I hate the word "blogosphere." (Ooh, end-of-sentence scare quotes. And in my head, my own voice saying something I say every day: In American English, periods and commas always go inside quotation marks unless there's a parenthetical in the way. You will occasionally see this done differently; that generally means the source is British, because the international rule is different. It's weird spending your day teaching rules you regard as a little dumb. At some point I must post the list of grammar rules I would be happy to help kill). I'm hereby inventing the word "bloggerverse."
Anyway. The links, covering recentish opinions in technology, academics, :
Ian Bogost's post "The Turtlenecked Hairshirt", being a discussion of the ivory-tower nature of academia which amused me highly and lit a fire under my rounded tail as to seriously thinking about a paper on gender and sexuality in Echo Bazaar. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to unreservedly agree with his stated premise, though I believe him to be deliberately exaggerating, but his apocalyptic language reminds me of one of my deeply-held beliefs: The humanities spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel because each sub-discipline invents its separate, insular jargon. For someone with training in Comparative Literature to attempt to approach anthropological ethnography, for someone with a sociologist's education to attempt to analyze the obscure greats of Renaissance drama, results in a lot of headache, heartache and "bridge theory" that is roundly denigrated by an endless legion of theoretical purists.
Lindy West's pleasingly well-reasoned anger after a rather thoughtless but not ill-intentioned moment from estimable sex columnist Dan Savage. The whole debate is well worth The Stranger's nauseatingly ridiculous load times, because they both make great cases. I am personally of the opinion that the U.S. uses food as a way to displace and/or extend our oddly Puritanical relationship with sex. Think about the phrase "guilty pleasure." Porn? Or cheesecake? Slut shaming and shock at teen sexting and obsession with celebrity affairs seems to me to go hand in hand with condescending diet ads and horror of minors who fail to be delicate-waiflike-and-breastless and our fascination with eating disorders. Consider the fact that walking into a primarily-female workplace (like, sadly, my writing center) will eventually involve listening to one of our peculiarly American social rituals: The expression of efforts to avoid the fat-and-lazy taboo, commisseration over how hard it is to feel that we are indeed avoiding the taboo, the offering of advice to use various forms of asceticism in order to avoid a taboo which each feels is threatening her every day. Think about this.
For the record, I wear a 20, 22 or 24 depending on brand. M is less of an extreme hourglass and is generally a 20. She's the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. I thought so when I met her in person the very first time: "She's much bigger than I expected," I thought, and also, "She's stunning." I've found two brands of jeans that fit me very well. I occasionally wish that my size were distributed differently (which varies from "God, I wish my belly would just go away" to "What the hell is with my long torso and short limbs?" to "God, I wish I didn't have such a disproportionately small waist; no one makes trousers with this much waist tailoring" -- yes, seriously). I enjoy growing my own food, I enjoy preparing it, I enjoy serving it, I enjoy eating it, and I consider this a far greater pleasure than being able to buy pants in multiple brands. I will worry about my size when I can no longer bend double to mulch my snow pea vines, or walk around the apartment complex or the nearby woods on a nice afternoon as M and I often do. Furthermore, if I dropped ten pounds I wouldn't cry. If I dropped ten sizes? I'd cry. Because I would no longer find myself attractive. I like big women. I like big men. I dislike people who dress inappropriately or with poor fit. And if others have the right to say they think my ass is unsightly, then I also get to say this: I find drawn faces masklike and unattractive. I find visible ribs repulsive. And would I say this to people who exhibit these features? No, because I have a level of gentility and sensitivity and their unsightly thinness has no effect on me.
Also, go read the introduction to The Omnivore's Dilemma for a lot of interesting information, including this jewel: The French food culture is heavily, heavily based on cheeses. Cheeses. Now talk to me about the French obesity epidemic and how much worse than the U.S. it is. I'm waiting.
And now that you're either suitably depressed, suitably enraged, or suitably disgusted (hey, it's up to you!), one more, cheerier link:
An interview selection from my latest Mother Earth News email newsletter featuring the proprietors of Green Heron Tools, which makes ergonomic agricultural tools for women. It's an interesting discussion of the necessity of acknowledging physical difference as a necessary step to full gender equality -- though I'd love to see some throwaway lines (one day, somewhere) about the role that society plays in "biological" difference between genders, I'm very impressed with the interviewees and their social consciousness.
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