Filed under: Philosophy
I’m about to go through a big change in my life. I’m moving back to Australia after a year and eight months in London. It has been difficult but luckily I’ve had an amazing person to share it all with, and without him I wouldn’t be where I am today. I’ve got a great job to return to which I’m excited about, and we’re going to live in an amazing area by the beach. We’re both keen to settle and start planning our lives together and we’ve got great friends and family waiting for us. In short, life will be good.
With 2 weeks left in London we were hit with some really bad news, and while not the end of the world, it certainly put a downer on our happy plans. My boyfriend was upset but not really surprised. Why? He claims that whenever he is at the end of a point in his life, or about to go through a big change, something bad happens - but then something great happens to counter the bad thing.
So while we sit and wait for this really great thing to happen, I’m thinking about what his philosophy means.
In life, we never think that we can have too much of a good thing. Sometimes we’re almost relieved when something slightly off course occurs, because it is a sign that we’re human, that we aren’t perfect, that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As long as the bad thing isn’t too bad, of course. Just bad enough to make us realise that, at the end of the day, we are really lucky - and when things get back to normal we can start appreciating the quality of our lives. Then when we get complacent again, fate rears its head and reminds us that we should appreciate what we have by gently messing up some aspect of our lives.
I get that, and that’s why, after this bad thing happened to us, we managed to shrug it off and think ‘well, we’re on our way to a beautiful life with each other and that’s all that matters’.
However, this theory doesn’t account for when bad things happen for no apparent reason and no good comes after them.
Death and tragedy, I think, are not really relevant for this debate. Death isn’t karma, it is part of life. When someone close to you dies, it doesn’t happen because you have been living too much of a good thing.
I once experienced something bad for no apparent reason, and it took me a long time to see the good afterwards. But I don’t think the good came as a result of the bad - it was just the way my life panned out. But, in all vagueness, I can look back at my life and think ‘If this bad thing never happened to me, then I wouldn’t be where I am today’. And I’m happy where I am today. Who knows, maybe if the bad thing never happened, and I instead lived a chain of unchallenging, mediocre events, I would be miserable today.
Just a quick one for now. I was at the gym on my lunch break today, silently watching Madonna’s newest video clip as I ran on the treadmill. Geez, that woman has to give it up already. It is pitiful that she can’t bring herself to stop prancing around in leotards, but it is worse that she’s playing a crucial role in the revolution of the plastic woman. Media types who still bow down to the 80’s superstar think that it is wonderful that a woman of her age (yes, old enough to be my mother!) looks the way she does, but rather than setting an example, Madonna merely advertises the fact that money can buy you a new self, no matter how old you are, and perpetuates the ridiculous myth that looking like that is attainable for the modern-day 50-something-year-old. Instead of making tired songs that lack any real musicality and forward-thinking, she should do something positive with her fame and for women out there. Once she was a credible role model, but those days are long gone.
Filed under: Ethics | Tags: female circumcision, female genital mutilation, Matthias S Klein
Matthias S Klein is right to feel annoyed that there was little media coverage to announce the fact that female genital mutilation aka female circumcision is now illegal in Egypt.
In a country where it is estimated that 90% of females are circumcised, this is an astronomical decision and one that I applaud wholeheartedly. However, just because something is outlawed doesn’t mean it will cease to exist. Egyptians will need to be stringent in their education and monitoring policies to ensure this rule is abided by, and it is more than likely that there will be many evaders. Despite this, I believe it is a positive step for women in a world where blatant abuses of human rights, violence and terror still dominate the ways of many lives.
This decision to ban FGM came recently after a 12 year old girl died during an operation. How horrible that innocent lives are lost at the hands of this barbaric practice. While I have been fortunate enough to never be exposed to such an atrocity in my youth, I can still imagine how this poor 12 year old and others like her would have felt, laying in wait for the procedure: scared, alone, in pain, helpless. The mothers of the girls probably felt the same when they had their operations - but had long forgotten the fear. Perhaps, at the time, the mothers vowed to never let this happen to their own children. In a world where something horrible occurs so routinely that it ceases to be horrible and is accepted as normal, it is not surprising that practices such as this continue with such prevalence.
