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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I always feel like I need a nap after reading an Ayelet Waldman piece. So much hand-wringing drama, yet so little food for thought. Ayelet, relax. Have a yam and chill out.
I'm sensing a pattern here. Ayelet Waldman writes an article, she confesses bad thoughts/bad things that she's been doing, or feels that she's been doing, and then she receives angry letters from readers who seem to feel that she's insulted them personally. How dare she write about wishing that her son was gay! How dare she write about her eating disorder!
Maybe Salon needs to reformat the pieces or something, lead them off with "One Woman's Opinion" or some such disclaimer. Really, it seems like many of these letter writers are so angry about their chosen topic du jour, and are just looking for an excuse to explode into rightous indignation.
I mean, I re-read the article to see if I missed anything. It seems like Ms. Waldman was writing about how she has an eating disorder, and how she's upset with herself for having an eating disorder. How dare she!
What am amazing culture we've created, where you can get screamed at in letters for trying to honestly say what's on your mind.
The previous poster wrote:
"What am amazing culture we've created, where you can get screamed at in letters for trying to honestly say what's on your mind."
But it's Ayelet Waldman. Her whole raison d'etre at Salon -- and apparently, in life, to a large extent -- is to piss people off, exploit and embarrass her children for creative inspiration, and basically be slightly off her rocker, in order to generate controversy.
Salon commissions her --> She writes --> We take the bait --> Page views go up
Ohh boy, I can't wait for the Ayelet columns and controversies of 2006...
* Kabbalah for Kindergarteners: Spiritual Enlightenment, or Spiritual Spitup?
* Why My Dog Takes ADD Drugs: And the Cat's on Paxil
* My Hypomanic Morning at Walmart
* Playdates: The Lazy Woman's Way Out
* Why Good Mothers Never Make Chef-Boyardee
And so on, ad nauseum... emphasis on the NAUSEA...
Oh, for God's sake, stop being such a victim. If you eat a little more than usual, exercise a little more than usual. Take a walk around the block after dinner. It's not such a big deal. And having kids is not exactly an excuse for letting yourself go. My 70 year old mother looks terrific, not because she denies herself food or exercises excessively, but because she takes care of herself and doesn't get to the point that she has to deny herself or kill herself at the gym. I'm 40, and I'm as slender as she is for the same reason.
And another thing: it's just as obnoxious to make fun of people for being thin as for being fat. In fact, it's worse. A lot of people are as naturally thin as Calista Flockhart. My best friend, who eats everything in sight, is that thin, and was just a month after having her daughter. Conversely, no one is naturally obese. Fat people get fat because they eat too much. So, Ayelet, making fun of Paris Hilton and Calista Flockhart - way to set a good example for your kids.
I'm really tired of heavy women who eat out of greed or to self-medicate making snide remarks about naturally thin women. Some people's metabolisms are different. Get over it. If you want to feel better about your body, move it. Don't sit on your ass and eat popcorn, whining about how "culture" makes you feel bad. You should feel bad for your laziness, hatred of other women, and unoriginality.
Feedback on this issue seems to fall into two camps...The Media Made Me Do It, and Put the Fork Down and Shut Up. I don't think it's that simple. I speak as a fat person. Not a two-airline-seats fat person, but a glad-my-ass-isn't-that-big fat person. Do I like being fat? Not particularly. Do I complain about it? Somtimes. Do I blame the media? In a roundabout way. Do I know it's my own stupid fault? Absolutely. Am I going to do anything about it? That remains to be seen.
My point is, food and weight and health and self-image issues are seldom a result of lack of knowledge or lack of reflection. There's something far more complicated at play. It's not a question of knowing what you want or knowing how to get there. It's a question of being able to actually follow through. And that's not easy for some of us.
I have overcome adversity in my life. I have acheived great things and accomplished some near-impossible feats. I am smart and have good relationships. I am responsible and accountable and self-supporting. But I'm fat despite my desire and ability to be otherwise. I wish I could explain it, and I wish I could get over it. Maybe someday I will, but it's not going to be because I tuned out the media or put down the fork. I may have to do both of those things, but I've done them before. That's not all there is to it.
There's something else there. I'll let you know if I find it.
Recently at a meeting a thin friend of mine piped up with the news that Canada is considering not giving medical care to fat people if they refuse to diet. The fat woman sitting next to her certainly enjoyed hearing that! But she was sufficiently cowed not to say anything about being so rudely attacked. Like my friend was sitting next to this gal, thinking, "Boy she's fat. I'm so glad I'm thin and therefore morally correct, not a slob like her."
Fat women put up with a lot of casual insults like that. So I'm surprised to hear skinny women say they get insulted for being skinny. And my experience is that no matter how hag-ridden and flabby a woman who has lost weight looks, she will receive praise and will be bombared with "How did you do it?" questions.
I feel sorry for cadaverous women, but I figure they have chosen their fate. And I hear those who say they can't help the way they're built. But I must say that I know more than a few thin women who confuse their body type with moral virtue.
I'm lucky to have a female shape, and I'm not going to diet away my breasts and hips to conform to the fashions of the day. I get insulted by thin people too, even though my weight and build are far from putting me in the "fat" category. It's oh yes you do this and that and isn't fine, but you ARE overweight. This last insult was delivered to me by a stick figure of a man who lives on candy. My wonderful husband looked puzzled and said, "Are you overweight?" Ha!
And I don't know what planet Anon inhabits, but women talk about little else but diets and losing/gaining weight, as far as my experience goes. I wager he's a man that women don't want to talk to!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
