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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/teabagger_exploits_shooting_to_demand_we_move_toward_becoming_a_banana_repu/">Teabagger exploits shooting to demand we move toward becoming a banana republic</a></span> <span class="posted1">Previous entry: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/environment_has_a_role/">Environment has a role</a></span> <h2 class="title"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/submission_is_the_wrong_lesson/">Submission is the wrong lesson</a></h2> <div class="category"> • <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/C63/">Body Issues</a> </div> <div class="entry"> <p><center><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border="0" width="0" height="0" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137im_/http://c.gigcount.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyOTQ5MzA5MTQ1MTImcHQ9MTI5NDkzMDkxNzg3NiZwPTEyNTg*MTEmZD1BQkNOZXdzX1NGUF9Mb2NrZV9FbWJlZCZn/PTImbz1kYjE5ODMwZjY2NWQ*ZTAyODUwOTk3M2RiNmI*ZDZjNiZvZj*w.gif"/><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137oe_/http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,124,0" width="344" height="278" id="ABCESNWID"><param name="movie" value="http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf"/><param name="quality" value="high"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="allowNetworking" value="all"/><param name="flashvars" value="configUrl=http://abcnews.go.com/video/sfp/embedPlayerConfig&configId=406732&clipId=12597819&showId=12590728&gig_lt=1294930914512&gig_pt=1294930917876&gig_g=2"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><embed src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137oe_/http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="all" allowfullscreen="true" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="344" height="278" flashvars="configUrl=http://abcnews.go.com/video/sfp/embedPlayerConfig&configId=406732&clipId=12597819&showId=12590728&gig_lt=1294930914512&gig_pt=1294930917876&gig_g=2" name="ABCESNWID"></embed></object></center> </p> <p> I put <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/plastic-surgery-teens-combat-bullying/story?id=12590728" title="this link up on Facebook">this link up on Facebook</a>, just because <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://feministing.com/2011/01/12/what-we-missed-329/" title="I saw it on Feministing">I saw it on Feministing</a>, and my take was similar to Courtney’s. (Her response: “This, my friends, is so not how we should be conceiving of effective anti-bullying work.") I decided to post on it because it got a lot of Facebook comments, but it was also interesting what shape they took. Even we feminists and feminist allies sometimes fall into the trap of dropping a discussion about women’s behavior and responses to oppression (and what works and what doesn’t) when the topic of women’s bodies and what is permissible to alter about them is at hand. So, even though the original topic was “responses to bullying”, the discussion quickly became “when is it okay to get a nose job?” </p> <p> Barring an absolutist “no cosmetic surgery” position, I think it’s going to end up being subjective. There just isn’t going to be a bright line between when a cosmetic procedure is a reasonable response to a physical flaw and when it’s an overreaction to oppressive beauty standards. Or when it’s in-between---an understandable but sad survival response to patriarchal oppression. But I want to post on this here to talk not about this incident recounted to discuss bullying and what works and doesn’t work in response. </p> <p> The story at hand: </p> <blockquote><p>High school senior Erica Morgo says she likes what she sees when she looks in the mirror, but that was not always the case. Erica was bullied horribly by her classmates in middle school. </p> <p> “In sixth grade I was in the bus, and a lot of boys made fun of me for having a big nose,” Erica said. “They would call me Pinocchio. And in school, in class, people would point it out. I felt helpless. I felt like a loser.” </p> <p> The situation grew so severe that Erica grew depressed and started missing school. She estimates she missed a total of month’s worth of classes to avoid the taunts of classmates. Finally, one night she says she couldn’t take the teasing any longer, and decided to take matters into her own hands. </p> <p> “ I tried breaking my nose once. I was so fed up with the bullying that I tried banging my face against the door,” she said. </p> <p> After the incident, her mother, Dana Manzella, said she knew that she had to do something. She decided to allow her then 15-year-old daughter to undergo cosmetic surgery to shape her nose to her liking. </p> <p> “I think that was definitely a good decision, because it brought her back—her self-esteem back up to be able to do activities that she did before, with comfort,” Manzella said. </p></blockquote> <p> I’m going to point out that it does seem the bullying declined, but correlation isn’t causation. Right at her age, the bullying against me declined as well, and I didn’t change anything about myself. Kids actually start to grow up in their later years of high school, and thus bullying loses a lot of its appeal. Especially appearance-related