Women Beware Women

[poliphilo]

I'm at the doctors- and what have they got in the waiting room? Women's magazines- the cheap ones- with articles entitled "I married my abuser" and "my new vagina" and picture features that gloat over the weight gain and fashion disasters of female celebs. My heart sinks.

Porn degrades women? Maybe (I'd be prepared to debate that one) but not half as much as these women's magazines do. Here every unsuccessful woman is a dozy cow who has let herself be exploited by men and every successful woman is a stuck up bitch just asking to be pulled back down into the ditch where she belongs. "God, but she looks fat in that!"

Misogyny sells. And the most avid consumers of it are women.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Prevention--it's a wholistic medicine magazine, mostly natural ways of medicine.

I'm glad you're a feminist.

"Archaeology Now" sounds at first oxymoronic! I suspect it's lots more fun to read than dreary Prevention articles about beets and your health. (I actually don't subscribe to Prevention. I'm not only not nice, but I'm also a liar!)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Lol. My, but you're hard on yourself....

Actually the archaeology mag is pretty dull- even though it has full colour illustrations. I did a course in archaeology a few years back- to please a couple of friends who wanted my company- and I've never lost my interest in the subject. Maybe if I were starting over again I'd read archaeology at university and make a career of it. I like archaeologists- they dye their hair amazing colours and wear nose rings and extraordinary stripey pullovers. It's the one profession where you can turn up to work looking like a hippy, punk or goth and no-one turns a hair.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

It's the one profession where you can turn up to work looking like a hippy, punk or goth and no-one turns a hair.

I think latitude is also given to astonomers.

Have you watched any of the astronomy news conferences? These people are wonderful! They're jumping up and down with joy, their hair is all messy, they're opening champagne, and they sound so clever and interesting--nothing polished about them. They don't care. They are totally into their work.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right. Here in Britain we have a guy called Patrick Moore who has been presenting astronomy programmes for the BBC since the 1950s. He's a national treasure. He's very fat, has a mop of wild white hair, talks at machine-gun speed and wears a monocle.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

To continue careering off in the conversation: I love astronomy, and I wish I could see your Patrick Moore's television program here.

Years ago, I heard a scientist say that astronomy was the most interesting field, because almost every day we're discovering something new.

I was out shopping for random books at Barnes & Noble the other day and came across a deeply discounted photograph book of the moon. Because it had no captions, I set it aside, and later I thought how Copernicus would have given all he had for that book of photographs.

I wish there were reincarnation, because I want to come back and see what things are like thousands, millions of years from now. So far, I do this mostly through Stephen Baxter, whose science fiction is so mind-bogglingly far-reaching. I just finished re-reading Titan, about astronauts living on that lonely moon. Baxter can take me right to the surface. I love that man. He makes me yearn.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of reincarnation- and for much the same reasons as you. I used to care passionately about personal survival but now that doesn't matter to me so much. Now I just like the idea of being around in some form or other to find out "what happens next".

Here's the website for Patrick Moore's programme The Sky At Night: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spaceguide/skyatnight/patrickmoore.shtml