Letters to the Editor
J.C. Miller
Published Letters: 322 Editor's Choice: 34
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food used as comfort
[Read the article: The professor of pigging out]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As with other types of substance abuse which also predictably lead to illness and early death, a very high fraction of dieters will relapse, and they will gain back much or all of the weight lost.
Relapse occurs because the underlying psychological distress and inability to self-regulate negative impulses are rarely successfully addressed. Part of successful substance abuse treatment can be identification of and coping with cues or “triggers”: the odor from a bong or buttered popcorn; the sight of a Big Mac or a syringe; and especially the social pressure to use exerted by other users, whether around a holiday table or a keg.
But even if all of the external cues, like those discussed in the interview, could be eliminated or managed (and with food this is practically impossible), what remain are the internal triggers – those feelings of worry, fear, emptiness, rejection, loneliness, inadequacy, etc. – that lead the user to reach for food (or other substance) for comfort, to manage the negative feelings. Until some level of insight and self-regulation of these feelings is gained, risk of relapse will remain high.
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read the book
[Read the article: "The Female Brain": It's ba-ack!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A tempest in a teacup always naturally raises the question: what is this really about?
In the Guardian article linked by dc, Dr. Brizendine graciously acknowledges a factual error (which actually likely turns out to be an exaggeration rather than error) related to the question of time spent talking by women versus men. As Ms. Lloyd acknowledges, this possible gender difference may be confirmed as real, and add to the fascinating differences between the functioning of men’s and women’s brains. The tempest is over a single line of evidence in a wide-ranging book which, as someone trained in evolutionary biology and psychology, I found overall solidly convincing and illuminating.
Ms. Lloyd seems to be disappointed enough with the inaccurate word figures to label the entire book “pseudoscientific”, to dismiss Brizendine’s analogy regarding male vs. female emotional processing (which does not depend on the question of word use), and to warn us of “scientific imposters”, a “homicidal doll on a rampage”, and “idiotic stereotypes”.
A truism among educators is that when a student angrily complains, “This is stupid!”, the likely underlying message is, “I don’t get this, and I feel inadequate and threatened.” What is it about Brizendine’s work that is so threatening to seemingly otherwise reasonable persons? Maybe it has to do with the history of abuse – of the USE of real or constructed gender differences by patriarchy to control, disempower, and disrespect women. Ms. Lloyd deserves our gratitude for fighting this trend, but attacking our understanding of the differences themselves is bound to be counterproductive.
Readers of Ms. Lloyd’s post may be surprised to learn that nowhere in her book does Dr. Brizendine make ignorant, false, and demeaning generalizations of the type cited in the letter by Ms. Schwartz. To the contrary, Brinzendine's interest seems to be in looking at the ways that understanding gender differences in neurophysiology and biological predispositions can elevate and empower women.
Evolutionary and other evidence for basic gender differences in behavioral, emotional, and cognitive predispositions is overwhelming. When we reflexively and angrily react against these differences as being somehow determinative or limiting, rather than predisposing, we only endorse the false and harmful view used to justify gender discrimination, and we demean both women and men as being incapable of overcoming and choosing against their biological drives.
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breeding and biology
[Read the article: Childless and proud]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ms. Lloyd’s readers can only gain from her willingness to authentically and openly share her powerful feelings and drives around a woman’s choice to bear a child or to remain child free.
What might provide some very valuable insight into the conflicting and confusing emotions women have around childbearing and motherhood is a book by Dr. Louann Brizendine: The Female Brain, especially the chapter on motherhood.
It seems that women, because of their evolutionary roles and neurophysiology, are predisposed to strong drives and emotions related to reproduction and caring for and bonding to infants. I highly recommend the book.
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Hitchens may be right, sort of
[Read the article: Why women aren't funny]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hitchens, bless his heart, got something right here (maybe why it got under your skin), but possibly not in a way he intended. At its root, humor appears to have developed as a way to orchestrate group cohesion at the expense of a “victim”: there’s a lot of eye contact, laughter carries feelings of relief and safety, and when effective a victim is often humiliated in a way that constitutes aggression with real consequences. The understanding generated is “We’re all together and OK, but the butts of these jokes definitely are not OK, are not a part of this group, are our enemies.”
If humor evolved in patriarchal groups along with male propensities toward aggression, power, manipulation, social control and conformity, then it would make perfect sense that males are more predisposed toward competently performing this behavior, especially when a victim is involved. And if performance of humor is (unconsciously) perceived as a behavior conferring power and control, males would be threatened by females capable of using it, just as they are of females with higher perceived intelligence or status.
So if women are less predisposed to be adept at male humor, it’s likely because they are less predisposed toward social control and conformity, power, and aggression. A male taking that difference as a credit to his gender may ultimately be the butt of his own joke.
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"conduct of the war" ?
[Read the article: Will Bush listen to reason?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Could the writer possibly be referring to the unprovoked, manipulated, unjustified attack on a nation, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, fueled by nothing more than the displaced vengeance of this country’s wounded pride? That “war”?
The ISG does provide us with a model, of sorts. If one were to encounter a violent gang rape in progress, certainly a subset of the rapists might be formed into a blue ribbon assemblage in order to formulate and recommend an exit strategy to their associates.