danajohnhill.org

I went to the optometrist today for my first eye examination in eight years.  The last time I went was in the summer of 2000, when my roommate Lee and I walked down to the Reitz Union, which used to have a business that sold eyeglasses and a great doctor.  It was the first time anyone ever explained to me how my astigmatism made my eyesight much worse than simple near-sightedness.  The doctor used a racquetball cut in half.  It was helpful.  But he told me at the time that contacts to correct astigmatism were expensive, so I went with glasses, and the cheapest $8 frames I could find at Walgreens.

These days, however, they have contacts for any vision malady, so I had an exam for contacts today.  They dilated my pupils, and I could barely keep my eyes open all afternoon.  But the doctor was nice–the good doctor from 2000 closed his practice, so I had to find a new one–and her office was really nice.  She did an odd test with moving dots of light to test my peripheral vision.  And after several varieties of drops were squirted in my eye I could barely see anything.  But I’ll go back sometime this coming week to get “fitted” for my contact lenses.  I am excited.

Here’s what I think about the controversy involving Governor Palin’s seventeen-year-old pregnant daughter: it’s much ado about nothing.  Teenage girls get pregnant all the time.  It’s been happening since the beginning of time, and it can happen to anybody.  Having a pregnant daughter doesn’t make Sarah Palin a bad mother by any stretch of the imagination.  Nor does it make her less qualified to hold whatever office she currently holds or seeks to hold.  In spite of parents’ best intentions, they cannot supervise children every minute of every day.

My only issue concerns the Republicans’ focus on abstinence-only education.  It’s pretty obvious that kids like doin’ it.  Nothing on earth is going to change that.  But children who have all the facts, and have access to contraception are much less likely to find themselves in the position in which young Miss Palin finds herself.  Access to facts about sexuality will not make kids sluttier.  Rather, it will lower the number of abortions, and reduce unwanted marriages.  I don’t know what Governor Palin’s position is on abstinence-only education, but if she favors it, I would then have to question her intelligence.  Adherence to irrational dogma in the face of manifest evidence contradicting that dogma is the definition of irresponsibility.

I shouldn’t have to point this out, but for everyone so intrigued by this so-called “pregnant man,” let me be clear: there is no such thing.  Thomas Beatie is not a man, Thomas Beatie is a woman.  Period.

Now, far be it from me to deny anyone the right to identify with whatever sex they wish to identify.  And, of course, it is anyone’s constitutional right to call themselves whatever they want (within reason; you cannot say you’re a police officer if you aren’t, for example).  And I have no problem with Thomas Beatie having a child with another woman and raising it as though they were a typical nuclear family.  I don’t have a problem with any of this.  The only problem I have is with people somehow being so astonished and shocked.

So, let’s make a few things clear: boys have a penis; girls have a vagina.  Every kindergartener knows this.  Thomas Beatie has all the female reproductive organs and none of the male reproductive organs.  Just because you take testosterone and grow a beard doesn’t make you a male from an anatomical point of view.  If you want to call yourself a dude, be my guest.  And if you can convince a state government to call you a male when you’re really a female, well, more power to you.  But for the public to marvel at the spectacle of a “male pregnancy” betrays a depressing ignorance of science.

I love the British, but this article in the Daily Mail is tasteless and cruel.  Apparently, a finalist for the title of Ms. England is a size 16.  I don’t know how that translates in American sizes, but this girl–and she is just 17–is spoken of as though she were some sort of colossal, Fat Bastard-esque monster.  I admit that she doesn’t look like the typical pageant queen, but that can’t be anything but a good, since most contestants now just look like middle-aged strippers.

Still, more shocking than Chloe Marshall’s weight are the things this newspaper says about her.  I cannot imagine any serious publication in the United States calling a child “fat,” “lazy,” and a “terrible role model.”  I also cannot imagine a serious American publication allowing so many single sentence paragraphs.  That’s what’s really lazy.

As I get older I am finding new ways in which to be crotchety and unpleasant. I am not being difficult on purpose, mind you, but I can be pretty rigidly opposed to things. But I don’t think that I will ever be one of those old people who hates for no reason. Quite the contrary, I am far more socially accepting that I once was, and I am always trying to, if not identify with others’ beliefs, then at least understand where they are coming from. It’s not only the noble thing to do, but it’s also more emotionally healthy for me.

With that in mind I thought I’d examine an area in which I could probably be more sensitive, namely the issue of obesity. An article on ABC News’ website–with the unfortunate title “Study: ‘Weight-ism’ Is Bigger Problem Than Racism”–describes an “accelerated” pattern of discrimination against fat people. Now, to put things in perspective, racism was an institutionalized, systemic and often violent abomination that flourished in the United States, particularly the South, for hundreds of years. It touched the lives of every individual of color in ways that no “weight-ism” ever could. But I cannot deny that in our looks-are-everything society overweight people could easily feel ostracized.

There are several possible reasons for this. Obesity is perceived as a sign of laziness; the poor are disproportionately fat versus the well-off (and nobody likes poor people), etc. But, statistics now seem to show that we’re at about the point where half of Americans are overweight. So what does this say about us? It says, I think, that labels are a refuge for those of us who are unwilling to see people for who they really are.

As for my own role in perpetuating an anti-fat bias, I admit to having used the word “fat” in the past as a general pejorative, even when it was not meant literally. A person might be a “big, fat jerk,” and so on. I also used to call my friends “gayfers.” I don’t know which comedian said this, but I also didn’t “mean ‘gay’ as in ‘homosexual’, I meant it as in ‘retarded’.” I have never been homophobic, nor racist, and I have a profound empathy for the disabled. And I have never consciously discriminated against a fat person in a way I thought might cause harm. I have close friends who are overweight and I love them, so my attitude about them is informed by my appreciation of them as people, not as bodies. I certainly do not love my skinny friends more because they are skinny. But I have been insensitive in my rhetoric, and that’s not nice.