Quickies

Skepchick Quickies 2.2

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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      1. Which makes it lot more legitimate than any other contrived reason people attach to it. It’s his character after all, and he get to decide how & why power-girl looks a certain way and does certain things.

        1. The creator’s decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. Boobs sell. Sex sells. Female sex sells. That’s why they do it. They wouldn’t do it if that weren’t the case. Oh, and they like boobies.

          1. Aren’t you essentially saying that the MALE creater is lying when he says “She dresses the way she wants to and fuck anyone who tells her she shouldn’t. ”

      2. I know you got thrown by a Stacey down the page, Mari, but Gail Simone (the author of the Gail Simone tumblr) is a female writer for DC, who first came to prominence through the “Women in Refrigerators” list, showing how female characters were frequently and disproportionately poorly treated in comics. In her career, she’s dealt with a number of superheroes (of both genders), and done quite a bit to bring queer (not just lipstick lesbian) characters into mainstream comics.

        1. She’s basically trying to make herself feel better about how that particular superhero is depicted, while ignoring the fact that male creators made her that way because they like boobies, and because boobies make money. It has nothing to do with the character itself, and everything to do with sexism and marketing.

          I actually know the refrigerator thing you are talking about, and it was quite good, but she’s fooling herself here. She’s just trying to rationalize it because she enjoys the comic.

  1. Oh, no, Amanda! Now you’re going to get people in here accusing you of trying to talk women out of breastfeeding! You must always tell women how wonderful breastfeeding is. You must never tell them how awful or difficult it can sometimes be. You must alway encourage them to make the “right” choice to breastfeed. There is no other choice! And don’t forget to tell them it’s the very best thing they can do for their child, and all the awful, awful things that will happen to their children if they don’t breastfeed. Don’t forget to push those last two points home!

        1. The stigma faced by women who have to supplement or switch to formula is horrifying.

          A friend of mine faced all that kind of horrific bullshit when she couldn’t provide enough nutrition for her child, and she sort of fell to pieces because she got it from so many sides. He mother in law was incredibly awful, and nothing that friends like me said could measure against the overwhelming message that she was a shitty mother for not being able to breastfeed.

          1. I am very appreciative that I was able to breastfeed all of my children, and even received pumping help from the hospital where my son spent is first week. The Children’s Hospital had pumping rooms and gave my son my breast milk when I could not be there (there is no sleeping for parents in a ward full of cribs and isolettes).

            But I knew several women who could not breastfeed. One was in the same birthing class, she had a medical condition that made her pregnancy high risk and her medication that made her breast milk unsuitable for her daughter. Another was a woman whose nipples were inverted, and then there was a dear friend who found a lump while she was breastfeeding her second child. That child and her older sister played in front of the church during their mother’s memorial service about three years later (they should both be in their mid-twenties now).

            So I really dislike those judgmental harpies. I keep wondering if they think a young woman with a baby and breast cancer think breast milk is more important than the mother getting treatment. Like this one:

            When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer eight weeks ago, at the age of 36 and with four kids, the youngest of whom was 4 months old, it was what one might call a shock, the like of which you don’t get too many times in a lifetime.

    1. Funny, I always thought that if breastfeeding-enthusiasts had given me and all other mums a bit more accurate information about possible complications (and they are huge, and there are many), I might have felt less of a failure when they happened.
      Because with my second child I was prepared, I didn’t think I’d go off into happy-breastfeeding land and didn’t feel like a failure.
      It was an obstacle to be overcome. So, I had a pump, formula and a healthy meassure of realism ready. Saved me nights of crying and my baby nights of hunger.
      Breastfeeding a baby who falls asleep from exhaustion at your breast and then wakes 10 min later crying with hunger is no pleasure.

          1. Wait, I’ve seen this on Animal Planet; you have to chew the worms before spitting them into the babies mouth right?

            I may have been drunk that night.

    2. And never tell expectant moms that we don’t live in a perfect world of intelligent design where everybody is equal before genetics and every woman’s body has the ability to produce the perfect quantity and quality of milk for optimum baby thriving, for as long as necessary…

      1. Don’t forget that breastfeeding will make your child super-bright, allergy-free, never-ever sick, prevents SIDS, and gets the perfect BMI.
        The new miracle cure!
        And if you don’t, they’re going to end up like millions of formula-fed babies, being ordinary people.
        Coincidentially, he four most allergy-stricken children I know are all 4 breastfed, up to 4 yeears of age…

        Oh, and don’t forget that your children also all do the perfect things naturally, like latching, sucking with enough strength etc.

