Food For Thought

This was just too good not to share…

I just adore this 1891 advertisement. It amazes me how much the ideal body has changed  in  the last hundred years.  These days the girl on the left would be considered healthy and the one on the right would be woefully obese and thought to suffer all sorts of weight related maladies from diabetes to high blood pressure and chronic pain.
It also speaks to our idea of what’s considered healthy.  One of the three sisters in the inset is quoted as saying:

“In four weeks professor William’s famed FAT-TEN-U FOODS increased my weight 39 pounds, gave me new womanly vigor & developed me finely. My two sisters also use FAT-TEN-U  and have gained much needed fleshiness. because of our newly found vigor we have taken up Grecian dancing and have leading roles in all local  productions.”

Similar wording could be used in one of those modern day diet advertisements in which the happy customer exclaims how much more energy she has now that she’s thin and how now she’s happy to jog and wear a bikini to the beach… you know, which would have been impossible when she was fat!

100 years ago were the fat girls the belles of the ball? Were the skinny girls the ones making excuses to stay home? Would I have spent my adolescence being proud of my curves instead of fighting a constant battle with them? Would the skinny girls have been jealous of ME?

More importantly, why has what we consider the portrait of health been completely inverted in the last hundred years? Clearly plump women in Victorian times were thought to live fuller, happier, healthier lives. Back then being fat was a sign of vitality, clearly it wasn’t thought to cause illness or slow people down, after all, the FAT-TEN-U Sisters are prancing about doing Grecian dancing and starring in local theater productions!

Judging from the enthused women in the advertisement, being fat wasn’t just thought to make you more attractive, it was thought to be healthier too. Clearly women back then weren’t worried about diabetes and other weight related problems. Did anybody even get diabetes back then?

This just goes to show that all the heath related anti-obesity saber rattling is just that — a lot of unnecessary noise. Some fat people get sick, so do lots of thin people. What we see as healthy and attractive has a lot more to do with  our culture than anything else.

Here’s a some free advice for the public: Eat good food, preferably eat things that grew out of the ground or grazed on it. Get fresh air and exercise. Whatever size you are, you’ll be healthy, no tonics, elixirs or potions required.

Awesome!

For all my lit nerd friends out there… here’s a list worth taking note of!

The Amelia Bloomer Project,* a list of kick ass female heroines in literature. Thank you, Broadsheet, for alerting me to this!

Growing up, although I found very few examples of young women I could identify with in popular culture, I discovered an abundance of them in literature. Through books I would immerse myself in a world where girls were intelligent and fearless, not perpetually lipg-lossed, fashion obsessed sidekicks. Although this may explain why I spent my adolescent as a social outcast, it also sheds light on my independence and pluckiness, traits I found emphasized almost unanimously in my favorite heroines.

As a teacher, former children’s bookstore retail clerk and all around YA Lit goofball, I have written this list a zillion times in my head and still probably forgotten some of my favorites.

So… what’s on your list, geeksters? Favorite books with badass females? favorite heroines? What’s new out there?

Hit me with it, kids!

* Named for Amelia Bloomer, one of the first American feminists and an all around far out lady. She invented the bloomers out of frustration with the lack of freedom in women’s clothing at the time. They never quite caught on but they’re still rather striking, no?

Beaver Ballyhoo!

Just in time for St. Patty’s day, this ad is a total hoot:

I don’t understand why Broadsheet even has to ask us if we think this is offensive, but there I go again being a bad feminist doing my sexist, oppressive male push ups and thinking that laughing at your vajayjay occasionally can be empowering.

Rhilly, Beaver is a far less offensive term for yer coochie than the dozens of others I hear thrown around on a daily basis. And is anybody else refreshed by seeing a tampon commercial that doesn’t assume all women are humorless prigs who find their periods a vulgar embarrassment? Not to mention that I’m tired of most feminine hygiene commercials, which try and capitalize off our insecurity by touting how their product will help keep the fact that we bleed for a week every month top secret and continue to help us fool the world into thinking that we women excrete nothing but flowers and sunshine.

Finally, a period product who’s advertisements don’t cater to the body shame ridden sensibilities of our grandmother’s generation and instead appeal to the modern woman with a simple message: that your period shouldn’t be a drag and instead of simply plugging it up a la Carrie once a month, you should take care of your snatch and treat it with a little kindness, cuz, y’ know, you only have one. This hip advertising that doesn’t talk down to women would be enough to make this devout Diva Cup user consider U Tampons… if I was a tampon girl in the first place. (And there’s your daily dose of TMI!)

Your Eggs Are Fried After 35!

So hurry up and become a bride!

What’s with the web being so womb obsessed these days?

