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Anna over at Jezebel wrote a nice little rant about how difficult it is to get treatment for a basic yeast infection or UTI. In it, she makes an incredibly important point about the paternalistic approach to women's health care:Ultimately, I think the way American medicine handles common gynecological ailments says a lot about its view of women: that we can't be trusted to take care of ourselves, and that we need someone to watch out for us.
That's why we have to get a Pap smear before we can get birth control pills, even though they're basically unrelated. Because we won't get the proper medical tests unless they dangle a carrot in front of us — the carrot of not getting pregnant.I, too, have been infuriated by the ludicrousness of "packaged" women's health care, especially when I know the only thing my doctor needs to know before prescribing birth control is my blood pressure and my family's stroke history. Imagine if men were required to get a testicle exam before being prescribed blood pressure medication!
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The Guardian has an incredible piece on crazy "anti-obesity advocate," but let's just call her what she is, weight bigot, MeMe Roth. I could go on for days about the fact that what this woman advocates is not health, and that her lunatic crusade is not helping anyone, but I feel she's best nailed to the cross by her own words, so expertly drawn out by interviewer Gaby Wood. Wood tries to ask Roth about her own eating habits; Roth first demurs, saying that she thinks everyone needs to find what works for them. Wood presses on:I try to pin her down to something more specific. Let's just do a sample day, I say. What about breakfast? Roth grimaces. "I hate to say this, because I think it's counter to what most people should do, but I never in my whole life have enjoyed breakfast. For me, it doesn't work as well as other things."
Right, I say. So how about lunch?
She squirms visibly. "You're taking me where I don't want to go ... What works for me doesn't work for a lot of people."
Well, you've said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. "I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I'll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don't let a whole day go by without running four miles."
OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn't work out until four o'clock in the afternoon - would you not eat until after that?
"I might."
I look at my watch. It's 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?
Roth is a little quiet.
"No," she says.
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This interview with JayZ is a little slow, but hilarious. The British interviewer notes that JayZ is the only man who can listen to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" without a trace of regret, because he can think to himself, "Yes I did like it, and indeed I did place a ring on it."
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And from the NYTimes, people don't understand Haitian voodoo, these fries look tasty, and the professor who shot her co-workers in Alabama had major problems, as apparently does our legal system that did nothing about them.
The MeMe Roth piece seems almost like something you'd see in a cartoon. Her starting up a weight-loss business is similar to someone with OCD having a cleaning business, or someone who suffers from paranoia running a security firm. In some ways it's a good fit, but her motivations are not based in reality.
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