This book is not what I expected it to be. I think I was looking for something slightly less memoire and containing some measure of humor. That isn’t to say that Ms. Bolick isn’t a great writer; she managed to take a book that I probably would never have read had I truly understand what I was in for and make it interesting. But in case you thought this would be an out-loud feminist discussion, it’s not that. At least, it isn’t entirely that.
This is a very subtle book. At times I wasn’t really certain where it was going. Ms. Bolick chooses to tell us her own story of not desiring marriage by sharing the life stories of her “five awakeners” (a term that, I should say, had my rolling my eyes each time it appeared). All white women with some economic means, these women are certainly interesting, and do a passable job of demonstrating the challenges women have faced when choosing a path that doesn’t match the one that it seems most everyone else is both taking and expecting them to take.
This book can’t help but be a very narrow study, as it is a memoire of sorts; it is about Ms. Bolick’s life and struggle with her desire to have control over her life on her own terms. She isn’t asexual; she has many relationships, and experiences love. She just doesn’t think that marriage is on her list. And while this is about her experiences, I have to say I wish that one of her “awakeners” had been a woman of color. Ms. Bolick also makes some comments regarding women in the workplace that I don’t necessarily think hold true for non-white women, even though they are presented as universal truths. Hmmm.
Like I said, it’s not what I was expecting. If the title and a couple of two-sentence synopses made you interested in the book, I suggest reading a few more reviews before picking it up to make sure it’s where you want to spend your time.
– “The clerk — apparently either hemophobic, a misogynist, or both — went to fetch a middle-aged woman to ring up Epworth’s purchase instead. “She looked me in the eye like she knew it was ridiculous,” Epworth said. It also seemed evident that this was not unusual and might have happened several times before.” Iowa Store Clerk Refuses To Sell A Woman Tampons Because They’re “Gross” (via @itspulptastic)
Labor Exploitation
– “A dozen security officers frisked us in the street, shouting at us when we tried to talk. They took away our equipment and hard drives and drove us to their headquarters.” Arrested for reporting on Qatar’s World Cup labourers (via @marklobel)
State-Sanctioned Killing
– The Nebraska vote marks a shift in the national debate because it was bolstered by conservatives who oppose the death penalty for religious reasons, cast it as a waste of taxpayer money and question whether government can be trusted to manage it. Law-and-order conservatives in the United States have traditionally stood among the strongest supporters of the ultimate punishment.” Nebraska set to repeal death penalty after legislature overcomes veto threat (via @guardiannews)
Police Abuse
– “The nine-year pro has been absent from the playoffs after a group of New York Police Department officers broke his leg in April following a late-night confrontation outside a Chelsea nightclub. The police accounts about what took place conflict dramatically, with video that emerged of a group of officers surrounding Sefolosha, with one brandishing a nightstick. Sefolosha, with assistance from the National Basketball Players Association, is planning a lawsuit against the City of New York.” An NBA Player Is Missing the Playoffs Because the NYPD Broke His Leg—Why the Sports-Media Silence? (via @EdgeofSports)
Child Abuse
– “In 2008, he and his team completed a five-year neuroimaging study of the impact of corporal punishment on the brain. He scanned the brains of 46 mainly middle-class, well-educated subjects, half who had been corporally punished and half who had not. “All the subjects that we looked at were hit at least once a month, through several years of childhood,” he said.” Is Being Pro-Spanking A Sign of Brain Damage? (via @DrStacyPatton)
Health
– “Those of us here in King County are lucky enough to live in one of the best places in the nation (perhaps, the world) for emergency response. Our cardiac arrest survival rate, the gold standard in emergency response, has been documented everywhere from academic journals to the Wall Street Journal, and our system is studied far and wide.” Why King County’s EMS is the best in the world: Q&A with Mickey Eisenberg
Travel
– “Your one-stop shop for health and safety data on cruise ships.” Cruise Control (via @propublica)
Some of you know that I’ve been working on a book for the past few months. Last fall many of you were kind enough to allow me to interview you; I used the NaNoWriMo model to force myself to organize my thoughts and create a 30,000 word manuscript in November. In January I started editing it; in March I went to a day-long publishing workshop, which was pretty amazing.