Via Jezebel.com:

Penelope Trunk urges career minded women to direct their career drive toward mating because OMG surprise, surprise, if you wait until your 35 year old eggs are haggard and useless you’ll never get knocked up!

Trunk reiterates the harsh reality that no time is a good time to put your career on hold for a baby so you might as well do it while you’re young and fertile. Jezebel pretty much sums up my feelings on the way single 20 somethings get brow beaten about not making babies post haste and points out another shocker (via the Times online), that some women just might not be cut out for motherhood.

Meanwhile, in Britain the 40 something mother is on the rise which makes me wonder whether the”baby by 35 or die” mentality has less to do with science and more to do with conservative American social mores.

Or perhaps our infrastructure has something to do with it. Even if I was in the emotional place to bring a child into this world with a partner, I’d be hesitant to do it. After all, most states in the U.S don’t guarantee paid maternity leave and kids are expensive. The monthly cost of day care is more than two week’s pay for me, so there would be little point in me working just to pay the childcare bill anyway. However, if I gave up my job I’d also be forfeiting my fantastic health insurance. I work for the government, chances are my hypothetical spouse’s benefits package would be nowhere near as sweet as mine. Leaving dad home with the kids while I work to provide health-care for my family would also be a no go because if you think paid maternity leave in these parts is rare, there’s practically no such thing as paternity leave. You’d think in a country that is so hostile to birth control and family planning they’d at least try and make it a little goddamn easier to be a parent.

So you see people, I’m not single and childless because I’m some frivolous, shoe shopping, nonfat latte sipping material girl with a Peter Pan complex, I’m childless in part because I’m a responsible adult who realizes that it makes no sense for me to have a kid now.

Part of the problem is that biology hasn’t caught up with our modern lifestyles yet. We’re living longer but we haven’t quite evolved to have babies later in life. To me this is why things like in-vitro and adoption exist, so that we aren’t forced to have babies before we’re ready. Some people don’t agree. Poo to them.

EDITED TO ADD: I also find it amusing that the people who write these articles think slavish devotion to career is wholly a choice for all young people. We’re not necessarily working ten hours a day and not dating because gee, it’s just so much fun! We’re focusing on work because we have to. In an uncertain economy where companies can hire and fire at will, being a workaholic is often a basic survival skill that 20-somethings employ just to get by. It’s taking us longer and longer to get our careers off the ground. Good jobs increasingly require more schooling and more loans, pushing the time of financial independence into our late 20s and early 30s, possibly even beyond. Gone are the days when you get a steady job right out of high school and work there until retirement.

So you see, it isn’t that life is offering me some sort of ideal situation to raise children and I’m turning my nose up at it. It’s that when I look at the idea of being a practically impoverished parent working full time and still worrying about losing the house, suddenly being a single gal with roommates instead of babies sounds preferable.

I’d also like to see if there’s any research on the phenomenon of young women pulling ahead of young men career wise. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the women in my circle of friends seem to be ahead of the men as far as job security and career ladder climbing. I’m not one of those people that thinks a stay at home mom is the only acceptable kind of mom. However I know it takes two incomes to raise a family these days and if the person who makes the lion’s share of the cash in the relationship has to take a maternity leave or adjust her schedule, it could pose some scary financial issues for the new family. Again with this country’s work and social structure being hostile to the middle class!

Though perhaps it isn’t the web that’s womb obsessed, maybe it’s me. I’m almost 30, traditionally the oldest possible age that it’s acceptable for a woman to be unmarried and childless without being painted as a hysterical baby hungry spinster, it’s all downhill from here. I’m supposed to be settled by now, but my idea of settled (I’m out of debt! I like my job! My hair is one color!), is a whole lot different than what my parent’s idea of settled is. I’m OK with my lifestyle and I heartily pishaw the Haben Sie Baby schneller! Mentality the world foists on me, but I can’t help but wonder why so many people just don’t get it, and why they think my chach is their business in the first place.

Anyway, enough fertility fluster. I’m putting an official moratorium on mommy-hood in this blog for the next month. My next post will have nothing to do with parenting, biological clocks, or society needing to get the hell over it’s obsession with the blushing young mother. Its’ going to be about hardcore S&M sex. Yes. Another topic I’m woefully equipped to handle, but you don’t find Aunt Flo chastising me over Sunday dinner for not wielding my bullwhip frequently enough, now do you? One can dream.

Bachelors Beware!

So according to Jezebel.com, today is Leap Day, traditionally the only day of the year that it’s OK for a gal to ask a guy for his hand in marriage.

Here are is a charmingly campy Leap Day Postcard from years gone by:

One caveat to man hungry maidens, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says that there is still No Good Time To Leap Into Marriage With Mr. Good Enough.

