Trash Magazines Belong in the Trash, Not in a Doctor’s Waiting Room

Tags

Feminism, Health, media, mental health, pop culture, Pregnancy and Birth, Relationships, Reproductive Health, Waiting room, women's magazines

When I have my own consulting rooms or practice, I’ve made an I think very important resolution. I’m going to throw all those women’s magazines in the recycling. You know the ones, the ones that go on about how celebrities are too fat and too skinny (possibly after they’ve just given birth). The ones that give bogus dating advice about how to manipulate men into relationships and “keep them keen”, as well as terrible, terrible psychological and medical advice.

These magazines are ubiquitous in the doctors’ waiting rooms (as well as dentists, hairdressers, you name it) as well as in hospital tea rooms. I suspect that these publications have acquired some form of replication, otherwise how to account for their huge and expanding numbers?

Why am I on the warpath about these trashy pieces of crap? Because honestly, the advocate for exactly the opposite of good health. Their models are Photoshopped to look unnaturally thin. While at the same time saying that post-pregnancy celebrities are too fat or too thin for looking essentially normal. It’s so exaggerated that it’s mostly laughable if you’re in the know, I guess. But you know, there’s no way to win with The Women’s Weekly or Cleo. It’s a game where the only option, sadly, is to lose.

The relationship “advice” is particularly pernicious. How to dress and behave to “snag” a man. How to appear “hard to get” so as to manipulate someone into liking you. How to “treat them mean” and “keep them keen”. What kind of guys are losers. How to give the best blow job. Are you kidding me? This stuff is the equivalent of male “pick-up artist” forums.

As ever, it all feeds into the idea that “having a man”, “having a wedding”, “having a hot body” and “having babies” is all about “having” an object and means in which to achieve this ends. A profound status anxiety centred around a social materialism where you think of relationships as objects.

As a doctor there is no way that I could ever, ever be comfortable with promoting this sort of unhealthy set of ideas in my waiting room. How can you claim to be treating people on one hand while creating a fountain of expression for this societal disease. I don’t really particularly care if people find this sort of garbage entertaining. It’s going in the bin.

Related articles

• The “Seduction Community” (jaguarpython.wordpress.com)
• Thanks for Not Sharing (nytimes.com)
• Debunking the Dating Myths: The Pickup Artists (sic) (thesocialsocialanthropologist.com)
• People who should never, ever give dating advice. Seriously. Never. (21stcenturylovetriangle.com)
• Cosmopollution (vagendamag.blogspot.com)
• Meet the ‘Nice Guy’ Pickup Artists (jezebel.com)

Advertisements

Australian Propaganda Against Indigenous People

Tags

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Education, Health, Indigenous Australians, media, mental health, nationalism, propaganda, Public health, racism, social welfare, Stolen Generation, substance abuse

Television and newspapers and radio and magazines in Australia are full of the most amazing horseshit when it comes to certain topics.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but particularly Aboriginal people are portrayed in the media as stupid, lazy, drunk, violent druggies with a sense of entitlement. They are shown as a class of destitute no-hopers whose main ambition in life is to sniff petrol on the dole while resisting all attempts of Australians to bring in the comforts of civilisation. They are shown as savages who choose to be the bottom of the heap and who can’t be trusted to make decisions and were better off being taken away from their parents. Oh, and of course they have extra rights compared with more deserving Aussie battlers. Ungrateful sods.

Just like a lot of the political commentary in Australia, this is a lie.

The Stolen Generation actually happened, sheeple. Children were taken away from their own parents and often abused by their new families or treated as servants. No surprises then that PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance abuse are major problems. That’s right, due to the mass child abuse and cultural genocide that White Australia proudly perpetrated and continue to perpetrate. In the name of saving them from themselves.

How is the current “intervention” anything different? They’ve taken away indigenous representation (ATSIC etc) and instead continue to take people’s money and quarantine it and take their children away. The propaganda supports this abominable “cause” in exactly the same way they did the first Stolen Generation. Or worse, ignores it, making everyone think it’s stopped and everything is hunky dory.

Of course there are poor people and people with drinking problems. But when you age adjust, Indigenous people have the same high rate of heavy drinking as the general population – 15%. Yes, this is a problem. And yes there are communities where this is especially true. However the scale of the problem is vastly exaggerated. And if 15% is a national tragedy then it’s a national tragedy for the entire nation, not just for “the abos“.

