feminism – Page 3 – hellomelissa.net

I love a good magazine

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010 by Melissa Price-Mitchell

I love magazines. I’ve loved them for nearly as long as I could read.

When I was a kid, I stealth-read my mother’s magazines – she didn’t like me reading them even though the titles she read were pretty tame. My tween years were filled with pinup mags despite the fact I didn’t recognize half of the non-threatening teen boys they covered (we didn’t have cable till I was past the pinup mag stage). I spent my teens and twenties reading music, teen, and fashion mags by the armful.

Now that I’m in my thirties and a parent, my choice of magazines is changing again, but I’m struggling to find the perfect read. I feel like I’m straddling two demographics: woman and Mom. Of course, women can’t possibly be both of those things at the same time, so never shall the two demographics meet in one magazine. This makes me crazy. When will there be an article about how to clean kid’s snack residue out of your killer purse?

Recently I’ve felt like I’ve grown out of some magazines. I’ve decided not to renew my ten-year subscription to BUST because I think their niche is too small – hipster feminists who like to craft – I’m just not cool enough for that magazine anymore (not that I ever was, but I’m really feeling it now). I still read Glamour, but it’s a little fluffier (with a couple Serious Articles thrown in), and usually a bigger read.

I’ve subscribed to Chatelaine since their big redesign in 2008 and I enjoy it. I appreciate that they cover a bit of everything, but I wish they’d do more longer articles on Serious Subjects, as I think they do that very well. I’ve used several of their recipes and they have always turned out successfully.

I tried Canadian Family this month because I love their blog: Family Jewels, and their Twitter feed. I wasn’t disappointed, and will likely get a subscription soon. I love their down-to-earth tone. Parenting is Serious Business, but it’s also full of funny stuff, and I appreciate a magazine that gets that.

I saw an interesting ad in the May 2010 issue of Glamour magazine about “The Power of Print”. As a magazine-lover, the lead-in: “We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines.” really Has this ad come up in your monthly reads? Did you notice it? I think this is an American-0nly campaign, so it won’t show up in your Canadian reads.

If you know of any magazines that straddle the woman/Mom demographic, or are just good reads, let me know what they are in the comments. I would love to read them. Bonus points if they have a great online presence. Extra bonus points if that online presence works well in a mobile environment.

often

No woman should have a pelvic exam done without explicit consent

January 29, 2010 by Melissa Price-Mitchell

Like many other Canadians who read this Globe and Mail article, I was horrified to find out that women who are unconscious due to surgery are routinely subjected to internal pelvic exams by medical students in Canadian teaching hospitals. I’ve heard of women volunteering to let medical students practice on them, but they were awake – and more importantly – gave informed consent to have the procedure done.

I understand that medical students need to practice on real people, living and dead to learn. But the cadavers gave their consent when they were alive. Why is it okay to practice on the living when they are unconscious for a completely different reason. They weren’t put under anesthesia to have the students practice invasive procedures on them – they were put under for surgery. And that is the only thing that should happen to them while they are unconscious – the procedure they came to the hospital for.

The worst thing is that many people who have heard about this have said that if they were asked, they would gladly consent to have a student practice on them. I’m sure I would be. When I gave birth to Flora, I didn’t have to go under general anesthesia but a resident did do my epidural. I was informed of this up front and I was okay with that, because doctors have to learn. When she had trouble with it, she got her supervising doctor to come in and together they got it in (after eight tries, but that was probably a combination of inexperience on the resident’s end and me having intense contractions the entire time).

I also don’t understand how practicing pelvic exams on an unconscious woman is effective training. There’s no resistance if there is pain or if it is done incorrectly. There is no interaction between the doctor and the patient. I would think that feedback from the patient would be far more valuable than a completely prone, if living body. To me, it would make more sense if a medical student did their first practices on a test dummy (whatever the medical equivalent of a RealDoll is) or cadaver (to make sure they don’t put the speculum in backwards or anything), then once they felt confident, move on to a living, *conscious* woman. I suppose I shouldn’t assume how medical students obtain their education as I’ve never been to medical school – my knowledge of medical training doesn’t extend much past Grey’s Anatomy (which I managed to keep to myself when I spoke to the various residents – I assumed that that would be incredibly insulting).

If this upsets you, be sure to read and comment on Dear Nether-Probers: We, The Undersigned, Say STOP IT at the Bad Moms Club. Be sure to read the other posts surrounding this subject as well. Some horrifying stuff. Contact your elected representatives. Let them know that this is not right and it needs to stop.