        1. Oh, and least I forget, there’s another thing that might get in the way which is called life. Some kids have simply unsustainable feeding-habits.
          My firstborn (the one who’d have starved at my breast withizt supplement. I’m wonderinghow much good infant malnutrition would have done her cognitive development) would nurse every three hours for 30-40 minutes.
          That was OK because I was living with my parents and somebody would bring me some tea, cook me meals, do the cleaning and the laundry.
          With the second one, that person was me plus there was a toddler who insisted on existing and having eeds of her own.
          Fortunately, that kid was a greedy little sucker who’d finish two breasts in 15 min…

  2. Amanda,

    So Stacy Campfield, is a Tennessee state Senator who thinks that only gays can get aids? What’s her source for that information? The American Family Association? Its really scary to have such a person in government.

      1. Marilove,

        I know that he is a bigot. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought otherwise.

    1. I would also like to add the paramedics, emergency department personnel, hospital staff and the women working in the various medical clinics I have been frequenting lately (son’s genetic cardiac condition). Many were wearing ugly scrubs, but those are also real superhero uniforms.

      1. I’m in the Canadian military police, and I work with paramedics a lot. I gotta say, of the emergency response groups (Police, fire-fighters, paramedics) paramedics are by far the most under paid and under appreciated.

        1. It takes a superhero to comfort a parent, and even stand for a while with the parent outside the room where the young man was being treated.

  3. A lot of the difficulty in lactating is purely physiological. The major solid in milk is lactose and lactose can only be made as the milk is being produced and only from blood glucose. If your liver can’t deliver enough glucose fast enough, you can’t produce milk.

    Glucose can only be made from 3-carbon substrates, either from carbohydrates or from certain proteins. It cannot be made from fat. Fat in the diet or on your body can’t be used to make the lactose in milk. Difficulty in lactating correlates with levels of body fat.

    In other words, being on a low carbohydrate diet is incompatible with lactation.

    Stress also makes it (very) hard to lactate.

  4. The superhero costume thing always reminds me of Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor (http://womenfighters.tumblr.com/), which includes some examples of armor that’s protective AND allows “freedom of movement”.

    Also, and maybe it’s just me, but I think it looks better too. I value competence in women, and seeing out violence in lingerie does not exactly scream “I know what I’m doing and I’m good at it” to me…

    1. I think that the point is made that the unreasonable armor is unreasonable, but I would also make the point that not all fantasy fiction need be reasonable. It’s a fantasy for reason. John Carter on Mars in the old Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars novels was always depicted half naked and fighting to protect some half naked female. But, that’s just playing on sexual fantasies – it’s not reasonable for him to fight like that, either.

  5. I don’t think that female superheroes are dressed all that much sillier than male superheroes. Look at Superman and Acquaman, and that line of superheroes. All musculature-enhancing tight, almost painted on clothing, perfectly sculpted physiques, etc. The male costumes accentuate males in a manner understood in our culture as enhancing male features, and the females likewise. Large, full breasts for women, small waste, round buttocks, long legs for women…and wide shoulders, broad chest, sculpted abs, tight butt and strong legs for men.

    It’s all a bullshit fantasy, playing on teenage and pre-teen sexual impulses.

  6. OK, I’ll step in it again.

    Yes, women who want to breastfeed and can’t can definitely go through a lot of guilt and shame. Yes, Mothering dot com is haven for a very judgmental element on most aspects of parenting and should be avoided like the plague. However, this is not the end all be all of breastfeeding.

    The tone of this blog’s posters and commenters has been hardly pro-breastfeeding. It is possible to not be judgmental of the moms who have issues and still support the science behind breastfeeding and its promotion.

    The mockery of the public health effort to encourage breastfeeding and the evidence supporting its benefits is very anti-science, and I believe would not be tolerated if it reared its head on this site in regards to any other health behavior or intervention.

    1. The mockery of the public health effort to encourage breastfeeding and the evidence supporting its benefits is very anti-science…

      I’m not seeing any mockery of science. Could you be specific?

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