From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Subject: Re: equality of despair (was: Why are many low-income women fat? (was Re: Separate but Equal?)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:59:13 GMT

rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:

>>me   Yes, that is precisely what it does.  Every person has
>>me   these fears -- people who feel them are not freaks.
> 
>new>I am not saying that these fears will ever be *eliminated*. But I
>new>think they are encouraged in this culture to an inappropriate extent.
>new>Once again, read Redbook...
> 
>        <starting to look like a cascade>
> 
>        I can't agree because we obviously define appropriate
>        differently.  The culture defines "appropriate" and thus
>        the *media* might be said to overly encourage
>        a fixation on beauty, but a *culture* cannot do such a thing.

I said that such ideas are overly encouraged in this culture. The media
is not the whole culture, but it is certainly a part of this culture.
But this is just semantic. To address your main point, I do not think
the editors of Redbook would include this garbage if they thought no one
read it, or was influenced by it.

>>>>     I think it was.  A woman does not *have* to submit to judgement
>>>>     by appearance, while if she could not keep an adequate home,
>>>>     she was liable to be divorced (with no alternate means of
>>>>     support, other than leeching).
>>>
>>>A woman might be divorced (then or now) if she does not keep an adequate
>>>standard of appearance.
> 
>> Men too, but I think the incidence of both is pretty low.
> 
>>I think you're an optimist.
> 
>        I think that the source of most divorces is basic incompatibility--
>        most divorces happen too early on to be the result of a change in
>        looks, simply because it takes >5 years (at least) for any really
>        significant change (other than, say, rapid weight gain, crippling
>        injury, whatever).  

You may be right, that change in appearance most affects later divorces,
not the early on ones. But it does affect the later divorces. And,
specifically, I think that much too many older women, in this
culture, live in fear that their husbands are going to dump them!

Don't believe me on this; believe Gerry Trudeau, who has addressed the
subject in his Doonesbury comic strips.

(Agreement that many women should be more serious about getting job
training.) 

>> In particular, I am a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois.
>> There are too many women in my classes who obviously aren't serious
>> about their education; 
> 
>        To contrast this:  In classes that serious people take, that
>        is, classes other than psychology, sociology, WMST, 
>        and the other voodoo "I really shouldn't be in college
>        anyway so I'm taking emotion stuff" classes--women
>        that I've met have been some of the most serious and
>        dedicated students out there.  Many of the hardest workers
>        have been women.  This is not my complaint--my complaint
>        is their approach is both time wasting and ineffective.  They
>        have the dedication, just not (from my point of view) the
>        willingness to commit/hard-hittingness necessary to do
>        the job right.
 
I am not a voodoo teacher! You should wash your mouth out with soap!
I am a graduate student in mathematics, and I teach calculus!

(By the way, at least as many of the *men* in my classes, are not
serious. But it particularly breaks my heart when the women are
not. This is *not* an intellectual reaction, or a serious suggestion
of policy. This is an *emotional* reaction.) 

>> who feel they are cute enough they don't
>> need to learn anything. It really breaks my heart. I know a decade
>> from now, many of these women will be on the welfare rolls...
> 
>        Good thing we voted for a democratic president to expand
>        benefits, huh.
 
At least he is not forcing these individuals to continue pregnancies,
against their will.
 
>>About "scraping the bottom of the bucket"; I wish you had made
>>it more clear, that your use of this language to describe
>>.people with limited social options, in no way reflected your own views.
>                 ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
> 
>        Much better way to put it.  Thank you.

You're welcome.
  
>        Last I read, men are starting to get up there in reported 
>        eating disorders--and I suspect underreporting for this is
>        MUCH higher than it is on the woman side.

I am sure you are right about this.
 
>        <read: this doesn't change the fact that it's depressing,
>        but it does seem to say that there isn't much that can
>        be done to correct the situation any more than you can
>        teach people to be purely logical or whatever>

These eating disorders were much less common in the past; and therefore
they may be less common in the future.

I think that at 43 I'm a little more aware how social conditions can
change; how they can change much more quickly than expected, and
in ways that cannot possibly be foreseen. I suspect *any* social
injustice can be minimized, though none can be eliminated entirely. 

Lenore Levine 
Newsgroups: alt.feminism