Touche Lori Gottlieb!

I myself am not so sure how I feel about the whole chicks popping the question thing. Maybe I’m an idealist, but It was my impression that in modern relationships the decision to marry was usually the result of several successful and happy years together and a series of “what if?” conversations between the couple. I always thought of the actual proposal as sort of a formality. Of course, this comes form a girl who’s parents’ marriage was the result of an unromantic story involving a cockroach in my dad’s dive apartment in Brighton and conversation about how they could live together in a nicer place “if they were married”. As far as I know, my dad never got down on one knee.

The unabashed romantic in me squees at the idea of proposing to a guy. I love surprising people, I adore hjinks, and poppping the question to my beloved seems like the ultimate ballyhoo for a girl like me. On the other hand, and I hate saying this, but is getting down on one knee just another small, inoffensive, slightly sexist tradition that we can let men keep?

Under most circumstances I loath the “it’s the last thing men have” argument. Men still have a lot of things, like higher average wages, less discrimination based on age and appearance and not having to make the choice between parenthood and a career. In addition, the idea of what “the last thing men have” is different for every man. I once got into an argument with a guy who said he’d never date a girl who didn’t want to change her last name after marriage because having your wife take your name was, “the last thing men have”. As if getting rid of sexist traditions in the first place is somehow harmful to men. After all don’t we girls have enough power already!?

It cracks me up that so many of us are pursuing unconventional marriages and relationships but courting rituals themselves haven’t gotten a chance to evolve. We can have no strings attached sex, go dutch on the dinner bill and even gasp ask men to take an equal part in chores and childcare but a girl can’t propose? Seems a little silly to me.

Although the “last thing men have” rationale is totally lame, I’d hate to rob some guy of his big chance to be a romantic rock star. Do men dream of their proposal moment all their lives the same way girls are supposed to squee about wedding dresses since they’ve been in utero? Somehow I think not. However, if we’re being old-fashioned here, I get an entire wedding day to call all the traditional shots, can’t he have 5 minutes?

The cynic in me would hate to think that my betrothed said yes because he suffers from that dreadful male inertia, and the wretchedly conservative UK rag the Times agrees and adds:

“Just when a chap gets comfy in a long-term relationship, along comes the day he dreads – when she can propose”

Damn gender equality! keeping men from coasting along in a quasi-committed undefined relationship!

From the female point of view, unless you are one of those girls who sees the proposal as an extension of her day to be a pretty, pretty, princess, the popularization of the female proposal can only be a good thing. Think about it, instead of dancing around the question, a marriage minded woman need only ask her boo to wed. If he says no, she’s free to move on and find another guy who’s more down with her philosophy on marriage. Think of all the years that will no longer be wasted on dead end relationships! This can only be a good thing for both sexes!

At any rate, I think it’s up to the couple. I’m not quite sure how to end this particular rant, but here’s another Leap Day postcard, and it’s a doozy! Looking at it, I can’t help be reminded that I am happy times have changed. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that many women really didn’t get “their own choice in a mate.” 

Is The Press Easier On Obama?

Hillary thinks so.

Memo to Hillary:

I’m not casting my vote for Obama instead of you because I’m secretly a self loathing feminist who who’s afraid to support her own kind when push comes to shove. I’m not doing it because Obama is good looking and charismatic and has promised my my very own pony.

I used to like you Hill, really I did. And I’ve lost faith in you. Instead of focusing on the issues, you’ve decided to lock horns with the press. You say they are unfair to you but it was you who decided to waste the first 30 seconds of your response to the first debate question with an unprovoked rant on how the press is harder on you than on Obama.

Guess what, if you were to be elected, the media glare would only intensify. Nobody wants a president who’s too busy chastising the press to make policy. Regardless of whether the press has handles Obama with kid gloves, instead of collapsing into self-righteous wah-wah mode, you should have shown us you can handle the pressure. Were you surprised that breaking into the boys club was a challenge? Did you think that pointing out how “right you are” all the time would make it any easier?

By engaging with the negativity you’ve only proved that they’re capable of dragging you through the mud. I want a president who’s not going to stoop to the level of the press. There’s always gonna be haters, especially when you’re the first to do something. If you kick your heels and complain about how the boys are being unfair to you, that’s just more fodder for those who think a woman isn’t tough enough to be a commander in chief.

This is what a modern feminist looks like. We’re not satisfied to just vote for any women, we want a capable, qualified dignified leader and we’re not gonna settle for anything less. We know that being a true feminist doesn’t mean always towing the party line, it means voting with your head and challenging authority when needed. If you thought you could ride the dreams of every little girl who grew up picturing a female president, you were wrong.

Love,

Fever