The Big Fat Conundrum

So it's pretty widely agreed that in order (in most cases) for a woman to get a job, doctor, husband, not be treated like crap by most of humanity in this country, she must be thin.

And pretty, and stylish.

It's also pretty widely agreed that in the US, obesity is a HUGE problem. Pun intended. Note the irony that a nation obsessed with thinness is one of the fattest in the world.

I am not considered thin in Liberal Yuppieland, despite fitting into a size 2 or 4 and being at what medical professionals tell me is a healthy weight/body fat percentage. I am just a shorter, smaller-boned person and always will be. That's my DNA, and there's not even a plastic surgery invented to fix it.

I was about to feel all guilty for not having been to the gym or having done crunches in a week when I ended up going shopping yesterday for new summer clothes.

Nothing in the petites' or the regular misses' department fit me. Misses' shirts are like a dress on me, and the bulk of the stuff in petites starts at size 10P or so - way too big. There were like 4 garments in my size to choose from. Although it is nice of them to mark petites's sizes up so if short women ARE fat, they feel even worse about themselves. Where is there a selection of stuff that fits me properly? Teenybopper stores like Express and Limited Too (where I'm far from the biggest size). Or Saks and Nordstrom, but I can't stomach $300 on one outfit.

My message that I can take away from this excursion: You're not thin enough according to the harsh judgemental society of Liberal Yuppieland (no six-pack and not ALL of your bones poke through your skin.) However, you are not big enough to be able to buy clothes off the rack that will allow you to dress your age.

So, fashion industry: Which the freak is it?!?! Am I too fat or too thin?

Women's worst enemies: One another

This one's for you, Reenie...

I have come to the conclusion that American women have noone or nothing to blame for "oppression" and unhappiness but ourselves. (And most recently, the lazy asses in homeland security are also to blame, for intentionally letting in 12 million illegal immigrants from a certain country where disrespecting, intimidating, harassing, threatening, and attacking Caucasian women is considered "part of the culture" and perfectly acceptable, and anyone who has a problem with that is racist, but that's for another post).

We evaluate one another for our "potential" and expect each other to be nothing less than 100% overacheiving and perfect in all aspects of life. Specifically, smart women are expected to become the next Andrew Carnegie or Albert Einstein, and beautiful women are expected to get married and have a family. And women who are both and "want it all"? Express that you have XYZ career goals, some self-righteous bitch will rip your head off: "What about a family?" Express that you want the 2.5 kids, husband, SUV, white picket fence, and some self-righteous bitch will rip your head off: "What about your career?" Basically, if you have a vagina, expect to be criticized. Make that "criticized from here to hell and back" if you have the nerve to be female, beautiful, and smart. And God forbid you ignore all those psychotic ravings, identify what it is you need to be happy, and go for it. You're a woman! You don't DESERVE to be happy!
And the women who hit the genetic jackpot and were born both intelligent AND beautiful - we're anathema. Why? Jealousy. Smart-but-unattractive women and Pretty-but-dumb women want nothing more than to convnice themselves and the rest of the world that intelligence and beauty are mutually exclusive. Seeing a woman who has both just takes away this excuse and makes their poor little PC self-esteem worse. Hey, people - those of us who are both... yeah, we lucked out to get both qualities. But in the name of soothing YOUR pathetic feelings of inadequacy, we are NOT going to back down, apologize for who we are, and not be our real selves so that YOU can feel better. This is who I am and who I'm going to be tomorrow, whether or not that makes you feel inferior to me. There's always going to be someone smarter, thinner, richer, prettier, better off in life than you. The world is not fair, and life is not equal. Deal. And shut up and quit projecting your inane insecurities onto me please.

Here's the rub, though. It's not men or society doing this to us, women are doing it to each other. We lost the ERA, so according to the jackass Baby Boom/Bust/Gen X "feminists" that negates our right as a sex to be happy. That's right, in the name of liberation, let's all three billion of us make each other as miserable and guilty as humanly possible. It will advance women's cause like no other if we're all bullying each other. I've had this small disappointment in my life (caused either by circumstance or by my own choices and actions) therefore I'm going to do my best to make sure you don't succeed in anything, even if your goals are the furthest thing from anything I've ever wanted.

No wonder the ERA failed, the congressman saw NOW (and our entire gender) for what we are: a bunch of freaking psychos. We can't stand to see one another succeed or even be happy. You can't respect, empower, or assist a group who continually degrades, disempowers, and puts obstacles in place for each other.

On "Careerwomen"

Liberal Yuppieland is pretty much acknolwedged by its residents as being a bad community for those of us who desire commitment/marriage/family. (Damn US! We wish nothing more than for our "boring" traditional aspirations to wreck everyone else's lives.)