Trying to understand the history and rationale of this practice, I did a little internet research. I found that FGM is carried out for the following brief reasons:
- Hardening girls up for their adult life, both physically and mentally
- Showing to the world that the girls are ready for a family, a husband and to be a woman
- Attempting to stop young girls from being promiscuous
- Religion/cultural belief or obligation
The practice can be so severe in some cultures that it horrifies me to even conceive: in extreme cases all genetalia is cut off, leaving a tiny hole for urinating, sex, menstruation and giving birth. In many African countries where this is most prevalent, FGM is done with penknives or fragments of broken glass, according to Amnesty International. All sexual sensation can be lost forever. Those poor girls.
I do believe the debate on the outlaw of FGM is an ethical issue rather than a cultural one. As I touched on in my previous post about Zimbabwe, torture, violence and murder are a way of life in some parts of the world and the people affected are virtually helpless to fight against the tyranny. FGM, on the other hand, is a violation of human rights that can and should be avoided - and women shouldn’t be persecuted if they decide not to do it.
In reading about the FGM debate I wondered if it was my business to feel righteous about how other families in other cultures far from mine choose to live their lives. I would certainly feel that it was nobody’s business to question my life choices. But as I said, this is an issue of human rights being violated. These girls, some as young as three, deserve to have the say in how their bodies are treated. They deserve, like any other female in the Western world, to live in a body that nature created, to enjoy sex as nature intended, and to not feel shame for any reason.
Filed under: Politics | Tags: Movement for Democratic Change, Mugabe, Tsvangirai, Zanu-PF, Zimbabwe election
While I read horror stories about the state of troubled countries far from my own on a daily basis, I still find it difficult to comprehend how such atrocities can take place in the face of humanity. Today, I’m reading about the lead up to the elections in Zimbabwe, and of President Mugabe’s campaign of terror, in which his men torture, beat, urinate on, rape and kill those who support of his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai fronts the Movement for Democratic Change party which is gaining momentum and is therefore a reasonable threat to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. That is to say, if any of its supporters make it through the next week to be able to cast their vote.
Who does he think he is, I wonder, that he may dare to invoke such evil in the sole name of himself? He wants to be feared, but in actuality, he is the one who possesses the fear. He’ll destroy a life without a second thought, but he is so afraid of losing his power that he has to resort to sheer violence, as he has lost the respect and support of his fellow countrymen. The man is in his eighties - he’ll be dead in a decade if not sooner. How on earth is any of this worth it as far as he is concerned?
I also wonder what is going on in the minds of those who carry out the torture. Don’t they have families they care about? Can’t they look the trembling pregnant woman they’re about to beat with an iron bar in the eye and feel even a slight pang of guilt? And what is in it for them anyway? Safety and survival, I presume. Such animals. Doing whatever it takes to make it through another day, they are. But I wonder if these young men have grasped the bigger picture. Zimbabwe in ten or twenty years has the potential to be a very different country than it is today, and they could play a crucial role in facilitating that change, if they were just opened up to the idea.
An interesting letter on the Guardian website by Robin Gill claims that this terror is about more than merely winning an election. Rightly so, Gill points out that it would be simple enough to rig the vote count with the amount of manpower Mugabe possesses, but that rather he seems intent to declare his message of violence to the rest of the world so that they, too, might fear him.
It is true that there is little hope for the future of Zimbabwe without help from the outside world. What will it take for us to do something significant? And who could orchestrate such a feat? I hope the answers to those questions can be found sooner rather than later.
When I was at a friend’s house the other night, us girls started talking about Botox. One girl, 25 years old, claimed she would get it now if she could. She then went on to say that she knows girls who have been getting it since they were 23. Apparently one of these girls (in her mid-twenties) regularly flies to Dubai to get her treatments done. Treatment holidays are becoming the next big thing, apparently. Package holidays with a twist. You pay your all-inclusive price and you get your treatments (flight, accommodation, food, botox).