However, life kind of got in the way after that, so other than a little bit of reorganization and edits, I haven’t touched it since then. Thankfully my sister asked about it this weekend, so I’ve finally sent it to her (and my husband) to take a look. I’m hoping for honest feedback, and REALLY hoping that I can take the inevitable criticism heading my way.
If any of you are interested in taking a look and offering suggestions, let me know!
**Apparently this isn’t released until Tuesday, but my local Barnes and Noble had it out yesterday, so I guess I’m reviewing this from the future? Awesome!**
You might be familiar with Ms. Gibbons. She’s the woman who went on TV in her bathing suit (in Times Square, no less), wearing a size 18ish. She had sex with her husband every night of the year in hopes of improving her own body confidence. She runs the website ‘Brittany, Herself’ and is the leader of the ‘curvy girls army.’
I found this book while trying to kick-start by Cannonball Read yesterday. I bought four books that I could see myself forgoing TV for (although not the new Game of Thrones tonight, because I’m not an animal). This one really jumped out at me, and I pretty much inhaled it. I read it before bed last night, only stopping because my eyes refused to cooperate. I read it on a 30 minute walk to get lunch, and on the walk home. I was even a little sad that today was a run day, not an elliptical day, so I couldn’t read it while working out.
I related to a lot of what Ms. Gibbons shares in this collection of essays, even though I’ve never had children (her discussion of being a mother permeates much of the second half of the book, but is certainly not the overall focus). No one would describe me as thin. Fat? Eh, probably not usually. But I’ll freely admit to having more than one totally fine morning destroyed because I stepped on the scale.
And that’s bullshit. Ms. Gibbons articulates the ways in which it is bullshit much better than I can, so I’ll just leave it at that. There are some really laugh-out-loud moments, and some really thoughtful ones that gave me pause. I was reading this too quickly to even bother to underline passages I especially liked (the book would have been mostly underlined anyway), but this one stuck out:
“The reality was that my life wasn’t miserable because I was curvy; I was miserable because I thought I’d be happier if I were thinner, and when I sat to think about it, it didn’t really make sense.”
– “Most everything the media reported about the Baltimore protests has skirted the line between the highly sensationalistic and the libelous. Every headline and photo has focused on property damage, allegedly done by those protesting for Freddie Gray. Played down or ignored is the Baltimore I saw: a place where more than 2,000 people—including families and children—marched resolutely while helicopters and visible surveillance drones flew overhead.” Camden Yards and the Baltimore Protests for Freddie Gray (via @EdgeofSports)
– “When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con.” Nonviolence as Compliance (h/t @YApplebaum)
Racism
– “When states pass “Stand Your Ground” laws, they aren’t passing them so that black men can defend themselves against white men who threaten their lives. When the NRA talks about families needing to defend themselves against gang violence, they aren’t talking to the people of color most likely to be impacted by gang violence. When cities develop “stop and frisk” policies, they aren’t developing them in hopes of reducing violent crime in white men. These are all built on the same violent narrative used to lynch black people in the past. Only now, instead of saying “brute” or “savage” they say thug.” Thug Is Not The New N Word . It’s Worse Than That (via @IjeomaOluo)
Transphobia
– “Just days before her death, the online harrassment she had been subjected to for months took a more direct form. Commenters mocked her suicidal comments, saying “jumping off a bridge isn’t rocket science.” The last note from a commenter, simply said “Good Riddance”, to which she replied: “Yeah pretty much.”” Online Troll Urges Game Developer Rachel Bryk To Commit Suicide (h/t @amaditalks)
State-Sanctioned Killing
– “Although the Supreme Court has twice ruled that states may not execute someone who is insane, 54 of the 100 executions studied involved prisoners who showed symptoms of severe mental illness, including six cases of schizophrenia, three of bipolar disorder, and eight of PTSD. Six had tried to kill themselves at least once.” 87 Reasons to Rethink the Death Penalty (via @MotherJones)
– ““The jurors who ultimately decide Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s fate will begin their task with a shared bias — their willingness to consider capital punishment,” wrote Joan Vennochi in an editorial for the Boston Globe.