But the "theory" I have been hearing lately from men as to why they act less than gentlemanly and don't commit is that "women are too into their careers around here." I used to just write that off as "I'm too insecure to talk to a member of the opposite sex", but to be honest, I've just been hearing it too much lately and don't believe that so many men are so stupid.

So. Take this for what it is worth, from a beautiful woman who made manager at a pretty prestigious company at age 26. Long before gender roles, marriage, and finances even entered my conciousness, I was reading at 3 years old and scoring 1500 on the SATs at 16 years old, effortlessly. What can I say - I was born "smart". It's a genetic predisposition, not a choice on my part. Any time two smart people reproduce and the baby's female, chances are she'll turn out the same way.

But the point is - the only reason for me being where I am? NO OTHER OPTIONS. So for anyone thinking I find finance to be spiritually and emotionally fulfilling... not quite. It comes easy to me and it pays the bills nicely. The option for what I truly want - husband and family - has yet to present itself. Until it does, I need to eat, so I got a job. End of story. Furthermore, the fact that I don't have a second income (ie husband) doesn't negate my right to have enough money to have a reliable automobile, savings account, 401K, etc.

And I'm not the only woman in my shoes. In fact, I think the older we get, the more of us feel that way, and to a greater degree of intensity. I'll even go out on a limb and say that often (not always, because Anne A, you are brilliant!), the higher IQs my female friends have, the more often they seem to think like I do.

So guys - don't blame today's women. While feminism opened a lot of doors for us, it closed a lot of doors for us too, and we need to adapt and survive. And I might add, the working world is still very un-female-friendly. And the further a woman is removed from the "married with children" paradigm, the worse the work world is for her.

So that women you've been meaning to ask out? Do it. If she rejects you, 99 times out of 100, it's cause she's not into you, not cause she's too into her job.

Here is your solution to obesity

It's not another diet. It's not develop an eating disorder. I call it "STOP PUTTING A MILLION POUNDS OF REFINED SUGAR IN FREAKING EVERY FOOD PRODUCT WE PRODUCE IN THIS COUNTRY".

Seriously! I get that some people want "real" soda and regular sugar in sweets, but that crap is added, in copious amounts, to bread, tomato sauce, fruit juice, dried fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, peanut butter, and basically every processed food in this country. Most people are too poor to buy organic. Fine. It's a bit annoying how fast it goes bad anyway. But is there a need to dump tons of sucrose into the middle class's food?

Refined sugar is not a preservative, it's not filling, adds no nutritional value, it messes with your blood sugar, and converts to deadly visceral fat in the blink of an eye. Not to mention foods that aren't supposed to be sweet, like peanut butter, taste sickly saccharine when you dump all that sugar in there. What, is everything we eat supposed to taste like dessert? No wonder eating disorders are so widespread in the US, all you have to do is look at 90% of the food lables and realize that most of what we eat is 1% nutirents and 99% bleached flour and refined sugar.

What's even more sick is people ranting and raving about not the major public health risks caused by the obesity "pandemic that we are choosing to inflict upon ourselves", but rather they are focused on the aesthetics of the issue. NBC today is featuring a nice piece on childhood obesity that isn't talking about early puberty, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension in people whose bikes still have training wheels, but rather is showing shots of the fat stomachs and legs of random kids around town. So it's not pretty to see flab on a kindergardener, but jeez, this is NOT a nation of supermodels!!! Pay attention to the health risks of this problem PLEASE.

And all these crazy diets that don't follow balanced meal plans (Atkins, South Beach, and Cabbage Soup, I'm talking to you) much less reality are just slowing down people's metabolisms and - you guessed it - making us all fatter.

More Sanctimonious Whining (about Gas Prices)

I am going to hurl if I hear one more overeducated liberal who fancies him or herself a tree-hugging hippie praise high gas prices.

"It will force Americans to stop buying SUVs, stop driving, and it'll be good for the environement!"

OK, live in the real world much? Americans drive because (a) public transport in this country sucks, and (b) affordable housing is so few and far between that most of us HAVE to commute an hour plus to get to our jobs because we can't afford even a rental property any closer to our jobs. Riding a bike 50 miles ( a pretty average commute) to work is not practical and it's not SAFE.

Just because YOU can afford to live in the 'gentrified' neighborhood (your self-congratulating smugness is about as pleasant to be around as passing kidneystones by the way) and bike a mile to work doesn't mean we ALL can afford that. Or want that safety risk/higher car insurance and taxes from living in that shithole.

Not to mention, gas prices going up is not only making getting to work, school, etc unaffordable; it's going to drive up the prices of other necessities like water, food, medicine, etc. Ever hear of inflation? Our salaries aren't going up the 50% that gas prices have, or the hefty price hike that commodities that need to be transported are going to have... (or the 300% that home prices have, come to think of it). So you're saying you're GLAD that American families are getting more and more impoverished?