What We Missed
Dr. Tiller's murder makes many medical students doubt if they want to be abortion providers.
Ben & Jerry's renames ice cream in support of same sex marriage. And the Family Research Council thinks that the low number of Vermont same-sex marriages means LGBT folks don't actually want to get married. How conveeeenient.
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"What many women suspect" is better phrasing than "what every woman knows." Unless every woman has conducted a survey using the statistical sampling method appropriate to the problem, then every woman does not know that eating disordered behavior is worse now than in the 80s.
I don't doubt that a lot of people are discouraged from becoming abortion providers, but I also believe that Dr. Tiller's murder has actually encouraged a lot of people to learn how to do abortions and to provide them. Groups like Medical Students for Choice have received much more support since Dr. Tiller's assassination, and Dr. Carhart has apparently received requests from 3 physicians to receive training to do abortions since May 31st.
I don't blame those who have chosen not to perform abortions because of concern for their life or for their families and whatnot. The threat is very real, and should be taken seriously. Abortion providers today are extremely courageous, they all deserve our thanks, our prayers, and our support.
I love the Hubby Hubby thing - but yet again we see lesbians erased in this debate. It's allllll about the phallus.
From what I know about the gay rights movement, support gay male couples and for lesbian couples has been kind of mutually beneficial. Like if someone says "i think two men should be able to marry" it can be assumed that they also think two women should be allowed to marry. Am I wrong about this? Is there a large, gendered division within the gay rights movement that I'm not aware of? Just wondering.
Usually when you hear someone ranting against gay marriage they are talking about two men. It can safely said that those same people are also against two women getting married but it is often not mentioned.
On the supporting side I see pretty equal use. I see so many graphics that showed three couples: two men, two women, and a man and a woman.
The temporary name is just a play on the flavor's real name "Chubby Hubby".
I saw so happy to read about the Ben & Jerry's thing, and then... Hubby Hubby? I guess they only support gay men getting married...
I share your concern; maybe they just haven't thought of a name for the women's version. Wifey Wifey? They should at least focus-group that one.
But PRETZELS in ice cream?! Where are the sanctity people now that we really need them? :-(
That ice cream already existed, it was called "Chubby Hubby" and it was by far my favorite! I love the salty pretzels with the sweet ice cream.
I wonder if there are other flavor's with names that could be manipulated to be about women.
There's Klondike Bar, but that probably already gets used in hate mail.
"she now watches what she eats and weighs a healthy 125 pounds"
"she was "always a fat kid" and is now 40 pounds overweight"
WTF. YOUR REPORTING IS CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM, WALL STREET JOURNAL.
If I weighed 125 lbs., I wouldn't be "healthy", I'd be unable to get out of bed.
And just what is 40 lbs. overweight? How does one know what "overweight" is? BMI? What a crock.
Yeah, I don't see how they can say "a healthy 125 pounds" without listing her height. 125 pounds is healthy at 5'0", but if I weighed 125 pounds at 5'7" I would most certainly not be healthy. And, as you said, there is nothing about being 40 pounds overweight that has anything to do with some objective measure of health.
Even listing her height is pretty useless. I'm fat, really really fat. If I weighed what the charts say I'm supposed to, that would mean I'd have come down with some sort of wasting disease.
I'm reminded of how my grandma was all excited that her cancer finally allowed her to reach her goal weight.
"there is nothing about being 40 pounds overweight that has anything to do with some objective measure of health."
While I agree with the above comment, I also don't think there is anything objectively unhealthy about being 125 lbs and 5'7"
Yes, it's unfair and biased to make judgments on people's health simply because they weigh a bit more than some arbitrary standard. But I think it's also unfair to say that weighing 125 pounds is "most certainly" unhealthy for people above a certain height. I'm aware that you may have been talking about yourself personally, but there could be people of that exact height and weight reading this who would not appreciate the implications you are making about their health.
Um, I'm 5'7" and weigh 122 and I'm perfectly healthy. I've also weighed more and been perfectly healthy. Can we stop just saying if you're X height and X weight than you cannot be healthy?