More than anything, this conversation disappointed me and has got me pondering how Botox will soon be a permanent fixture in the everyday lives of regular people, and that it will be as common as beauty treatments like facials, massages and manicures.
Practically a household name these days, Botox has been publicised and glamorised in film and the media to the extent that we normal, everyday people think that we need it and should be spending our hard-earned dollars on it. It’s not even something that celebrities bother to keep secret anymore, like many of them do with breast implants. Botox is fast becoming a widely-used and acceptable treatment, and this is what worries me.
I imagine what life will be like in 10 years, when I am 35 and will no doubt have some lines on my face. My friends will be getting Botox, and I won’t be. Will this mean that I am shunned in society, thought of as the girl who doesn’t get Botox and still has lines on her face? Would this affect my ability to get a job? To make friends? Will Botox become so popular that those who don’t use it will be in the minority?
Hmm, I hope not. I don’t ever want to get treatments like this. For many reasons, including the following:
- Why would I want to look 18 years old for the rest of my life?
- Waste of money that could be spent on things that make me feel alive on the inside rather than preserving me on the outside
- I see it as a personal weakness that I would have to rely on a beauty treatment to give me the confidence I need to succeed in work/life
- I don’t want to worry about what other people think of me to the extent that I will feel like I’m being judged just because of a few lines on my face
- I believe in aging gracefully and not being scared of getting old
That last point is probably my strongest argument. I am concerned that women are getting more worried about the effects of ageing at a younger age. My friends are complaining about turning 24 and 25. Yet I am happy to be alive and living life – and I am excited about the future, because that will bring me children, family, business, money, great holidays, and an increased quality of life. I will be earning more money so I will be able to enjoy myself and enhance my life experiences with my family. When my children are grown up, my husband and I will feel like we are teenagers again, because we will have a new sense of freedom and we will have the money to do everything that I couldn’t afford to do when we were 25. I’m not scared of getting old – bring it on, I say!
Watching the Sex and the City movie with those actresses looking so alien-like with their 25 year-old faces on their 40 year-old bodies should have hit home for a lot of pro-Botox campaigners. Surely getting injections in your face once every 3 months for ten years can’t be good for your long-term health. I tend to think that it would do irreversible damage in that if you decided to stop after a few years you would look even worse than if you ever started. It’s a drug – potentially one of our most dangerous.
I firmly believe women need to change their way of thinking and to not be scared of ageing. This is the root of the whole Botox revolution. Focus your energy elsewhere, ladies. Vanity used to be a sin – now it is a way of life.
Filed under: World Issues | Tags: AIDS, Alive and Well, Christine Maggiore, Dr Roger England, Farrago, Melbourne University magazine, Origins of AIDS, Polio vaccine, The British Medical Journal, The Economist
A while ago, I was alerted to The Origins of AIDS – a documentary purporting that AIDS was started by polio vaccine researchers in the Congo. While I thought it a wild theory, it had some merit – and I am interesting in researching the idea in more detail and discussing it sensibly and logically – whilst maintaining a healthy level of scepticism. Imagine if something like that could be true? What a monster we created, and what a realisation that we inadvertently made Africa what it is today.
Considering a different take on the AIDS debate, this morning I read an interesting article on the Economist online. Among other things, the article discussed the improving treatments for AIDS victims, as well as certain opinions that money spent on AIDS education is misdirected and, in some instances, unnecessary. Dr Roger England wrote a somewhat controversial in the British Medical Journal in May asking for UNAIDS (the United Nations group that research, fund and educate others about AIDS) to be shut down, and for its resources to be directed elsewhere.
Some interesting things came to light for me in this article, notably:
- One copulation in 500-1000 with an infected individual will result in transmission. Instead, the risk comes with certain behaviour (anal intercourse, which risks tearing the lining of the gut; and injecting drugs using dirty needles)
- Malaria and tuberculosis potentially kill more people than AIDS
- AIDS receives a quarter of global health aid even though it causes only 5% of the burden of disease in poor and middle-income countries.