Picking the right profile photo is agonizing enough, thanks

July 19, 2010June 4, 2009 by Melissa Price-Mitchell

Yesterday, I read a blog post from the good women at Lunapads about an article written by Katie Roiphe called “Get Your Kid Off Your Facebook Page“. Ms Roiphe doesn’t think women should use their Facebook profile picture to show off pictures of their kids because it means that they are hiding behind their children. She then states:

“The choice may seem trivial, but the whole idea behind Facebook is to create a social persona, an image of who you are projected into hundreds of bedrooms and cafes and offices across the country. Why would that image be of someone else, however closely bound they are to your life, genetically and otherwise? The choice seems to constitute a retreat to an older form of identity, to a time when women were called Mrs. John Smith, to a time when fresh scrubbed Vassar girls were losing their minds amidst vacuum cleaners and sandboxes. Which is not to say that I don’t understand the temptation to put a photograph of your beautiful child on Facebook, because I do. After all, it frees you of the burden of looking halfway decent for a picture, and of the whole excruciating business of being yourself.“

(emphasis mine)

In the first emphasized sentence, I understand where she’s coming from. If my Facebook page (or any other online profile) is to be my little portal to the rest of the world and completely devoted to me and my life, well, shouldn’t the picture be of me? Or at least have me in it? The second emphasized sentence however, made me angry. It perpetuates the stereotype that mothers of young children are barely functioning, poorly-dressed zombies who can only talk about their children’s achievements. I don’t know a single mother who lives up to this stereotype, and most of the mums I know are first-time mums of babies – prime candidates.

As one of those first-time mums, I can’t speak for more experienced mothers but I am the first to admit that new mums spend a lot of time talking about their babies. I’m sure I’ve overshared with the wrong people, but I do generally try to keep the baby talk to a minimum among people who are not all that interested in it. I get that *my* baby isn’t the biggest thing in *your* life. But when you spend virtually all your time with your child for months on end (I know many women don’t have this luxury and I’m thankful for Canada’s employment laws), well there’s not always a lot else for me to initiate a conversation about. I was shocked at how small my world became when my daughter was first born. I just wasn’t doing much else outside of mothering. And the stuff I *was* doing (napping, doing housework and catching up with what was on TV or going on online) wasn’t usually worth starting a conversation over. Also, keep in mind that it takes a minimum of two people to have a conversation. You’re welcome to change the subject, or even ask me to tone it down. I would not be offended, and would probably love to talk about something else anyway.

Back to the subject at hand. All of the above reasoning for my less-than-stellar conversation skills can apply to why I’m putting pictures of my kid on my Facebook page (or Flickr, or Twitter, or this website). I’m taking a lot more pictures of her right now than I am of myself. I take most of the pictures in our family and right now, most of the pictures I’m taking are of my daughter. And when I want to show my friends how she is growing and changing, Facebook is an easy tool to do that. My friends check Facebook, but don’t always visit this website or any other social site I frequent.

I agree with Ms Roiphe that you shouldn’t hide behind your children. I don’t think using your Facebook profile photo to show off a cute kid picture is always proof that that is what a mother is doing. I decided a long time ago (before Flora was born) that my Facebook photo would always have me as the main picture. In part because I didn’t want people to think I didn’t exist without my husband, but mostly because I wanted people to know it was *my* profile when they searched my name, especially since I hyphenated it after I got married. Now when I post a new picture, I often use one of Flora and I, not because I’m hiding behind her, but because there just aren’t that many pictures of the two of us together and I want to show them off. Those pictures make me happy, which I think is a great thing to share with my friends, Facebook or otherwise. If someone else wants to show a picture of just their kid alone because it makes them happy, I say go to town.

Naturally this article doesn’t mention the dads putting up pictures of their babies as their profile picture. Because of course, they’re not hiding behind their children, they’re just showing off a cute kid. My husband has used pictures of Flora alone as his profile picture. She was brand new and it was the fastest way to get her picture out to a lot of people. Now he has a picture of the two of them together, and I imagine it’s for the same reason I chose mine – it makes him happy.

Another interesting site somewhat related to this subject is The 30 Standard Facebook Profile Photo Styles. Mr. O’Neill sums up the various styles succintly. One could certainly analyze each of these picture styles to death to find out what each user is hiding, avoiding or showing off. Personally, I think I’ll just say “what a great new picture” and not overthink it too much.

Oh, and by the way, are formal at-home dinner parties really that common in the parents-of-young-children age group? The dinner party seems like such a go-to example to dump on parents and their child-rearing abilities and yet I don’t think I’ve ever been to one. I have people over and we eat, but it’s not the big hairy deal everyone makes it out to be.