I understand everyone's reaction, and I'm sorry for my comment, but I'm pretty sure I said, "if I weighed 125 pounds at 5'7" I would most certainly not be healthy." See that? I said "I," not
"everyone who is 5'7."
Okay I missed the "I." I'll give you that.
But you did say "125 pounds is healthy at 5'0"..." and from that one could infer you were making a general statement and then you went on to talk about 125 at 5'7". Basically you were making an implied comparison saying at 5'0" it would be healthy but at 5'7" it wouldn't be.
Yes, sorry, you're right, moving on.
Well I'm 5'0 at 114 lbs and I am perfectly healthy. IMO, I think that weight is relative to the individual, their bone frame, where they gain their weight, and how they carry it.
I don't think that anyone but a physician with the client's best interests regarding their health in mind could really determnine whether a person is over or under their ideal weight range.
While I would love to lose about 7 lbs for aesthetic purposes (since I carry my weight unproportionately), my health is not in danger, I am very active, full of energy, and quite happy.
I think these charts, and people trying to place other people's weight on a chart only serve to cause self-esteem issues.
What would society be like if people had made disordered eating the public health issue instead of obesity? Hmm. We keep hearing of how girls are dieting at younger ages but not enough people seem to care very much.
I have suffered from bulimia since 7th grade and it disheartened me to read the comments on the WSJ article.
Most of them try to use the "obesity crisis" to negate the importance of eating disorders. From personal experience, bulimia carries with health problems at least as bad as obesity -- from scarred hands, rotten teeth, esophagus corrosion, internal organ damage, to possibly death. How does real impact of obesity diminish the real impact of eating disorders?
Others attempt to use some strain of evolutionary psychology to prove that thin women are "biologically" more desirable.
"Male visual centers are set by evolution to recognize a favorable waist to hip ratio. Furthermore, her waist needs to be flat, indicating that she has not had children... male viewpoints are not cognitively controlled."
"...about how men possibly desire thin women because a larger women suggests that she is already pregnant... Men are biologically prefer thin women because it means they are available to reproduce."
Of course, rather than offering any useful scientific viewpoints on eating disorders, the above commenters merely want to absolve all males of any kind of hand in their occurrence.
Their theories also fail to address several points. For example, if eating disorders mainly result from a "natural" preference to thin females, why do males suffer from eating disorders? In the wild, wouldn't a very thin body likely point to malnourishment, where such females would have much more trouble carrying children? I also seem to remember a study revealing the males preferred curvy women when it came to sexual selection.
Then, of course, you have plain misogynistic comments. "Amazing that all these girls were more interesting in 4th grade than they are adults. What is it about womanhood that just sucks the life out of you?" "This article is great comic relief."
I would like to see more acceptance of eating disorders as actual life-threatening problems. At least for me, admitting my bulimia involved a great deal of shame, especially when it comes to accusations like -- "Why don't you just stop?" -- something I already always asked myself.
At worst, the focus on obesity versus eating disorders would seem to reveal an interesting perspective of mainstream American ideals of appearance. After all, as long as girls with EDs stay thin, what's the problem? It's those unsightly fat ones we need to worry about.
I also seem to remember a study revealing the males preferred curvy women when it came to sexual selection.
Yeah. It's more of a cultural and environmental cue. There are plenty of communities where men prefer heavier women (0.8 ratio, for example). These are communities and cultures where women provide considerable outside resources for the family, such as gathered food or income. The study claimed that these communities are "more egalitarian" but I'm not sure by what basis they are making that claim.
In cultures where women are expected to contribute fewer outside resources, men prefer thinner bodies.
Apparently, the US in the middle of the spectrum.
One thing I don't get though is that anecdotally, it really does seem like men and women have similar preferences for body types and actually share similar body types. For example both men and women in an unnamed southern European metropolis are thin (by American standards). The women I can kinda understand (since the city is a fashion capital and all) but the men have so little muscle mass such that to most American eyes they appear simply too thin. So I can really appreciate how much of this stuff is seen through cultural lenses.
I noticed the same thing in China, Brazil, Mexico, Denmark...I mean whatever the current state of affairs is, both men and women seem to be in the same boat in terms of being overweight or normal weight. Same for the US.
