Loving Themselves
A student group at a California university is hosting a month-long “Body Love” celebration, which includes events about how “menstruation and environmentalism go hand in hand.”
Not, I think, an entirely happy image. But apparently, students will be “empowered” and “feel more comfort” by exploring the “intersection” – because you knew there was going to be an intersection somewhere – of “body love and Earth love.”
Students could also attend a “Self-Care for Body Hair” event that offered answers to questions such as: “What do you do with your body hair? Does your relationship with your body change when you’ve shaved recently? Do you shave at all?”
Because when you call yourselves The Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment at the University of Southern California, and proudly declare a mission to fight for those “oppressed by the patriarchy,” while “working towards intersectional, collective liberation,” then obviously you’re going to focus on the big, meaty issues of the day. And so,
At the group’s “signature event,” a “body love fair,” students were treated to “crafts, donuts, boba, music, and self-lovin’ vibes!” At that event, attendees were also invited to “release your anger at our Scale Smashing!”
Yes, students with weight issues – issues of such magnitude that they have anger to release – will be encouraged to gorge on doughnuts and thick sugary drinks containing various types of pudding and requiring an extra-wide straw, before hating themselves all over again, while pretending to be empowered and totally okay with it. You see, the way to help overweight people is to encourage the kind of high-sugar consumption that results in weight gain, and inviting them to smash objects that remind them of how unhappy they are about being fat. A situation that they’ve just made slightly worse.
It’s intersectional science, people.
students with weight issues – issues of such magnitude that they have anger to release – will be encouraged to gorge on doughnuts and thick sugary drinks containing various types of pudding and requiring an extra-wide straw,
Sounds like the opposite of helping.
Sounds like the opposite of helping.
Well, yes. Quite. But as we’ve seen many times, woke advice is generally terrible.
It must be so tiring, so frustrating to maintain this obsessive parsing of reality, day after day. No wonder they need so many opportunities to vent and let their hair down (ew).
That this makes it look like they ricochet between neurotic navel-gazing and reckless hedonism without ever passing through regions of competence is entirely accidental, I’m sure.
Speaking of “empowerment” and “body positivity,” let’s not forget this somewhat mixed message.
That this makes it look like they ricochet between neurotic navel-gazing and reckless hedonism without ever passing through regions of competence is entirely accidental, I’m sure.
It is strange how the obvious and only practical solution to the problem is pointedly avoided, as if it were heresy and insufficiently radical. Instead, the weighty and woke are encouraged to behave in ways that will ultimately compound the cause of all that anger and unhappiness. On account of the health issues of obesity, and the psychological complications that tend to go with it, not being solvable by slurping sugary pudding through an oversized straw.
Of course it is. If the problem was actually solved, they’d have to find something else to be oppressed about…
(btw, signing into Typepad with Twatter appears to be broken.)
(btw, signing into Typepad with Twatter appears to be broken.)
I don’t have a Twitter account, so I can’t check. Will mention it to the Typepad bods. Thanks.
Sounds like the opposite of helping.
No, it sounds like many helpings, all big ones at that.
PJH, David, to be somewhat charitable for a sec (yes, I’m a bit of a mug) the driver seems to be that it’s not enough for them to solve their *personal* issues with obesity and the social effects of appearance. They get fixated on fixing these problems *forever*, for everyone. To make it go away, because people shouldn’t have to deal with that sort of thing. It’s so unfair.
This side-steps the cognitive dissonance you point out, it rules out character-building as a ‘real’ solution. It’s social engineering or bust. Hilarity ensues.
I wonder if any of the 150 or so participants in this event have stopped to consider that if they’re worried about body hair maintenance and proper make-up application for trans people, as opposed to say, I dunno, the Black Death or potato famines, things are probably OK in Southern California.
They get fixated on fixing these problems *forever*, for everyone.
As if theatrically smashing weight scales and gorging on pudding will resolve their long-term self-esteem issues, or make obesity an ideal, or somehow prevent diabetes and osteoarthritis.
It’s magical thinking, almost cargo cult territory.
…things are probably OK in Southern California.
Whereas California leads the nation in poverty and a number of other troubling metrics and nigh third world problems, it is not so much things are so swell there, but that these buffoons are so isolated from those problems by their genuine privilege of being able to laze about a campus, and too shallow and egocentric even to consider them, as doing something constructive to fix them would require actual effort and work as opposed to the emotional labor of eating donuts.
as doing something constructive to fix them would require actual effort
Avoiding which, displacing responsibility, does seem to be a recurring theme of woke advice:
And variations thereof.