When I was a co-editor of Melbourne University’s student paper Farrago in 2004, I wrote an article about an organisation, Alive and Well, whose members are in denial that HIV is the global killer we have come to see it as today. I interviewed the founders of Alive and Well, Christine Maggiore, and it was interesting and inspiring to see her take on HIV and what it meant for individuals living with the disease. She discussed how people with HIV lived perfectly healthy lives and that many never develop AIDS. At the time, Alive and Well also had the support of bands like the Foo Fighters, which gave it global recognition and hence alerted me to its cause. The article was written for our launch edition and was exactly the kind of issues I wanted to delve into during my stint as editor.
If the messages in the above are anything to go by, it looks like people’s opinions and, certainly, facts and research about AIDS are changing. Is it possible that AIDS isn’t the global pandemic we once thought it was? Perhaps we should be looking to a new approach for education and research, rather than focusing on the antiquated notions stemmed from the original Grim Reaper advertisements of the 1980’s.
When I was at school in the late 1990’s, I was always taught to greatly fear AIDS: that this one was the only one to be scared of, that basically your life was over if you contracted it, that you would probably give it to everyone around you, and that it was everywhere. Considering the climate of today’s AIDS debates, it seems that this may not be the way society thinks anymore. However, there is always a danger in complacency, so society must work to find a balance if and when there can ever be any kind of consensus about what this disease means, where it came from and where it is going.
Filed under: travel | Tags: guardian travel blog, inca trail, machu picchu, peru, rory carrol, travel, travel writing
Perusing the guardian travel blogs a little while ago, I found another post of interest. ‘Is it OK to visit Machu Picchu?‘ Rory Carrol asks?
The article basically goes over the environmental impact travellers are continuously having on the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu - but (for me) offers no real contention or hope for the future of the trail or the ruins.
So, I felt compelled to post the below comment - to which nobody has yet replied:
This issue is quite ironic in the sense that all the recent publicity about Machu Picchu’s overcrowding is encouraging more people to go there and see it while they still can - inadvertently contributing to the overcrowding perhaps.
I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in June 2005 and booked a couple of months in advance to secure a place. However, while MP was one of the pulling powers that brought me to Peru, it isn’t the only attraction worthy of a mention.
On that note, if travel writers are genuinely concerned about the environmental impact of tourist footprints along the trail and at MP, but still acknowledge that Peru’s burgeoning tourism industry shows no signs of slowing down, they might do well to place a positive spin on this issue by highlighting alternative tourist attractions and encouraging readers to visit them, rather than putting people off Peru altogether: the Nazca Lines, the Peruvian Amazon, Lake Titicaca, Colca Canyon, Pisac & the Ballestas Islands, the northern beaches like Mancora…and these are just the popular ones. There are also plenty of other less-popular but equally enticing Inca trails and citadels like the Lares Trek, Salcantay and Choquequirao. The issue isn’t simply ‘go or don’t go’.
As for people visiting Peru ‘for the sake of it’ - travelling in Latin America isn’t like taking the bus from East to West London - it takes a lot of money and effort to get there. And it is well worth it.
The final sentence is in reference to an earlier commenter, who said something along the lines of: ‘I suspect half the appeal of Machu Pichu is saying one’s been there…There are dozens of more local world heritage sites to visit, but oh, maybe they’re just not as much fun to boast about? Of course it’s not OK to get on a plane to visit Machu Pichu, let alone the impact of what happens once you’re there.’
That is another argument for another day, but as an aside, I really dislike that sort of reverse-snobbery purported by supposed ‘hard core’ travellers who look down on other travellers if they carry a suitcase not a backpack, if they stay in hotels and not hostels, and if they visit places ‘for the sake of it’. Actually, who even cares what the motives of other travellers are? We all have our own reasons and we shouldn’t have to justify them (unless we are asked by immigration, lol). If we want to go somewhere, we bloody-well can! Provided, of course, that we are not damaging the environment, doing anything illegal, etc.