In that regard, the jurors are not particularly representative of Boston’s populace. Capital punishment is deeply unpopular in that city and in Massachusetts, which has no death penalty for state crimes.” Jurors In The Boston Bombing Case Had To Agree To Consider The Death Penalty Before Being Selected (via @ThinkProgress)
– “Misogynists might be the first people to dismiss complaints about representation with time-honored comments like “she’s ‘just’ a character” or “it’s ‘just’ a movie/book/video game,” but by admitting they’re threatened by Charlize Theron and Emilia Clarke’s bad-assery, Clarey and his commenters are also agreeing that the media we consume and the stories we tell are hugely important.” Incredibly Peeved Men’s Rights Activists Call for Boycott of Mad Max, Are Unintentionally Hilarious (h/t @LadySnarksalot) [ed. note: HA HA]
– “Among the pieces of sexist advice doled out to staff: Women council members are “less likely to read agenda information” and instead ask a lot of questions (an observation Allen derived from dealing with his 11-year-old daughter), and have an aversion to dealing with numbers and the budget. Citing Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, women act on emotion, while men act on facts, and women want to communicate more than men, speakers claimed.” Council Members Slam Sexist Speaker (via @AustinChronicle)
– “When a young Virginia teen was kicked out of her prom last year, for example, it was because fathers at the dance felt her dress was causing “impure thoughts.” (Modest proposal: How about disgusting dads stop ogling teenagers?) Like Miller-Wigfall in Pennsylvania, the young woman felt she was targeted because of her body type. “I am so tired of people who abuse their power to make women feel violated and ashamed because she has an ass, or has breasts, or has long legs,” she wrote on her sister’s blog at the time.” The only thing shameful about ‘revealing’ prom dresses are adults who obsess over them (via @JessicaValenti)
Child Abuse
– “An adoptive parent of the girl alleged that the Easons, living in Illinois at the time, presented themselves as a loving, stable family, dedicated to the well-being of children in their care, according to the affidavit. As part of the custody transfer, the Easons promised the parents to provide proof that social workers had signed off on the suitability of their home, but never did, the affidavit said.” ‘Re-homing’ couple exposed by Reuters is indicted on kidnap charges
Religion
– “As a rising cohort of highly unaffiliated Millennials reaches adulthood, the median age of unaffiliated adults has dropped to 36, down from 38 in 2007 and far lower than the general (adult) population’s median age of 46.4.” More Americans Ditching Organized Religion (via @MotherJones)
Education
– “We are a group of seven artists who made the decision to attend USC Roski School of Art and Design’s MFA program based on the faculty, curriculum, program structure, and funding packages. We are a group of seven artists who have been forced by the school’s dismantling of each of these elements to dissolve our MFA candidacies. In short, due to the university’s unethical treatment of its students, we, the entire incoming class of 2014, are dropping out of school and dropping back into our expanded communities at large.” Entire USC First-Year MFA Class is Dropping Out (h/t @iJesseWilliams)
I am pretty vocal about the fact that I won’t be having children. I’ve written about it in the past, and I’m currently writing a book aimed at folks like myself. My husband and I found each other online in part because we both said ‘no’ to the ‘want kids’ question on OK Cupid. So when I saw this book reviewed in a few different places I figured I would pick it up.
It’s a collection of essays by writers, so it is necessarily a bit limited in that regard. It primarily features women, although there are contributions by men. I’m not sure of the racial demographics of the writers; none of the stories (if I’m recalling correctly) take on whether they think they’ve encountered more (or less) push-back because of their ethnicity.
The book provides for some chuckles, and elicited a few head nods from me. I could related to some folks, but not fully. I mean, I wasn’t one of the writers, so I can’t expect to have my exact feelings related back to me in essay form, but I was a bit disappointed because most of the essays still seemed a bit apologetic about not wanting children, and really interested in making the concession that people who choose not to have children are a bit off, wrong, or even, yes, selfish. I found that disappointing, because I was hoping for something different.
One essay in particular really rubbed me the wrong way. Lionel Shriver, who wrote “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (a book I hope to read some day) wrote a weirdly misogynistic and frankly delusional essay that almost had me giving up on the book (hers is the fifth essay in). Obviously she can only speak for herself in this most personal of essays, but she presumes to speak for me, and that is obnoxious. She says things like “In contrast to our predecessors, we seldom ask ourselves whether we serve a greater social purpose; we are more likely to ask ourselves if we are happy.” I’m not sure what version of reality she exists in, but I would argue they are both equal, or even completely oppositely weighted. Lots of people are making sacrifices because they understand that the way we’ve been living isn’t doing anyone any favors.