It’s intersectional science, people.
I don’t think that word means what they think it means…
There’s definitely a whiff of cargo cult in all these so-called “sciences“
Self-Care for Body Hair
F*ck’s sake. These people are supposed to be empowered?
These people are supposed to be empowered?
Ah, but, you see, they’re radical and empowered in that delicate, hand-wash-only way. It’s how things are done now.
Check out ‘Rubén “Queer Xicano Chisme” of the Bitter Brown Femmes Podcast’ on their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/SAGEUSC/?eid=ARBDpZi7vXNQA8Ew2V5_UqZgw0gY1ewnlWTRMe5aywNwGYmpG4kzeEfftrzk46k-4J3hs4iqqrNDKYGP
…on their Facebook page:
Hmmm. The logo in front of SAGE makes it read OSAGE, and as the Osage are an Indian tribe, I denounce these fools for their cultural appropriation without proper intersectional approval from the Politburo.
the emotional labor of eating donuts.
LOL
USC attracts a lot of beautiful young women with media ambitions. It would be understandable for a plain girl to feel unattractive when surrounded by such perfection.
On the other side, the beautiful ambitious girl can no longer straightforwardly enjoy the advantages of her beauty. As part of her personal brand building, she has to make herself “relatable” to the plain girls, have a story prepared about her adolescent struggles as a late developer tomboy/nerd, be able to “open up” about not feeling pretty on the inside.
So the beautiful girl tells plain girls that they’re perfect as they are and don’t have to go to the gym. The beautiful girl will be going to the gym. She has standards and ambitions. But the show of solidarity will hopefully rechannel the plain girls’ envy of her into man-blaming and weighingscale-smashing.
The beautiful girl will be going to the gym… But the show of solidarity will hopefully rechannel the plain girls’ envy of her into man-blaming and weighingscale-smashing.
It is, I think, curious just how much ‘woke’ posturing can be boiled down to social positioning and female sexual competition.
It is strange how the obvious and only practical solution to the problem is pointedly avoided, as if it were heresy and insufficiently radical.
Not really.
It’s a given that the Standard American Diet has too many carbs in it and will make you chubby anyway, but the kind of morbidly obese people engaging in this kind of self-care self-absorption are as fat as they are because they have deep-rooted psychological issues. Their obsessive unhealthy eating is a self-destructive coping mechanism no different from cutting. If they could stop eating unhealthy foods in unhealthy quantities, they would; they can no more Do The Sensible Thing than a teenaged girl being molested by her stepfather can put down the razor.
That these people have gotten mixed up with overly-indulged teenaged girls engaging in a form of mass shit test against society in general and the loco parentis of the university community in particular is doubly tragic, as it means their self-destructive habits are going to be enabled, encouraged, and amplified. You don’t help a cutter by giving them a bigger razor.
So the beautiful girl tells plain girls that they’re perfect as they are and don’t have to go to the gym. The beautiful girl will be going to the gym.
And then there’s the attractive girls with self-discipline who have figured out that encouraging other girls with low self-esteem to do things that lower their market value decreases competition.
Er, what David said. Less wordily.
attractive girls with self-discipline who have figured out that encouraging other girls with low self-esteem to do things that lower their market value decreases competition.
Not entirely unrelated, this at Tim Newman’s.
Typepad is currently buggering up some links by replacing ‘http’ with ‘https’. If the above doesn’t work properly, just strip out the ‘s’ and try again.
Typepad is currently buggering up some links by replacing ‘https’ with ‘https’. If the above doesn’t work properly, just strip out the ‘s’ and try again.
Heh. And it’s even done it to the comment above.
Not entirely unrelated, this at Tim Newman’s.
I’ve have always maintained that women do not compete with men. They compete with other women, especially in the work force.
My own, admittedly anecdotal, experience is that professional men will always treat women better than their female coworkers. This is especially true when it comes to white collar, educated women and those women in blue collar jobs. For years, it has been drummed into men’s heads that we’re one stray comment or misperceived glance away from an H.R. complaint. Women are not.
Hit “post” to0 quickly.
To amplify, professional women want to make sure that their achievements are acknowledged and “celebrated” by their blue collar distaff colleagues. Their interaction among each other is really remarkable for the palpable air condescension between the two groups.