Filed under: Health and Beauty | Tags: airbrushing, anorexia, eating disorder, magazine, media, model
Someone mentioned to me the other day that there may be laws introduced soon to ‘force’ models, actresses and the like to appear in the media free of airbrush, wrinkles’n'all. We could soon see magazines full of photos displaying bags under the eyes, cellulite on the thighs and yellow teeth. ‘Good’, I initially thought. Then I pondered some more, and I wasn’t sure if I agreed.
Airbrushing isn’t just about removing a model’s imperfections. It is about advertising, selling a product; about taking something ordinary and making it extraordinary and exotic. Exotic enough to want to have, to buy, to consume, to mimic. That’s our consumer culture in a nutshell.
It’s an amalgamation of art, photography, design and advertising. Taking something beautiful and making it more beautiful. Airbrushing can be used on faces, cars, landscapes, animals, technology, food. We only care when it’s used on people. We only cry out that what we’re reading and watching is unreal and unattainable when it portrays people. Why?
Well, the obvious answer is that airbrushing causes the unwitting reader to think that a certain state of perfection is attainable, achievable - that if they just ‘buy this product’ or ‘wear this make-up’ they too can look like the model. Surely for mature women, wise to the ways of the media, this shouldn’t be an issue. To them, I say ‘get over yourself’. Get over your personal inhibitions and accept the fact that while you are beautiful, there are always going to be people in the world that you may think are more beautiful thus making you feel self-conscious, intimidated, second-rate etc. But who’s to say that these insecurities that most women feel will be curbed significantly by the riddance of airbrushing? They won’t be, because the only thing more intimidating, for women who actually care about this stuff, than looking at an image of a beautiful women is coming face-to-face with one - in the street, on the beach, in the office - anywhere. And you know what, ladies? Some women are as beautiful in real life as they appear in the magazines. And nothing will ever change that.
However, for young teenagers who are still somewhat naive to the world of advertising and media, I do agree that airbrushing causes them to fantasize about looking a certain way; unbeknownst to them, the beautiful girls they see in magazines and on television are not realistic. I believe education is the answer. So how do we educate?
A suggestion has been to insert disclaimers on every photo that has been digitally altered. Likened to warnings on cigarette packets, or cautions about hot drinks. But come on, are we really a society so precious that we have to be warned that a photo of a beautiful girl isn’t real; else we might have an emotional breakdown? ‘Warning: this photo has been digitally manipulated. You will be relieved to know that, like you, the girl in the image also has fine lines around the eyes. Now you can turn the page and feel better about yourself - at the expense and public humiliation of this girl.’
I’m not saying I never struggle with my own body image or appearance. Of course I do. But it has little if anything to do with images of beautiful models or society’s expectations. It’s my own personal standard that I have set for myself.
I think the more that we dwell on our imperfections the less likely we are to accept who we are and move on, enjoy life, focus on the positives. Positive education in a meaningful way is the key - for parents and teenagers. It is about identifying early triggers of eating disorders in teenagers, and actively dealing with them first hand, rather than just writing a disclaimer that a photo has been airbrushed, dusting one’s hands and assuming that all will be fixed. For young teenage girls with eating disorders, there should be some accountability: parents and maybe even friends.
Finally, my quick browse on some forums discussing the matter came up with some interesting points in this debate:
- France wants to put a ban on really skinny girls. Will we also see a ban on really fat ones?
- How do you legally ban digital manipulation of an image, considering that every single photo has some sort of manipulation, be it lighting, make-up, hair, brightness, contrast, background - it’s not just the model we’re talking about
- Forcing an artist to add something to his creation that he doesn’t want there
- People with body image issues aren’t protected when you try to ban or limit things that play on their insecurities
Hmm, so I’m not the only one who thinks airbrushing should stay legal. I don’t, however, think that this issue is over.