bullying, though it’s often replaced with sexual harassment, especially for female victims. </p> <p> I just want to set aside questions of whether or not women should ever get cosmetic surgery, or whether or not minors should, and focus on cosmetic surgery as a response to bullying. This has human psychology exactly backwards. If you want a behavior to stop, the very last thing you should do is reward it. A dramatic show of submission to bullying may stave off the bullying for a time, just as feeding a hungry animal will make it stop begging. But if you feed an animal, you know what happens, right? It comes back for food when it’s hungry again, and every time it’s louder and more entitled. Bullies are demanding, pretty openly, shows of submission that shore up their own self esteem. When the hunger strikes again, they know who to go for if you put on a rather dramatic show of submission, such as altering your nose to fit their demands. </p> <p> One of my friends on Facebook told this story as an example: </p> <blockquote><p>Back in grade school there was a kid with big ears that stuck out and like any child with any trait that was out of the ordinary, he was mocked. I don’t think it was particularly horrible mocking, but then I wasn’t experiencing it. It was bad enough though that he got his ears tucked one Summer. Then people starting calling him “Tucker.” Kids are such assholes.</p></blockquote> <p> Beyond the ineffectiveness, I worry about teaching young girls that any random dude who has an opinion about your appearance should be taken seriously. And let’s be clear, every example in this story was a girl, and I imagine that the plastic surgery rates for minors reflect those overall, which is that women get plastic surgery more often than men. As any woman here can likely tell you, there are a lot of men who feel entitled to dictate the beauty and fashion choices of any random woman they see, no matter how little they know her. I’ve had men whose names I don’t even know suggest I wear too much make-up and too little of it, that my hair should be shorter and that it should be longer, that I need to lose weight and that I need to gain it. There’s a whole culture that teaches a huge percentage of men that women aren’t subject to the rule that says you should keep your opinions to yourself on these matters. (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://annalsofonlinedating.tumblr.com/post/2640506578/i-was-going-to-say-the-same-thing-about-your-dick" title="Fun examples at this blog">Fun examples at this blog</a>. The best way to hit on a lady is surely to, before even introducing yourself, suggest that she alter her appearance to suit your arbitrary tastes!) </p> <p> Young women should be equipped with an early and frequent understanding that this noise from dudes should be laughed at, not taken seriously. This is for two reasons, the first being that since no two dudes agree, you can drive yourself insane trying to meet all the conflicting demands. The second is more in the WTF category: there is no reason to push girls into internalizing the misogynist message that they are subject to male authority on all matters, just because men are men, and that their own desires and wishes are irrelevant. A lifetime of anxious worrying that you’re meeting arbitrary, ever-changing standards imposed by random dudes is not something you should reinforce. There’s already enough pressure on women to put up with that. </p> <p> ------ <p> <strong>Registration is now required!</strong> We're still in the process of getting it all squared away, so for the moment <strong>don't forget to Login or Register using the links in the upper left menu before starting to write your comment. </strong> </div> <div class="posted"> Posted by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/member/3/">Amanda Marcotte</a> on 08:48 AM • (110) <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/submission_is_the_wrong_lesson/">Comments</a> • <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/submission_is_the_wrong_lesson/">Permalink</a> </div> <div align="center"><!-- Pandagon_300 --> <script type="text/javascript"> GA_googleFillSlot("Pandagon_300"); </script> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243317"></a> <p>Plastic surgery as a response to bullying is stupid. It’s not a good solution to the problem, and bullying is not a good reason to subject yourself to the dangers of surgery. </p> <p> OTOH- lots of times, what kids pick up on is a feature that stands out in an unattractive way. If that feature is something that the person being bullied dislikes, getting it fixed is a solution. In general, a permanent solution that does fix that feature, and remove that particular problem from their life. It will not necessarily stop bullying- kids are mean, and can always figure out some way to insult other kids if they choose to. You can’t fix everything for everyone. But- if the targeted feature is something you yourself are bothered by, then plastic surgery makes sense. Assuming one has the means to do so, of course. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #1: drachonfire on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243317">11:58 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243318"></a> <p>Boy, does this tie in with the other discussion. How come we don’t try fixing the damned bullies? Or are they the mainstream? The majority? Yeah, I already know that answer. