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A PARADOX,
A MOST DISTRESSING PARADOX
Today more and more public service announcements predict a plethora of sicknesses and eventual death with what appears to be ever increasing vigor.
Today
there are women doctors and specialists in all sorts of "female complaints."
There has even been a medical pronouncement that "women are different
from men." Well duh! Thing is, rather than serving to
improve women's health and welfare these advancements may also be injurious
to it.
How can this be? The answer is that our culture simply does not support good health practices for women. It talks the talk but it does not walk the walk. The result is constant anxiety.
Just a few short years ago, the medical profession did not consider it necessary to include women in their research anymore than a lawyer would consider a woman's rights when property was under consideration. It was only in the 1980's that grants of any significant amount were given that used female animals in research.
You see, it was that darn "cycle," the learned doctors grumbled. They did not believe results could be trusted because a woman's physiology was constantly changing.
On the other hand, they knew, being men themselves, that men didn't have any such problem. Men were always on an even keel. Emotions did not enter into the research picture of men or male animals at all.
It took a woman scientist, Dr. Estelle Ramey to show that men did indeed have emotions which may have been repressed outwardly but churned away inwardly. Emotions that affected blood vessels and hearts especially, as well as other organs.
Whether one wishes to call this HUMAN CONDITION "nerves" or "emotions," both genders have them and they can do a number on our organ systems.
When funding finally was supported for research on females, it was found that the menstrual cycle had little to do with overall nature of a disease or injury and results were as valid for females as they had been for males. So much for that darn cycle.
Before this was proven, the medical profession still had to treat women, who could show that they truly were ill - hopefully by barfing all over the doctor's wingtips. So, they gave medication based on her weight, using the amount given the "average man" as a standard.
Times have really changed and women are getting a lot of attention. We're just overwhelmed with all the medical horrors that could assault us.
The paradox here is that there has been little or no change in the ATTITUDE of our culture. Although women are encouraged to be ill and visit a doctor often, the treatment STILL mostly consists of pills and potions -- for their emotions, with lots of tests thrown in to keep them in constant apprehension.
Little is done to encourage and reward good health through good diet, GOOD SENSE and exercise. When a society rewards women who stay small and thin and vulnerable, when it castigates those women who buck the trend and go out for sports with epithets such as "tomboy," when it offers cosmetic surgery as akin to the holy grail, incentive for healthy living is sorely lacking.
We are a society that condemns cruelty to animals yet fosters unspeakable acts of cruelty on animals used to research cosmetics -- an industry women support with billions of dollars!
Worse still, our culture fails to prevent many human ills; in fact, it may exacerbate them, and since we are such a generous people, we export them to other countries.
A case in point is the fivefold increase in eating disorders in the teenage girls of Fiji. The cause was initially television, which showed emaciated models and touted the slender form of T.V. characters. Fiji girls considered them role models much as many of our teenage girls (and many women) do.
Formerly Fiji culture traditionally had focused on eating well and looking robust, and weight loss was considered an alarming sign of illness. Now these young women can look forward to another "gift from America" -- osteoporosis.
Eating well and being strong of muscle and bone through exercise is one of the best things a woman can do to prevent osteoporosis. Just recently, some doctors are quietly admitting that it is the slender, starved women's bodies that mostly develop this disease.
The husky, but not socially correct, big boned or overweight person usually is not severely affected. But, you won't hear anyone telling us to BULK UP.
Ultimately, we are each responsible for our own health but it appears that we urged to do things that are detrimental to it through both design and ignorance.
The
dangers to health in women's traditional dress are legend. So many
times, a woman could avoid the horror of an attack if she could only run
away. These injuries continue to increase and they are self-perpetuating
from one generation to the next.
The stiletto heels, the short tight skirt ensure woman as victim, and both contribute to the deliciously painful condition called sciatica as one ages.
Reconstructive surgery is certainly indicated to treat injuries and accidents, but the great craze liposuction sucks -- the procedure itself may be fatal but even if it is not, the fat just keeps on coming back. The real answer is back in Fiji and the strong healthy women before TV corrupted them.
:-) Graduate # 1 at the Naval Academy this year was a woman. So were #s 2, 4, 6 and 9, making women half of the top ten. Women made up 15% of the 1999 class. Must be the Academy has stopped teaching math since we all know women are incapable of doing well or even understanding this subject.
:-) Women 2: Starr 0.
:-) We can't claim all of the responsibility, but your calls and emails to N.B.C. in response to our GenderGappers 1999-016 STICKS AND STONES, got results. Imus announced last week that the heifers on his ranch would no longer be named after the N.B.C. FEMALE anchors and top reporters. Instead, he would give each of them the honor of naming a calf.
:-) Hats off to the Supremes. They've come down with a ruling that prohibits sexual harassment in schools -- any schools. Long time coming, but at least it's there for the coming generations.
:-(
The governors of New Jersey and Texas have signed "parental
consent" laws. C. T. Whitman opted for votes over courage in
her Senate bid and Gee Dubya predictably threw this bone to the Lifers
which make up his Repugnant base.
1999-023
Copyright 1999 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@ConnRiver.net.
G e n d e r G a p p e r s T M
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