This time because a new desk will be arriving on Saturday, and if I don't start filling up the recycling bin with loose newspaper items, old articles, and scraps of paper now I'm going to be in a world of mess then! Again, it's snippets from the standard daily read, the Gazette (but this time, a little less organized):
12 April, A17
Headline: "Esteem is only skin deep"
Subhead: "Looks can sway women's actions, study finds"
Excerpt:
"The most educated and empowered generation of women in history can still be rendered vulnerable by a bad hair day, according to a global study released today."
Yes, a 10-country survey "revealed" that two-thirds of females aged 15-64 will "disengage from normal activity if they feel badly about their looks." (Apparently the "bleakest" stats came from Japan, where this is the case for 94% of women. Canada ranked slightly higher than the average coming in at 17% - or one in five women.)
Another Excerpt:
"On the positive side, the survey also revealed mothers weild the power to prevent such behaviour early in life."
More so, it seems, than any influence the media's authority weilds.
A final Excerpt:
"Seventeen per cent of Canadian girls age 15 to 17 admitted to having experienced disordered eating, such as binging and purging or refusing to eat; for those age 18 to 64, the number shrank to nine per cent."
[OK, so I've got nuthin' for the next two days...]
15 April, A9
Headline: "Finding right bikini is like pulling teeth, women say"
Subhead: "Dreaded Rite of Summer Returns"
Snippet: "Blame attitudes, not the suit: experts"
Excerpts:
"...60 years after the bikini made its debut on a Paris runway, the female psyche still hasn't recovered. And with bikini-shopping season upon us, the emotional injuries are only going to get worse..."
"Cynthia Lewis, co-author of Bikini is a State of Mind, says women's ambivalence about their bodies - not the tiny swimwear itself - is the true culprit.
"According to a report released this week by research firm StrategyOne, nearly one in three Canadian women will ultimately avoid the beach or swimming pool because they're unhappy with their appearance."
"Lewis and her baby-boomer friends have launched a grass-roots war on such attitudes, reclaiming swimwear as an instrument of empowerment. Whether going swimming or talking politics, every woman in the group sports a two-piece bathing suit."
"Given the average North American woman's body woes, it's a sartorial miracle that the bikini has prospered through six decades of fashion evolution."
[Again, nuthin for another day...I suspect I recycled early...]
17 April, A21Headline: "Men are finally catching up with women in self-loathing"
Subhead: "They're turning to hot-wax treatments to make themselves more attractive"
Excerpt:
"Though statistics are hard to come by, its no secret that larger numbers of men are getting their body hair waxed and lasered off. The unofficial term: 'manscaping'."
Do stats exist for women? Not that I know of. But the author, Meghan Daum, points to the gay community and the OC as potential causes.
Another Excerpt:
"If certain feminists still don't feel sympathy for men forced to live under this tyranny, I dare say it might be because they've never gotten waxed themselves."
Yup. Then she blames the overwhelming concentration on body hair removal - en masse - on a rebellion against the 60s and 70s, "when hair did double duty as a personal statement and a political act...You did not, for example, approach a woman who had hairy legs and ask her to greet you at the door with a martini and wearing a Saran Wrap dress."
But men, she argues, "haven't found a way to politicize their body hair."
Damn. Some items in this paper are so bad they don't even need to be editorialized.
[That's all I got. The paper wasn't delivered in the last couple of days, saving me both a little time, desk space, and heartache!]
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