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #2: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://ginmar.livejournal.com/">ginmar</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243318">12:07 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243319"></a> <p>It’s definitely a can’t-win situation. Even in the nominally adult world, look at all the actresses who get mocked for having too big a nose or too pointy a jaw or too small breasts and then get mocked even more for getting the supposed deficiency fixed. </p> <p> Worse yet, the secondary mockery, concern-trolling though it may be, has a little bit of a point, because it’s ostensibly mocking what’s on the inside (lack of courage and independence) rather than what’s on the outside. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #3: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://alltoosimple.wordpress.com/">paul</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243319">12:11 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243321"></a> <p>I have to agree with the lack of direct causality link with the drop in bullying. I was terribly bullied in high school but it was almost entirely finished for my two last years, and some of my former bullies ended up being lab partners and, well maybe not friends, but friendly acquaintances. And I didn’t really change any of the stuff that they allegedly were bullying me about (my slight weight problem, being a know-it-all, somehow having the reputation of being a teacher’s pet despite the fact I had issues with authority and the most fun I could find in a day was to find an error a teacher did on the black board and rub it in their face in front of the entire class). </p> <p> Of course I did give them a pass and nowadays I wish I had at least confronted them with “hey it’s cool if you’re okay with me now but you really hurt me back then and it seems a bit pat that I should just let you hang out with me and not request that you at least apologize for the past”. I don’t know if that would actually have been helpful or if that would have just been a bit of pettiness on my part. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #4: BlackBloc on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243321">12:14 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243322"></a> <p>Note: the good teachers like to be corrected in front of the class because their love is to teach and improve young minds. The bad teachers dislike it because what they love is control and authority. Either way, I found pointing out errors was rewarding in both types of classes, though for different reasons. <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137im_/http://slicedbreadtwo.com/images/smileys/wink.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="wink" style="border:0;"/> </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #5: BlackBloc on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243322">12:17 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243323"></a> <p>I feel like the battle against plastic surgery is a losing battle. Even without bullying more and more teen girls would be getting plastic surgery. It’s an inevitable extension of more and more women getting plastic surgery. </p> <p> Many women have completely bought into the ideology that their beauty is a big part of their self worth. Just look at the popularity of Reality TV shows that showcase makeovers or extreme beauty. Even women who call themselves feminists enjoy these shows although they may call guilty pleasure. I feel they even look at it as a point of pride, beauty is a feminine trait, so might as well accentuate it and make your beauty the best it can be. For all the talk of lack of women geeks, fashion is one subject where women can be total nerds/geeks and definitely run circles around the guys. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #6: TonyWu on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243323">12:20 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243324"></a> <blockquote><p>I’m going to point out that it does seem the bullying declined, but correlation isn’t causation.</p></blockquote> <p> This is the key thing—if they put a target on a victim’s back, the bullies will find something, anything, to focus on. And if the victim changes it, they’ll find something else. As your friend’s story illustrates, the act of changing an “offensive” trait is often, in and of itself, taken as a new pretext for bullying. I’ve seen this happen with clothing, but for someone to go to the extent of plastic surgery to please bullies? Wow. </p> <p> If the bullying declined, it’s more likely because the ringleader found another victim in the interim and perhaps because some of the toadies felt guilty. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #7: Gracchus on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243324">12:23 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243327"></a> <p><i>“I don’t know if that would actually have been helpful or if that would have just been a bit of pettiness on my part.”