Another Addition to the List of Things For Which Feminism Is to Blame September 28, 2006 zuzu Childhood obesity.
Because clearly, a penis makes it impossible to prepare a sandwich. Or grocery shop. “It like, sticks out and might catch on fire if you turned on a stove.” “Oh, no, but not when we use actually open-flame grilling. Then it lends us fire-repellent characteristics that women lack, and thus cannot grill.” “Hey! Who are you calling ‘cognigtally dissonent?’ WTF kind of lame-ass insult is that? Pussy.”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=23016 A new study from the University of Glasgow that analyses information from over 2000 11 year old children and their parents (in 1984-5) reveals no evidence that number of parents in the household or family meals are associated with children’s diets, while maternal employment is associated with better diets. D’oh! There goes that theory.
what’s funny is under the header of the agape press it says” reliable news from a Christian Source” that is one of the most oxymoronic phrases i’ve ever heard
“Morse also says women who work outside the home often put off having children until later in life, meaning less children in families and less children in neighborhoods to be played with. ” Ummm… I’m not sure how this makes sense. Is she assuming that all the women in the neighborhood are the same age, and that only a few of them work? Neither of these describes neighborhoods where I’ve lived. That’s a nice little jab toward women who decide to have only one or two kids, too. If you don’t have enough kids, the ones you do have will be permanently traumatized! And if you don’t have any, you’re making the neighbor’s kids fat! Right.
Morse says these factors can be attributed, at least in part, to maternal employment outside the home — a movement based on feminist ideology. Ummm … how historically literate can righty-tighties be? Sheeze! Doesn’t this person realize that, back in the old days, most families were “dual income” in some manner or form? Of course, the women didn’t work “outside the home” but neither did the men. Did men starting to work outside the home cause more obesity? Hmmm … And correlation doesn’t imply causation: is the rise in childhood obesity caused by increasing numbers of fundie nuts and their increasing social acceptance? or is it a matter of families having too little time and the temptation of convenience foods with too much fat occuring because, well, the undermining of the New Deal consensus? hmmm … I would venture righty-tighties and their corporate bedfellows have indeed played more of a role in creating conditions leading to childhood obesity than straw-feminists.
Ooops … I ment “how historically il-literate” of course. I swear, these “back to the past” types must think Santayana said “if you want to repeat the past, you’d best forget what it was actually like” rather than “those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”.
Morse also says women who work outside the home often put off having children until later in life, meaning less children in families and less children in neighborhoods to be played with. Interesting. From Morse’s biography: Dr. Morse earned a doctorate in economics during her twelve year lapse from the faith. A committed career woman before having children, she taught economics for fifteen years at Yale University and George Mason University. The devastating experience of infertility brought her to her knees and back to the practice of the Catholic faith. In 1991, she and her husband adopted a two year old Romanian boy, and gave birth to a baby girl. She left her full-time university teaching post in 1996 to move with her family to California. She is now a part-time Research Fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. She is a regular columnist in the National Catholic Register and writes and speaks about love, marriage, sexuality and the family, aswell as economics. In addition to their own two kids, Dr. Morse and her husband are foster parents for San Diego County, where they now reside. Her widely acclaimed presentations combine high quality information from the social sciences, the riches of traditional Catholic teaching and her own personal faith journey. Sounds like she’s quite the career woman herself.
majikmama: ahahaha >“It like, sticks out and might catch on fire if you turned on a stove.”> Exactly!
Sounds like she’s quite the career woman herself. Yes, but isn’t she the mop lady as well? It’s okay to have a career if you bow to your husband’s choice of mops.
Dr. Morse earned a doctorate in economics during her twelve year lapse from the faith. That’s the funniest sentence I’ve read in a while. Oh my god! She had a lapse from faith! And it caused her to go totally apeshit and . . . get a Ph.D. in economics! That dirty, godless slut.
I know it’s only anecdotal, but my mother worked full-time from the time I was six years old. She also–are you ready for this scandal?–kept the pantry regularly supplied with corn chips, potato chips, pretzels, and Hostess snacks, and the freezer full of popsicles and ice cream. Furthermore, until I was in my mid-teens I would not eat anything for lunch besides peanut butter and jelly on white bread. No empty calories there! Oh, and my brother and I were allowed to grab a Pepsi or other sugary soda from the fridge whenever we felt thirsty. Yet I was not an overweight child, because I was constantly playing outside. Tag, roller-skating, hide and seek, bicycle-riding, swimming, whatever. I live across the street from an elementary school and next door to a park. But I never see kids outside. The whole school zone thing is a joke–everyone slows down to 15 miles an hour for the zero kids who aren’t in the crosswalk. Any kids in the park only show up after five, with one or more parents. Kids aren’t allowed to just play outside unsupervised anymore. They could be abducted! I don’t know what the percentage of kids abducted each year in the U.S. is, but surely the percentage of kids becoming overweight and setting themselves up for a lifetime of weight struggles beats it by now. Anyway, it certainly wasn’t feminism that decreed “Never ever once let your child out of your sight, or you’re a negligent parent,” so I don’t know what Jennifer’s on about. I love how she admits she pulled this theory straight out of her ass, though.
Dr. Morse earned a doctorate in economics during her twelve year lapse from the faith. oh yeah, I giggled out loud at that one. those godless, over-edumacated wimmin.
