LadyNews

All the “zomg Kate Middleton’s too thin!!11!11!!!” panic that’s been building for months now has gotten on my nerves like you wont believe.  People who are not Kate or her doctor shouldn’t  get to have an opinion about that. But today- the day of her wedding- it has come to a head: “Health professionals are concerned Kate Middleton is at risk of not making it down the aisle on Friday.” Omg, did she diet her legs right off?? Nah, a bunch of jerks- I’m sorry, dieticians who don’t treat Kate and have never met her- are super worried she’s gotten so thin she won’t be able to walk down the aisle, presumably because she will collapse on the threshold of Westmisnter Abbey – either due to starvation-induced weakness or because she’s having a sobbing breakdown about how much she wants a pie.  All I can say to that is: fuck right off. The teevee news last night told me lots of people are making royal wedding-related bets, so in that vein I will make one myself: I bet that Kate won’t fail to make it down the aisle due to her “brideorexia” or “waify” thinness (Waify Katie, geddit?!). I think I’m going to bet a million pounds (it’s a Brit wedding, so I’m choosing to bet in pounds) that she will make it down the aisle.

Obviously, the issue of women starving themselves as wedding prep is a a real issue, and the article does touch on it, but couching concern about that issue in concern for Kate -based on pure speculation, really- is not ok.

So much nasty judgemental shit in the comments here. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; an opinion piece about what girls are wearing “these days” is bound to bring out the haters. But the variety in the name-calling surprised me: slappers, sluts, hookers, skanky little street whores, girls with no class, easy targets for sexual predators, easy girls.  It makes me very glad that my own Mum encouraged teenage me to buy a mini skirt that I liked the look of rather than telling me I would look like a prostitute in it- possibly because she was never so shortsighted as to have forgotten her own sartorial past and the “whorey” and revealing stuff she wore: terry-towelling micro shorts, anyone?

I have obviously completed my transformation into  a full-blown  cynical jerk: my first response to this piece about Claire Gourley trying to make cooking more appealing and accessible to teenagers was to zero in on this part

“Cooking is a dying skill,” Gourley says. “A lot of people don’t realise how food affects them. But two out of three children in New Zealand don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. That might be fine now, but what about when they’re older? More people die in New Zealand each year as a result of illnesses caused by bad food choices than are killed in car accidents. That’s just terrible.”

(emphasis mine)

and to bitterly think to myself that perhaps there is more than lack of skills that is contributing to kids not getting their veggies. Not that cooking isn’t a potential issue, but I think that rising food prices and poor food security is a more significant part of why people (kids/teens in this case) aren’t eating fruit and vegetables.

I’ve got no issue with someone trying to address a skill gap, but if a family can’t afford produce to cook and eat then having the skills seems almost irrelevant.

/cynical rant over.

I just found out that a friend is doing a (public) poster presentation (and taking questions) this Wednesday on the topic of her Master’s thesis: the title of the presentation is “Why Do Some Men Rape?: An Investigation into the Root Causes of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Wartime”. My very bad-ass friend had a placement at an NGO in East Timor last year and I was very excited and interested when I heard about her thesis subject. I’m looking forward to hearing about her work.

New blog alert! Some of my favourite feminist bloggers  have started up a sweet new blog, The Stroppery.

All I have to say is: I want to go to there.