A terribly feminine entry
Thursday, July 1st, 2010 12:26 amToday I went out intending to buy some bras and possibly a shirt or some jeans if any suitable ones were to be found, spent hours indoors on a lovely day scouring the shelves and racks of all likely stores in a local shopping mall, and came home carrying a box of licorice tea and a bar of dark chocolate with golden flax seeds and thyme. I've been told that many women and some men absolutely love shopping for clothes, but I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal.
It would probably help if clothing manufacturers made a habit of making clothes I would willingly wear. Shopping for bras is hardly an easy task to begin with. Like the average woman, I wear bras in the wrong size. Unlike the average woman, I am aware of the fact. But how am I to correct it? All I'm looking for is something that fits reasonably well and isn't made out of some fabric that makes me dehydrated within the hour and doesn't cause pain that's too terribly intense. Today I was even willing to buy something with an underwire! That's how accommodating I am! But everything in the size I was looking for (not much of a selection to begin with) was either designed to minimize ("Reduces by up to 1¾ inches!" But why?) or had enough padding that I'd feel like I had an extra chest on top of my chest. Why can't I find something to support what I have without pretending I don't have it or that I have someone else's?
This isn't the best time of year for me to go shopping. I keep hearing Mom's voice in my head, telling me to suck in my stomach because it's bulging too much. I know it was her body she hated, not mine, but mine is the one that's still alive. She used to buy me fashionable dresses and miniskirts--things she would never wear herself because of her weight and her shape--and then wonder why I wouldn't wear them. I liked the clothes she wore better! Poor Mom. She wanted me to become the girl she'd wanted to be rather than the woman she was; I aspired to become the woman she was, but was hampered by the fact that I was rather a lot like Dad.
I keep hearing other voices in my head, telling my mother she looked good. Hot summer afternoon, she'd spent a long time in the hotel room making herself look as respectable as possible before Dad wheeled her out in the chair out to be happy and chatty and pretend she wasn't dying. Nobody was dying, and Mom looked great because she'd lost so much weight and people would pretend to her face that they didn't know why. (Later on they'd tell Dad he was a saint for sticking around.) Mom, you were right: Smoking did help you lose your unwanted fat. I still don't think it was worth the price.
And this really isn't the best time of year for me to go shopping.
~~~~~
In the news: A Prenatal Treatment Raises Questions of Medical Ethics, in which we learn about Dr. Maria New, who encourages pregnant women who might pass a genetic disorder on to their children to take powerful medications in an experimental sort of way to attempt to prevent girls who might have the disorder from developing certain symptoms--all so early in the pregnancy that there's no way for mother or doctor to know whether or not the developing fetus is, in fact, a genetic XX who might theoretically benefit from this drug which is probably causing birth defects. Well, I find that bad enough, personally. But preventing certain physical problems with baby genitalia isn't the doctor's only goal. No, no, it seems that she thinks the experimental use of the drug could prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with girls' toys or become mothers, and whose "career preferences" are deemed too "masculine." Right, so it seems this woman doctor wants to prevent the births of more women who would join some stereotypically masculine profession like medicine. Sounds like another case of self-hatred, which might not be so bad if people like her didn't take their self-hatred out on the most vulnerable of the rest of us.
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supergee.)
It would probably help if clothing manufacturers made a habit of making clothes I would willingly wear. Shopping for bras is hardly an easy task to begin with. Like the average woman, I wear bras in the wrong size. Unlike the average woman, I am aware of the fact. But how am I to correct it? All I'm looking for is something that fits reasonably well and isn't made out of some fabric that makes me dehydrated within the hour and doesn't cause pain that's too terribly intense. Today I was even willing to buy something with an underwire! That's how accommodating I am! But everything in the size I was looking for (not much of a selection to begin with) was either designed to minimize ("Reduces by up to 1¾ inches!" But why?) or had enough padding that I'd feel like I had an extra chest on top of my chest. Why can't I find something to support what I have without pretending I don't have it or that I have someone else's?
This isn't the best time of year for me to go shopping. I keep hearing Mom's voice in my head, telling me to suck in my stomach because it's bulging too much. I know it was her body she hated, not mine, but mine is the one that's still alive. She used to buy me fashionable dresses and miniskirts--things she would never wear herself because of her weight and her shape--and then wonder why I wouldn't wear them. I liked the clothes she wore better! Poor Mom. She wanted me to become the girl she'd wanted to be rather than the woman she was; I aspired to become the woman she was, but was hampered by the fact that I was rather a lot like Dad.
I keep hearing other voices in my head, telling my mother she looked good. Hot summer afternoon, she'd spent a long time in the hotel room making herself look as respectable as possible before Dad wheeled her out in the chair out to be happy and chatty and pretend she wasn't dying. Nobody was dying, and Mom looked great because she'd lost so much weight and people would pretend to her face that they didn't know why. (Later on they'd tell Dad he was a saint for sticking around.) Mom, you were right: Smoking did help you lose your unwanted fat. I still don't think it was worth the price.
And this really isn't the best time of year for me to go shopping.
~~~~~
In the news: A Prenatal Treatment Raises Questions of Medical Ethics, in which we learn about Dr. Maria New, who encourages pregnant women who might pass a genetic disorder on to their children to take powerful medications in an experimental sort of way to attempt to prevent girls who might have the disorder from developing certain symptoms--all so early in the pregnancy that there's no way for mother or doctor to know whether or not the developing fetus is, in fact, a genetic XX who might theoretically benefit from this drug which is probably causing birth defects. Well, I find that bad enough, personally. But preventing certain physical problems with baby genitalia isn't the doctor's only goal. No, no, it seems that she thinks the experimental use of the drug could prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with girls' toys or become mothers, and whose "career preferences" are deemed too "masculine." Right, so it seems this woman doctor wants to prevent the births of more women who would join some stereotypically masculine profession like medicine. Sounds like another case of self-hatred, which might not be so bad if people like her didn't take their self-hatred out on the most vulnerable of the rest of us.
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rm via supergee.)