Kids aren’t allowed to just play outside unsupervised anymore. They could be abducted! I don’t know what the percentage of kids abducted each year in the U.S. is, but surely the percentage of kids becoming overweight and setting themselves up for a lifetime of weight struggles beats it by now. I agree. I know some parents who not only disallow their kids to play outside unsupervised, but will not let them walk a few blocks to a friend’s house. They have to be driven by one of the parents.
” reliable news from a Christian Source” that is one of the most oxymoronic phrases i’ve ever heard What about the Christian Science Monitor?
The devastating experience of infertility brought her to her knees and back to the practice of the Catholic faith Also, the fact that she wouldn’t have to rely on the rhythm method to limit her family size to a reasonable number. Yeah, that’s harsh. But my grandmother had six children and two miscarriages in nine years, okay? For every Catholic woman in the fifties who prayed to bear a child, there were three who prayed for infertility. (I just pulled that statistic out of my ass, but you know what I’m saying.)
Does America not have after school care? Where kids are left at school and turned out on the playground with loose supervision until their parents come to pick them up after work?
Yes, but isn’t she the mop lady as well? I think the mop lady’s name is Janice something. Besides, maybe some women put off having kids because they hadn’t met the right man yet, and didn’t want to go it alone. Look at poor Dawn Eden. No wait, don’t look. It’ll just make you angry.
I don’t know what the percentage of kids abducted each year in the U.S. is, but surely the percentage of kids becoming overweight and setting themselves up for a lifetime of weight struggles beats it by now. According to an article in Salon a couple of years back, “the number of kids kidnapped by strangers nationwide in 2002 was 115, down from 200 in 1988.” More about kids (not) walking to school: http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/10/13/sr2s/print.html
Not only did our mom work, but our dad did, too, and it meant we got home, way out in the country, from school before either parent did, once I hit the magic age of 8 or 9 (at which point they figured we could keep ourselves alive for 30-45 minutes). We were also mostly left to our own means during summer vacation. And, sure, we watched a lot of TV and emptied out the stash of Snickers bars, but we also spent a LOT of time running around outside, unsupervised. Curiously, neither my sister nor I are obese (though I blame genetics as much as feminism for that). (Gods, I have less faith in my ability to cook a meal safely now than I did then; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve let something burn cause I was sucked into the internets.)
My mom worked, and I was so skinny as a teenager that I was ordered to gain weight. (Yes, she did feed us! Really! But my family tends to run to skinny anyway.)
My mom was at home during the day for most of my childhood (she played in orchestras, thus she worked nights). I’m fat, my brother was a beanpole until he went to college and started drinking whiskey and beer, and my sister is a little athletic ball of pure muscle. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Except there aren’t statistics either!
Her widely acclaimed presentations combine high quality information from the social sciences, the riches of traditional Catholic teaching and her own personal faith journey. How convenient to have someone who stepped out of their faith and obtained an educated that the rest of the believers can’t or won’t. The devastating experience of infertility brought her to her knees and back to the practice of the Catholic faith. In others words she had some kind of emotional crises about not making babies and instead of getting professional help she took the easy way out. And now that they’ve made her a mix of secularism, neurosis and dogmatism, they get to parade her around as their mouthpiece on demand. Trouble is, sometimes she slips back into reality and her former real self comes out and ” …admits her theory is only an amateur one…,” Let us all hope that her children, when growing into adolescence, bring her back to her senses.
“So a babysitter or a daycare provider is not going to be supervising what kids put in their mouth in the same way that mom and dad would be,” Exactly! Meaning, I am not NEARLY as careful about only letting her eat appropriate amounts of healthy stuff as my daughter’s daycare is, cause 1) I don’t know, 2) I don’t care and 3) the daycare has to follow guidelines on proper eating/nutrition and I don’t. I like knowing that my daughter eats healthy most of the time!
How convenient to have someone who stepped out of their faith and obtained an educated that the rest of the believers can’t or won’t. Here’s the thing, though: Catholicism is not incompatible with advanced education. In fact, the whole Catholic university system, especially the Jesuit-run institutions, is all about the quality education. It’s wingnuttery that’s incompatible with education and earning a living.
“So a babysitter or a daycare provider is not going to be supervising what kids put in their mouth in the same way that mom and dad would be,” my gut reaction to that quote is to get defensive. as a nanny/childcare provider i not only care about the kids i’m working with, but damn if i’m not going to follow the parent’s rules if they have specific rules about food. i don’t always agree with their rules, but they aren’t my kids. i grew up in a house where both parents worked, with probably seven or so live-in nannies/au pairs from the time i was three until i turned thirteen (at which point i was old enough to keep an eye on my younger brothers for a few hours after school). i still saw my parents and felt love AND i had other wonderful women who loved me and became an integral part of my life. especially as i got to 12-13, i was much preferred talking to a 20-some au pair about crushes or clothes or painting our nails together than having those conversations with my mom, and my parents could feel reassured that they knew and trusted them. that whole “it takes a village to raise a child” doesn’t mean the parents aren’t involved, just that they don’t have to do it alone.
So…women are now negligent career bitches, and men are inept boobs who have no role/responsibility in child raising? This is making me so ANGRY! I wonder if the target audience for this article even gets all the women/mother references. And it’s interesting that in this quote The author maintains that no one cares about a child the way the child’s mother cares about the child. “So a babysitter or a daycare provider is not going to be supervising what kids put in their mouth in the same way that mom and dad would be,” she notes. the article writer pointedly says mother, while Morse says “mom or dad.” LAME.