Letters to the Editor
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thank-you, Julie Klausner
"It was a formerly anorexic friend of mine who nailed it when she read excerpts from the book. "When you have an eating disorder," she told me, "that's the voice you hear in your head all the time."
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I think the really good book about women and food has not yet been written. Maybe fat is a feminist issue comes close. But there's a dangerous tendency of dieting books to bully women into an unhealthy self-conscious, self-hating relationship with food. The dieting industry thrives on the fact that women feel bad about their bodies, because only when women feel bad are they sure to spend more dollars on the latest dieting books.
I think it was on sixty minutes last night that Hillary Clinton talked about breaking her Diet Soda habit and I thought my God, even women who are successful and hardworking think that they don't deserve anything better than diet soda.
Yes, I care about animal cruelty and I'm willing to consider veganism a better choice for a healthier planet. But I don't appreciate two more authors, fashionista mavens, adding to the mysogyny against women by trying to motivate them to do what they think they should do by resorting to old-fashioned, mean-spirited shaming.
I won't be reading this book or passing it out to my friends, thank-you.
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Good review of bad rubbish
Whatever her blog is about, or whatever she promotes, Ms. Klausner's review of "Skinny Bitch" is deadly accurate. This is a ridiculous and fundamentally dishonest book, designed in the crassest and most self-serving way to trick customers into buying what seems to be a humorous diet book, when it really is an anti-meat screed (and written by two authors without a shred of credibilty in either field).
I picked this up while I was sucking down lattes at the neighborhood book emporium (so nice of them to let me read best sellers for free! and while drinking coffee yet!), and even though everything about it (the author's lack of creds, the chick-lit cover, the smarmy title) promised something cheap and glib, this managed to underperform even my very low expectations.
There are good and balanced, intelligent books on the subjects of both veganism and vegetarianism -- even plenty of books by PETA -- so there really was no need to "hide" this books message by pretending to be a diet manual. It's not like this is some dazzling new philosphy -- veganism has been around a long, long time -- nor do the author's have any new or thought-provoking ideas on the subject (unless you count seventh grade potty language).
The biggest selling point is not anything within the covers, but the title itself. What does a book called "Skinny Bitch", especialy one that's a best seller, tell us? I think it clearly says that many women want not only to be skinny -- and by skinny, I do not mean healthy or "height proportionate to weight"...I think we all know what skinny means, it means EXTREME thinness, model-thinness, below BMI of 18 thinness -- but they want to be so skinny (and thus so accepted by society and so desired by men) that they can AFFORD to act bitchy, demanding and stuck up.
Because one thing I think we all know (but really are loathe to talk about and admit) is that most of the really nice, gentle and compassionate people in this world tend to be those who are not-so-good-looking -- which frequently translates in our society as "fat" -- and that this niceness is born of both having experienced suffering (in the form of rejection, teasing and unkindness from others) AND because those who are not attractive simply don't have the choice of being able to be haughty and bitchy. This is one of the great unfairnesses of life: that the nicest people are so often the ones we don't really want to choose to be with.
And "Skinny Bitch" is exploiting that, and that exploitation is very ugly. Not to mention that the advice is crap (even if you are vegan already): the recipes are awful, the foods suggested are even more overprocessed and "fake" than the worst fast food or snack items, and any diet book that suggests the dieter should be eating less than 1000 calories a day is irresponsible.
Books like "Skinny Bitch" point to glaring and painful defeciencies in the publishing business today -- any piece of unresearched crap by self-proclaimed "gurus" can be published without a shred of fact-checking. All that is often required is a catchy title that can be quickly marketed, or a very attractive author to go on the tv talk show circuit.
If ANY diet or diet book worked, would there be so many? Think about that...it's not like there is a glaring shortage of either diets, diet books or diet gurus. Yet, as a society, we are fatter than ever. Is it remotely possible that obsessing on weight, that hating ourselves...that starting each new diet focused not on our health but on how much we hate our fat selves....is associated not with success in losing weight, but with continued failure and increasing weight gain? I am not a fan of Dr. Phil, but I do like his phrase "How's that working for you?" We spend billions on diets, read every book by every scam artist, gobble down pills, throw ourselves on treadmills and exercise equipment....AND HOW IS THAT WORKING FOR US? Because we are fatter than ever.
Maybe it's time to admit that self-hatred isn't a diet tool, and that hating yourself is not the path to either a thin body or a healthy one.
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Vegan = People, Animal, and Environment Friendly
Vegan is a life style. Skinny Bitch, behind all the wit and charm, promotes a life style that is good for the body, humane to the animals, and friendly to the environment. Half the population of the planet goes to bed each night hungry because society is so concerned about growing foods to fatten cattle than for feeding people. Factory farmed meats are laced with hormones, anti-biotics, pesticides, and other man-made concoctions. Organic veggies and wholesome grains from the local market are the ticket to health. Get involved with community assisted agriculture. These sentient creatures are treated without any regard to the sacrifice they make by giving their lives. Animals like humans feel pain. Those who ignore that fact are without a soul. Ever pass by a hog farm? You will know when you have! The smell from the waste lagoons has the power to kill you if you inhale it to long. That smell is gas that is absorbed in the atmosphere destroying nature all because of societies want for meat. Skinny Bitch is more than a "manifesto," it is a guide, writen in humor, that shows societies greed and destruction. Go vegan!