. And we can’t acknowledge we’re hungry, because no one wants to think about skinniness as something that takes work. This is why half the ingénues on the Oscars red carpet feel compelled to say they just scarfed down a cheeseburger on the way to the show.

Weight is just one slice of the pie chart (remember, don’t eat pie) where women are supposed to shun their desires for the satisfaction of everyone around us. The expectation of sacrifice — regarding sex, childbirth, career, the caretaking of children and aging parents — is the axis around which so many women’s lives revolve. Men, of course, face pressure around standards of masculinity, but there is not the same jeweler’s loupe scrutiny over every bodily centimeter, and every one of their life decisions.

Which brings us back to why you should get the epidural.

“But what about the science?” some women (and many men) will say. “There is science showing all the risks of an epidural!” Well, again, I am not a doctor, but I do have the internet. And I’ve Googled the pros and cons extensively, which is very close to what a doctor would do.

According to my research, there are some small risks: A tiny percentage of women experience a severe headache. Headaches aren’t great, but I was already getting a headache just thinking about giving birth without an epidural. Your blood pressure might drop, but they monitor that. There are scarier complications — for example, you might end up needing an emergency C-section — but you might end up needing one if you try to give birth naturally. Some doctors say epidurals slow labor down, but I spoke to doctors who believe it can actually speed it up. And there is plenty of science saying epidurals are overwhelmingly safe, as well.