OF course, it’s not universal, but it’s prevalent enough to be noticeable.
Hit “post” to0 quickly.
![](https://davidthompson.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451675669e2022ad39d0d5f200d-pi)
I’m also deducting points for this abomination:
Using a zero as an ‘o’. I ask you.
I ask you.
Nice to see you waited until after the fundraiser to resume abusing the commentariat.
Heh.
The beautiful ambitious girl can no longer straightforwardly enjoy the advantages of her beauty
Was it ever thus, though? I always thought much of is widely considered “civilized” behavior is a complex system that mitigated the differences between us.
For example, why did man-apes start wearing clothes? Even in hot climates ancient people wore SOME clothing. It was many factors surely, but I bet covering up imperfections and leveling the playing field was a significant reason.
What is modesty if not the attempt to hide imperfections as well as luscious perfection alike?
Even in hot climates ancient people wore SOME clothing.
Realistically it’s the same reason pubic hair evolved – it traps body odour, which predators use to track you.
I can’t speak for the female afarensis, but as a male even a few millimeters of buckskin between my nads and the hooves of an angry gazelle is better than the alternative.
Instalanche!
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/311919/
Instalanche!
[ Hides good booze. ]
Act casual. Say nothing.
[rushes to the bank to see if it’s too late to void that Ping! I sent the other day. …. It is.]
Re: this nonsense from USC.
USC of all places. Good lord. Probably the pre-eminent locus of academic superficial beauty promotion on the planet.
The only school our son interviewed at where a STEM department head recommended he go elsewhere (Brown, as I recall), because his department was not adequate.
That this makes it look like they ricochet between neurotic navel-gazing and reckless hedonism without ever passing through regions of competence is entirely accidental, I’m sure. (Bold empasis mine)
Competence is a tool of the patriarchy along with logic and good personal hygiene.
as opposed to say, I dunno, the Black Death or potato famines, things are probably OK in Southern California.
Being worried about the arrangement of the deck chairs didn’t mean that everything else was ok on the Titanic.
Probably these people are just too dense or too small-minded to realize that the Golden State is rapidly becoming the Parlous State.
I thought it was because once we started walking upright our nads were smacking against the tall grasses. Hell, I’m chafing just from thinking about it.
the driver seems to be that it’s not enough for them to solve their *personal* issues with obesity and the social effects of appearance. They get fixated on fixing these problems *forever*, for everyone.
It’s quite the displacement. Rather than doing the tedious but practical work required to reduce their weight, and thereby reduce their hang-ups about being heavy, all effort is directed instead to something much easier, and more flattering, but entirely delusional. As if pissing about on campus and wolfing down doughnuts, and blathering about the “patriarchy,” will have any effect on wider perceptions of obesity as a sub-optimal state.
As I’ve said before, it’s like shouting at rain and expecting it to stop. And so-called activists prey on this idiocy.
And so, the Guardian’s former fat person Stacie Huckeba, whose screaming fits and elaborate rationalisations proved somewhat entertaining, spends much of her time championing obesity as wholesome and beautiful, while admitting to great relief and a sense of “freedom” since losing weight herself and regaining a normal size, due to the chronic discomfort and breathing problems that plagued her when she was larger.
The word dissonance comes to mind.
The word dissonance comes to mind.
Bariatric surgery doesn’t cure mental illness. It just makes it physically impossible to continue that particular form of self-destructive behaviour. Another will be along shortly.
Another will be along shortly.
Insanity finds a way.
What is modesty if not the attempt to hide imperfections as well as luscious perfection alike?
Not just modesty, and not just the protective aspect of clothing, either. Clothing and worn accoutrements enable some to compete for social status/mate selection above the level their natural attributes alone would permit.
The “some” is important, of course. Every one of those who attempt this operating on false premises only serves to increase the perceived value of those who get it right.
“Self Care for Body Hair”
Reminds me of the Nat Geo film with the monkeys picking lice off of each others heads and asses.
students with weight issues
Weight is the least of their ‘issues’.
Hey! David’s alive! 👏
Body love, my ass. I menstruated for 32 years—real menstruation, since I was unable to take birth control pills. (That’s probably why I have only one child—other than the m-word, nothing scares off men like saying “I am unable to use birth-control pills.”). Menstruation is an expensive nuisance. I’ve never understood why birth-control-pill dosage is calculated to produce a fake period once a month.