Here is one of the ads for a dating site the keep I seeing over and over. As you can see, it is aimed at middle-class parents rather than at singles. The NPR piece on this was more interesting than this article because it actually highlighted the experience of relatable people making their own decisions.
Seriously. This isn't a rescued monkey living in a preserve or an injured monkey being rehabbed. This is living in somebody's house as a pet. NOT COOL, Doug.
I would definitely agree about distinguishing poverty/scarcity and famine. My MIL is from a rural family of seven kids, so sweets were special and rare. Now that she can afford them, she has them around all the time. Do some members of the older generation think of sweet, deep-fried, or processed foods as more…
There is another layer to this, though, and it's something that is also a problem in the US, and that is how junk food is advertised as being healthy. In my pantry, I have huge packages of Maggi noodles (like Indian ramen) that have the word "healthy" and "source of calcium and protein" emblazoned across a photo of…
It's pretty much the same in India (and probably a lot of other places, honestly). Many things that are considered good or special are made from refined sugar, white flour, and fat. Then you get shamed for being even slightly overweight.
I am in severe chronic pain. It fucking sucks and has sucked for over eight months now. Other get refills of my pain meds, go to PT, and sit and wait to find out if my insurance will cover anything else, I feel pretty helpless. Sometimes I can do a bunch of low-impact cardio and distract myself from how I feel, but I…
Also, the ads for these sites (we stream cricket, so we are inundated with ads for Community Matrimony interspersed with the occasional Xoom.com ad) are clearly targeted towards parents rather than to singles.
Amen to this. I'm a 12. I have hips and boobs. Pants that fit my hips? That's gonna mean inches of extra fabric at the waist. Shirts with buttons? Well, if they button over my boobs, my waist is lost in a sea of fabric because obvs if you wear a 12 you must have a beer belly. I've had to become a master of added…
This stuff scares me so much. My husband really wants to have kids soon, but when I hear about the judgement, unsolicited advice, and criticism you get while pregnant and while your child is an infant, I think it would be best that I wall myself up in the house, close all the blinds, and unplug the internet the moment…
OK, not actually advocating this or dissing this, just putting it out there as a real thing: http://breast-feeding.adoption.com I guess some people take lactation-inducing drugs and breastfeed. It's cool if it's something you WANT to do to bond with your kid and that you have the time, resources, and healthcare to do…
No, she has a problem with the smug, holier-than-thou, self-righteousness of the awful breastfeeding extremists who do nothing but post breastfeeding articles on their facebook pages all day and advocate breastfeeding well into elementary school. I have seen these women shame other women who do not produce milk or…
I strongly agree. It's actually refreshing that she is not put in a stereotypical position (i.e. mom making her a profile on shaadi.com or something). When I've heard Mindy Kaling interviewed on NPR, she has been pretty clear about not wanting to be defined by her ethnicity.
Here's a video about women in Haryana who have taken it on themselves to try to do something about this problem:
Ah, to be incredibly rich and able to have individual private space in the house! Seriously, though, I had a college prof. who insisted that the only way to have good marriage was for each spouse to have his or her own office at home. I hope to one day have my own shed out back.
Speaking of "find a mail-order bride," I really want to talk about Debbie Lum's Seeking Asian Female that aired on Independent Lens last Sunday. Not quite on topic, I know, but I just watched it and I thought it was fascinating.
Wow! Vintage Doctor Who GIFs for the win!
What Elizabeth Smart said really hit close to home. As a teenager, I had a lot of stuff about sexual purity/sinfulness stuffed down my throat, and it hurt me a lot—it led to self-hatred and boundless guilt, some of which still haunts me today. When I tried to return to being religious in the first half of my twenties,…
As someone else already mentioned, this is a similar cop-out as the, "well, my one black friend/my half-Filipino cousin/my South Indian room mate [et cetera] wasn't offended by X, so clearly X can't be racist!" Sadly, I know many, many, many women who have internalized so much misogyny that they wouldn't recognize it…
If you haven't seen it, I would suggest seeing this documentary. It goes into detail about what companies like Yoplait and Estee Lauder actually donate—it was a real eye-opener for me:
