Response to Carolyn 10/18

The readings for this week were really interesting. First Susan Douglas' chapter in Enlightened Sexism talked about the correlation of lean and mean. The impossible expectation that the media and the model industry puts on girls and women are impossible. The fact that plastic surgery has gone up in this country is no surprise. Even celebrities face this constant ridicule of their bodies. In "Keeping up with the Kardashians" Kim is told by her mom and sister that she should get Botox because she starting to get wrinkles. Kim's face is pretty much flawless and she doesn't even have wrinkles but because her mom and sister suggested it she goes and gets it done and has a really bad reaction to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N0myCkoa4U This is an example of how surgery Botox and methods like these are not a magic bullet. The effects of these surgeries can be damaging and lead to more surgeries. The example of girls taking their frustration out on other girls is not new. In Mean Girls there is a need to be thin because if your not you can't shop at exclusive stores live 1-3-5 or you can shop at Sears. Scenes like this stay in the minds of young impressionable girls and they think that if they are not this size the will be ridiculed or not popular. This also reminds me of the comedian/actress's book Monique. The book is entitle "Skinny Women are Evil". In this book she also makes the correlation that thin women are mean because they starve themselves. I think if there were more positive women role models out there who are healthy and happy and movies about that so many people would be encouraged to love themselves at every weight but instead we have the billion dollar diet industry and media has to reinforce that thinness equals happiness or does it. In the other article about PMS this is so interesting as I was reading this article my mine went to how guys always use it as an excuse when the women in their life are angry or something they say things like are you PMSing or is it that time of the month. I think that PMS may be a real condition but it can be combated by things like your diet and it is not an excuse to use when you don't want to go to work. Many women don't show symptoms of PMS and others do and some may be psychosomatic and others may actually experience these symptom with no expectations. I know that if it is actually going to be used as a diagnosis there must be more studies done on it and not just the usual inefficient experiment but one with applicable results.

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