Indigenous people are dying of diabetes, heart disease, strokes, vascular disease, kidney failure and suffering from mental illness. 25% of them don’t even have access to a hospital for crying out loud. Healthcare, education, money and fresh food are essentially being withheld from the population that needs it most. The excuse is that they “don’t want” services or “refuse to have people come in” or supposedly attack and destroy things. Has anyone asked Indigenous people if they want health, education, fresh food and running water? Funnily enough, they do want services and most of them trust their doctors. Perhaps once again we are being lied to? Hmmm.

Is it any surprise that they’re angry? I’m also angry!

Both major parties in Australia lack honesty. Their own government department, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has created a wealth of data that disproves a great deal of what they mindlessly parrot. Data that they are more than aware of and is clearly ignored.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are used as a political football while being slowly killed off.

Can someone’s intrinsic nature change?

Tags

abusive relationships, Cynicism, Dating, mental health, personality, personality disorder, Psychology, Relationships

A couple of people I know have come out of abusive relationships with their personality shattered. I don’t mean that they became more cynical or depressed or something simple like that. I mean that something intrinsic, something really fundamental and core to how they felt and seemed as people just changed, leaving them like hollow versions of their former selves. Or if not hollow, then unrecognisable. With elements of hidden hopelessness and cynicism and blasé distantness and an almost creepy weirdness.

One of the most painful things I’ve seen. The extinguishing of hope.

An Impoverishment of Aspirations

Tags

birth defects, child abuse, Education, mental health, neglect, nutrition, poverty, Pregnancy and Birth, Public health, social determinants of health, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy

For those who think “the abos” are responsible for living in a destitute state, it will probably amaze you to find out that there is a significant underclass of non Aboriginal (mainly white Anglo-Saxon) Australia that live in the same conditions, with however marginally more empathy due to not being “the abos”.

Did you know there are people living in Melbourne and Sydney with no running water or sanitation?

The cycle of poverty goes like this. A teenager gets pregnant. She may or may not get kicked out of home. Same with school. She probably won’t have adequate nutrition and may smoke or drink during her pregnancy. She is less likely to receive adequate antenatal care. Due to her age she is at a higher risk of premature labour and birth defects. The foetus is already at significant risk of intellectual and physical impairment before even being born.

The child is born. It’s quite possible that the young mother doesn’t get enough social support looking after the child. She may drop out of school or work. She may be struggling to make ends meet and not physically have enough time in the day. She may not have the maturity or ability to parent appropriately either. The child may experience neglect or even an abusive or chaotic home life. With such little money around they will get fed bad quality food and fast food.

School is a struggle. The child may or may not be bullied. Everyone around tells the kid (and new younger siblings) that school is pointless and worthless because they never completed school either. University is for weirdo nerds. And neither will get you any money anyway – better off quitting and working. Anyway what’s way more important is a nice house and a big wedding and kids. No-one reads to the children. They are functionally illiterate. So even if they wanted an apprenticeship, they can’t get one. Sex education just doesn’t happen and no one cares or teaches anything about how to organise your life.

With no hopes or aspirations or career options, what is there to do? Home life is awful. There’s alcohol and smokes and drugs and sex for a distraction. You can’t move out with the pittance that the dole is. Not even with rent assistance. Centrelink is unintelligible anyway. And eventually someone gets pregnant, usually before they turn 16, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose. Because that’s what everyone else is doing. You don’t have a kid? What’s wrong with you? Don’t you want the baby bonus? Maybe then you could move out of the overcrowded hovel you share with your mother and her boyfriend and his friend that tries to grab your breasts and with your siblings.

And so the cycle repeats.

Where can we intervene? Give people a sense of agency in their own lives. Better role models than the “stars” of Jersey Shore. Show them life can be better. Teach them to read. Compulsory sex education and access to contraception. Early and intensive social work intervention and support. Better infrastructure. Change the message in the media to support education and reading. Provide 2 decent meals at school. Make it easier to get access to drug and alcohol services and mental health services, and GPs. You know, for free like they should be. Without 2 year waiting lists. Increase the dole. Build far more community housing. Improve infrastructure in the country. Supplement bread, cereals and other foods with vitamins. Make vaccinations and child health checks compulsory.

That took all of 2 minutes to come up with and in many countries this cycle of poverty has been largely broken. It honestly cannot be that hard. However when we have a culture of ignoring what doesn’t exist directly under our nose it is impossible.