</i> </p> <p> Having been faced similar bullying in HS, and having carried massive grudges for years (decades?) afterward, having had occasional daydreams about exactly what I would do to some of the assholes who treated me like shit — should I happen to come across them somewhere where they would be vulnerable to my righteous vengeance — I want to say it would be helpful. But I doubt it really would do anything good. </p> <p> The only cure, in my experience, is to get through high school any way you can, and then attempt to put it behind you. </p> <p> A friend of mine used to say “If you carry shit around in your pocket, you smell like shit.” Carrying those grudges didn’t help me any, and probably made me an (even more than normally) unpleasant person to be around (sometimes). </p> <p> If parents want to spend money (assuming they have any to spare) to help their bullied child, perhaps it would be better spent on mental health care, rather than in a plastic surgeon’s office. But it’s easy to say that when you’re looking in from the outside… </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #8: MikeEss on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243327">12:32 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243329"></a> <p>“But, enough about me. What do you think about the way you look?” </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #9: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243329">12:45 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243331"></a> <p><i>“This is the key thing—if they put a target on a victim’s back, the bullies will find something, anything, to focus on. And if the victim changes it, they’ll find something else.”</i> </p> <p> I’m convinced this is usually true. Bullying may sometimes look like it has to do with mocking someone’s big ears, fat cheeks (this was my flaw, along with crooked teeth), small or large breasts, big nose, etc., but I think it really has more to do with the toxic mixture of the victim’s and the bully’s particular personalities. </p> <p> I went to three different junior-highs/high-schools (my parents moved - a lot), and was lucky enough to have bullies identify me as a good victim in each one. Some of the attacks were the same, some of them were unique to a particular school, all of them made me feel like shit — which is the ultimate aim I suppose. Apparently I had “victim” tattooed on my forehead, in invisible ink that all bullies could read. </p> <p> I’m lucky I didn’t blow my brains out… </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #10: MikeEss on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243331">12:49 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243332"></a> <p>I’d like to see actual statistics on the gender disparity in bullying, attacker and attacked. Absent actual data, I kind of find it makes male victims seem invisible to focus on one gender to the exclusion of the other. It continuing into adulthood is probably predominately a male phenomenon (if you aren’t a cast member of Jersey Shore anyways), but among children, my experience was that it was pretty equal opportunity. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #11: R. P. M. on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243332">12:54 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243333"></a> <p>This seems self-defeating because once she got her nose fixed, the bullies probably started teasing her about having small breasts, big ears, etc. </p> <p> I was one of the people whose bullies just seemed to outgrow the behavior. Something about going to high school seemed to make them reconsider picking on people. But it’s hard to convince kids that “it gets better” and (in my experience) kids are prone to magical thinking in a way that adults aren’t. A nose job isn’t just a nose job to a teen; it’s “the bullying will stop, I will meet a wonderful guy, we will get married, etc., etc.” Plastic surgery can seem like a cure all for every piece of anxiety that they are grappling with. </p> <p> Plus, I’m not sure that it does get better. My sister (rather reluctantly) went with a 40 year old friend of hers who was having a nose job because a guy she dated said her nose was too big. She got her nose size reduced and three months later he broke up with her anyway. And she paid for this procedure on her teachers salary. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #12: serious bette on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243333">12:57 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243334"></a> <p>The bullying for me in high school wasn’t about how I looked - I actually discovered junior year that most of the popular girls were actually secretly envious of how I looked, once I ditched the flannel and hiking boots and guy pants that had been getting me bullied. Yeah, I gave in to my bullying because I was sick of being called a dyke and a tranny. I stopped shopping in the men’s section (but their clothes are just so COMFY) and started shopping at stores like Vanity and Wet Seal like all of the other girls. </p> <p> Guess what? Now instead of being a dyke, I was a slut! </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #13: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://yourmometer.com/">Hobbes</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243334">01:10 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243336"></a> <p>I got stuck with