She also seems to call out those who complain about the fact that people ‘like her’ aren’t having children (e.g. well-educated, white, affluent) for what they are (not-so-subtle racism), but then seems to agree, with such disturbing lines as “we don’t consider the importance of raising another generation of our own people, however we might choose to define them.” That reads dangerously close to expressing distress over not enough white folks in the world, and that’s super creepy.
In addition to that weird (hopefully unintentional?) racism, she also makes an argument that absolutely infuriated me. She suggests that by not having children, we are ignoring our duty to the future, because we are denying the world the creation of people who might solve the world’s problems. Essentially, it’s similar to that anti-choice argument of ‘what if you’re aborting the next Einstein?’ Aside from the fact that maybe my kid would grow up to be a serial killer, so by not reproducing I could be saving the world from that pain, this claim essentially ignores the fact that maybe WE can solve the world’s problems. She seems to making a point that women exist to create the people who change the world, as opposed to changing the world ourselves. I am not okay with that at all. I firmly believe that I have the opportunity to change the world (probably in very small ways, but ways that matter); I don’t think the only way I can do that is to give birth to a child who will then change the world. She falls into the trap that so many of us are trying to claw our way out of: the idea that my worth exists only in the children I create, not in the other things I create as well.
So yeah, that essay aside, the book is probably worth a read. I just wish it were better, and more original that the sheepishness so many of us who choose not to have children feel compelled to express to those who do want children. I wish there were more writers who owned their choice as completely valid and not one needing justification. But that isn’t in here as much as I’d hoped.
On April 27th our landlords called to tell us they want to put their condo (our apartment) on the market. They gave us 60 days, but some incentives to get out earlier. By May 1st we’d found a new apartment, although in a new neighborhood. That day I also rented boxes and booked movers. On May 9th, we moved. On May 10th, we unpacked.
What I’m saying is, it’s been an unexpectedly busy two weeks. Hopefully the weekly wrap-up will be back on Sunday.
– “At the same time, according to Orta, the police began to follow him. They drove by his mom’s house, where he lived, late at night, shining floodlights into the windows. Orta told me cops stopped by the place where his then girlfriend, Chrissie Ortiz, worked, demanding a copy of the video. (They later arrested Ortiz, allegedly for fighting.) Orta told me his friends were searched after leaving his home.” Nine Months After He Filmed Eric Garner’s Killing, the Cops Are Trying to Put Ramsey Orta Behind Bars (via @mollycrabapple)
– “Eventually, Georgia turned to me and explained that my pass had been rejected because of a decision made by someone “higher up.” She wouldn’t tell me any other details. I asked for an explanation, since I’d attended in previous years without any problems.” Counterterrorism Conference Kicks Out Intercept Journalist
Health and Beauty Standards
– “Look, I know: I was un-bra-pared for this outfit. But for real, this top looks like an arrow pointing to my crotch. I look like a superhero who overslept and got the last outfit at the big superhero outfit sale.” This Is What Plus-Size Clothes Look Like On Plus-Size Women (h/t @thewayoftheid
– “Nobody owes anybody else health or healthy habits by any definition. Each person gets to decide how to prioritize their health, and the path they choose to meet their goals. That’s why people are allowed to be professional bullriders and X games athletes, and NFL Players. The suggestion that fat people have some obligation over and above what everyone else has (which is none) is thinly veiled bigotry and nothing more.” Things You Don’t Owe Anybody
Intersectionality
– “Some companies are trying to make positions of power more appealing to women, Ms. Green said, inspired by the concerns set forth in books like Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” and “The Confidence Code” by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. But initiatives to help women build confidence or convince them to shoot for top jobs won’t help those who already know they want to lead.” Black Women Want Top Jobs (but They Aren’t Getting Them) (via @nytopinion)
Internet
– “The internet is not separate from culture, but a reflection of culture. It’s not “the internet” that is terrible, but the terrible people who comprise a global community that inhabits the internet who are terrible. And it’s not the internet that makes them terrible: It takes a special sort of cultivated ignorance to imagine that the anonymity of the internet creates the urges that underlie bullying, rather than merely empowering bullies to be uglier, meaner, bolder than some of them would be face-to-face. Why “The Internet Is Terrible” Doesn’t Console Me (via @Shakestweetz)