Following on from my earlier post on the topic, I return to the issue of Aliza Shvarts and her abortion art project. Apparently, according to Yale officials, it was a hoax. However as Shvarts as avoided public eye it is difficult to find statements directly from her to either support or counter that. Last I read, she was standing by her project.
Her statement in the Yale Daily News contained several statements that I disagreed with but found interesting to explore further:
She says: Just as it is a myth that women are .meant. to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are .meant. for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not .meant. for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are .meant. to birth a child.
So, her argument for justifying her art project is something along these lines: women’s organs can have other purposes than simply to birth children. I’m sure biologists around the world would agree to disagree on that. If that’s what she thinks, however, her art project suddenly crosses into the realm of bizzarre science experiement, so are we still thinking about art? The finished ‘product’ of her ‘performance’ (as she called it) may be a static work, but the tenets of this argument fall in a grey area that for me is more about science than art - we’re more talking about what physically and scientifically possible of our bodies.
She says: When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction . the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth . the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability.
Our organs can have other purposes. Again, I feel like we left artistic merit and freedom a while ago. I suppose it was her aim to link ideas of what connotes art with the body, challenge the norm, create a discourse in favour of freedom and choice in lifestyle etc as she says: The myth that a certain set of functions are .natural. (while all the other potential functions are .unnatural.) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.
The finished ’piece of art’ she intends to use in an exhibition (if she is still allowed) and the road she travelled to get to it are two very separate things united in an incoherent way, in my opinion.
Not as many mainstream media outlets have run with the story as I originally envisioned a couple of days ago. My guess is that they don’t really want to go near it until some sort of resolution or consensus is admitted by both Yale officials and Shvarts together. The plethora of debate that will ensue is astronomical. But most of the people affected by this story agree with each other in saying that the project is a disgrace.
There was one statement, however, to the contrary that I read on a Blog Critics blog by Wanda Rizzuto: “The Yale Women’s Center stands strongly behind the fact that a woman’s body is her own. Whether it is a question of reproductive rights or of artistic expression, Aliza Shvarts’ body is an instrument over which she should be free to exercise full discretion.”
Life is simple. Why do we humans insist on complicating it all the time?
Filed under: travel | Tags: guardian.co.uk, lonely planet, Thomas Kohnstamm, travel
The Lonely Planet debate about an author Thomas Kohnstamm who never went to the place he wrote a guidebook about is interesting for me, because in my role at Tucan Travel I was always required to write about places I had never been to. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go - of course I wanted to travel the world and get paid to do it! In reality, it is an expensive investment for the company just for the sake of author credibility - which, as I discuss below, isn’t perhaps as necessary in this day and age as it may have been in the days before the internet was around.
I posted the following reply on guardian.co.uk earlier today in response to some comments on the issue:
Local Heroes - The Guardian
I worked as a copywriter for a worldwide adventure tour company and I regularly wrote marketing copy, brochure itineraries and travel advice about places I had never been to. Of course it was easier to write about places I had actually visited; however, given money and time constraints, it was not possible for the company to send me everywhere I needed to write about. I was always very careful to research and reference facts, and check my work with others who had travelled where I was writing about, and I certainly never fabricated or plagiarised anything. Travel resources, independent hotels, operators etc are so widely available these days on the internet (with their own sites) that it is quite easy to put an accurate piece of travel advice together. I often likened the practice to researching history: historians can never go where they write about; they collect their work by researching work created by others and then formulate their own cases.
I don’t necessarily agree that credibility or faith could be lost in a writer (or their company) if he or she hasn’t visited the place they have been writing about - unless a writer includes a blatant lie i.e. “I ate at this restaurant and the fish of the day was excellent”. The type of traveller who relies on a guidebook probably doesn’t even care - they just want reliable advice, facts and lists. As mentioned in an earlier post, travel guides are also about educating readers about a country’s history, political climate, social context etc - and it is not necessary visit a country to provide this information at all. As long as the writing is true and accurate, and doesn’t contain an opinion or indication that the writer went there when they actually didn’t, does it even matter that the writer never travelled to the place they are writing about?