In the wild, wouldn't a very thin body likely point to malnourishment, where such females would have much more trouble carrying children?
The evolutionary/genetic argument usually runs along these lines:
Thinness, to the human social mind, is generally taken to be a sign of not eating as much. Thus, someone who is thin in a time when food is easily accessible will not be as susceptible to the effects of famine, because s/he is already used to eating less.
...But this explanation only makes sense if we accept that primordial humans as a general whole correlated thinness and eating less--in other words, if we assume that what we think is what they thought, even though scientifically we know the correlation to be sketchy.
And, of course, the explanation does not account for many men's articulated desire for the skinny girl who "eats like a guy."
Thinness, to the human social mind, is generally taken to be a sign of not eating as much.
But isn't it also a sign of illness? I specifically remember the study where men where shown pictures of women with a 0.7 ratio and described the women as looking ill. This was in a community where the preference for women was shifted toward heavier bodies.
Considering that humans didn't understand the nature of infectious diseases until recently, this make more sense to me. That is, there is a more pressing need to pick out individual who are ill than those who *might not* eat as much.
Especially since many ancient communities were supposedly tight nit and shared food, so I reckon people *knew* exactly what everyone ate, including the thin people. And they likely got roughly the same proportion of food as everyone else.
It doesn't even make sense why someone would *even* eat considerably fewer calories in a pre-industrial society, unless they were ill.
To me the reverse thinking would make more sense. That heavier bodies during food shortages signal someone who is able to withstand a famine. This should therefore be the baseline preference, since apparently history has been dotted with periods when calories were scarce, unpredictable famines, droughts and then crop failures.
Personally (I have no data to back this up, but the theory has been put out there) but I think today we've adapted to a culture where food is over-abundant. Thinness is about class now.
Furthermore, it seems that more and more men are acquiring preferences that are not rooted in biology but rather are rooted in class, such as skin tone. This suggests more fluidity in preferences than we give nature credit for.
Oh, I'm just repeating the evo psych theory, not agreeing with it. It seems a little sketchy to me--a desperate effort to explain the genetic aspect of anorexia nervosa.
It doesn't even make sense why someone would *even* eat considerably fewer calories in a pre-industrial society, unless they were ill.
Self-starvation has been seen as a sign of holiness in numerous religions/cultures. There are *loads* of European medieval accounts, for example, of saintly women surviving for weeks or even years on nothing but the Eucharist (bread and wine).
Oh, I'm just repeating the evo psych theory, not agreeing with it.
I know. Me too :)
And good point about the spirituality thing.
Regarding the Vermont thing, it boils down to three things:
1) Recession -- people don't have money right now to spend on a wedding.
2) Civil Unions -- Vermont was the first state to offer them, and many of the couples who wanted a state-recognized union have already availed themselves of that and then got married in a church. There is a lot of confusion about what would be required in order to move from a Civil Union to a Marriage: Does the CU need to be annulled first? Is it worth it since the marriage *still* will not be recognized federally?
3) Worry -- After Prop 8 yanked marriage away from gays and lesbians in California, there is a legitimate concern that Vermont will see a similar initiative. Believe it or not, Vermont can be just as conservative as South Carolina in some areas and there is a possibility that the state (which has elected a Conservative republican governor three times in a row now) will take away the right.
Also, Dude, it just went into effect on Monday. Can't these assholes at least wait for the weekend--when most people traditionally get married--before they call this a bust?
After Prop 8 yanked marriage away from gays and lesbians in California, there is a legitimate concern that Vermont will see a similar initiative.
It was passed by a super majority capable of overriding the governors veto. Further as far as I know Vermont, unlike California, has a sane state constitution, making it highly unlikely that it will face a serious challenge.
Word. I am so fed up with ridiculous state initiatives that were put on the ballot because someone could fund them. State legislators may move slowly, but they'll usually do the right thing without having to "let the people" decide via ballot initiative.
Harassing paid signature gatherers is somewhat of a hobby for me.
Re: #3
I would think that would offer incentive to get married immediately. Same-sex marriages performed prior to Prop 8 are still legally recognized in California. In other words, the people that rushed to wed are the only same sex couples with equal rights to heterosexual couples.