Racism in Entertainment
– “Loren Anthony, another tribal member and actor, told Indian Country that while he initially had reservations about appearing in the film, producers had assured him the jokes would not be racist. But from the very beginning, he said, things “started getting weird” and what were supposed to be jokes were simply offensive.” Native American Actors Walk Off Set of New Adam Sandler Movie Over Racist Jokes (via @MotherJones)
Racism and Transphobia in Radical Feminism
– “Ideally, you’d hope, feminism would be about fighting for the rights of all women and trying to free all people from oppressive gender stereotypes. In practice, though, the radical feminist tradition of Andrea Dworkin and Janice Raymond, who Murphy champions, has often built itself on exclusion rather than inclusion. Radical feminism’s radicalism is often defined by smearing other women — trans women, sex workers, women of color — as deluded dupes of men and patriarchy.” Laverne Cox Gets Naked, Exposes Radical Feminist Exclusionism (via @hoodedu)
So just this week, the “It Starts with Food” authors released a slightly more and slightly less comprehensive guide to their elimination diet program. In this section they have less detail than their previous book, but they make for it with a fairly intensive FAQ section. And then, the best part …
Cookbook! I am not a cook. I’m a baker, which really just means that I like sweets so much I want an excuse to eat them in their uncooked and cooked forms. But with dinner, I’m usually limited to making pasta and steaming vegetables. And meat? Yeah. I’ve never really been good at cooking anything beyond this one pork tenderloin recipe and this one chicken enchilada recipe (and even the latter involved a crap ton of checking the internet for how to boil chicken breasts).
So, in addition to sorting out some of my less than health food choices, I’m going to be learning how to cook over the next month, with the help of this lovely, simple cookbook. Seriously, while some recipes do require prep or overnight marinating, none of them caused me to balk or laugh as I turned the page. I think that’s the sign of a good cookbook (for me, anyway) – dishes that appeal to me that won’t cause me to give up halfway through or that won’t mean dinner starts at 10 P.M. because it took so long to prepare.
Okay, so (as discussed on my review of Dr. Perlmutter’s book), I’m trying to sort out the food that is going to make me healthy. I know it isn’t sugar (I type, having finished some delicious chocolate ice cream), although man, if I could thrive on pasta and chocolate cake, I’d be a happy, happy lady. But we all know that isn’t the case. I’ve got a good friend who has followed this elimination diet and had some pretty fantastic outcomes. I picked up the book and am going to try it.
What is ‘it’ exactly? Well, it sounds a little like paleo, although it isn’t. Not exactly. The authors are very up front that they don’t particularly care about what our ancestors ate; they are interested in what science and our experiences tell us is health for us to eat. We know that generally speaking, veggies are healthy for us. Twinkies are not. But … what about the rest?
The Hartwigs spend a few chapters explaining why certain food groups may present some challenges for us and not be contributing to good health. They are interested in things that have a negative impact on us psychologically (think the foods you crave and eat because you are emotionally – or chemically – dependent on them), hormone imbalance, digestive tract issues, and inflammation. Most of what they say I’ve seen in other books (reputable and not reputable), although, as we discussed on one of my previous reviews, they are very skeptical about our need for any grains (not refined, and not whole). They aren’t arguing that these things are necessarily BAD for you, but that they might be bad for some, and there are much healthier options anyway, so no need to eat them.
But again, their approach is to cut out all of the foods that evidence suggests might be problematic for some of the population for 30 days, and then reintroduce them and see how you feel. So, starting on April 26, and finishing on May 26, I’m going to not eat any form of the following:
– Added sugars or sweeteners (including stuff like stevia, honey, etc.)
– Alcohol (even in cooking)
– Grains (refined or whole)
– Legumes (I KNOW – I’m already tearing up at the idea of parting with my morning PB and apple)
– Dairy (with the one exception: clarified butter)
So … what will I be eating?
Vegetables. Lots. Fruits. Some. Healthy fats. Meat. Seafood. Eggs. For 30 days I’ll see if I can get some of the (not serious, but annoying) health issues I have cleared up through some diet changes. And then, I’ll figure out if I’m someone who really shouldn’t eat dairy, or if I’m one of the lucky ones who can process delicious, delicious cheese.