D-cups at the age of 13, and remember desperately wanting a breast reduction that my parents, being farmers, could never have afforded. </p> <p> I was bullied before I bloomed--my father was a very mentally ill man, and my mother has Aspergers, so I was a strange, poorly socialized kid, and was considered ugly. (I think the fugly glasses that were in style at the time had something to do with that) </p> <p> Being ‘blessed’ with the biggest bosom in school cranked up the bullying to a whole new level. It ranged from the merely annoying (food thrown down the front of my shirt--goddamn french fry grease stains...) to the terrifying (being dragged into a dark corner of the gym during a school dance and getting mauled by two boys--and being told I deserved it because my breasts jiggled when I danced). The fact that the boys were attracted to me because of my breasts, even though I was considered one of the ugliest girls in school, brought out a lot of venom. While they were groping me in the halls (EVERY DAMN DAY), the boys would tell me I was disgusting and that no one would ever want me. </p> <p> The girls were pretty nasty, too, but what they did never approached that level of mindfucking. They were more likely to start rumors, which I actually found amusing. Hmm, I was having buttsex with Jose the exchange student at the drive-in? Huh. Pretty advanced stuff for a girl who’d never been kissed. </p> <p> I got contacts, lost my baby-fat, graduated, moved from rural Minnesota to St. Paul, got a better wardrobe, and suddenly I was considered very desirable. And I went on a bit of a revenge-binge on the male gender. I loved, loved, loved wearing the tiny hooker-like outfits that were in style at the time (80s) and cock-teasing random guys. It was an aggressive act. I was already with my soon-to-be husband at that point, and he really didn’t understand what the hell I was doing, poor guy--though he didn’t mind so much when I used my boobs to get discounts, better service or job interviews. The irony is that, due to what happened to me in school, I don’t like having my chest touched at all. </p> <p> What if I had been able to get a breast reduction in junior high? I think there would have been a little harassment over it, and I still would have been bullied for supposedly being ugly and for being a nerd, but I would have been spared the toxic combo of lust and repulsion that the boys inflicted upon me. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #14: Planet of the Blue Monkeys on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243336">01:21 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243337"></a> <p>While bullying about physical characteristics is certainly abhorrent, I have to think some of the bullying about other’s social ineptitude (see Blackbloc’s teacher correcting) is helpful. A lot of kids come into high school with no idea how to act around human beings. It is interesting how many of the most socially clueless finally learn how to interact after some (at times harsh) correction from their peers. </p> <p> Related, I have always found children from large families to be much more socially skilled than only children. More of that social correction. </p> <p> TLDR - Bullying RE looks always bad. Bullying because you raised your had to talk about WoW or magic cards in the middle of English class = beneficial, to an extent. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #15: John Joel Glanton on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243337">01:21 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243339"></a> <p>Yeah, while some physical traits might flag you for bullies, changing them will never, ever stop bullying. Bullies will always fall back on calling you “gay” or a “slut” regardless of how many same or opposite sex partners you have, “nerd” or “dumbass” regardless of your grades, etc. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #16: Loch Ness Monster on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243339">01:26 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243340"></a> <p>Or, as I remember from high school “bitch,” which I think notably gives away absolutely nothing about my gender. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #17: Loch Ness Monster on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243340">01:27 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243341"></a> <blockquote><p>Apparently I had “victim” tattooed on my forehead, in invisible ink that all bullies could read. </p></blockquote> <p> I’m not sure about your case in particular, but that’s often a variation on your friend’s saying “If you carry shit around in your pocket, you smell like shit.” These psychopaths can smell victimhood. </p> <p> Being an odd, eccentric and confrontation-avoiding kid I was bullied for the first time when I was 9 or so. After about a month I just got fed up, lost my temper (an unusual thing even then), and ended up pummelling the bully and scaring the Bejeezus out of him. Fortunately, there were no bogus “zero tolerance” policies back then, and my parents understood what had happened. Since that day I’ve never been bullied. I’m convinced that once you go through the process of standing up to a bully you carry yourself slightly differently, sending a “don’t mess with” signal to the psychos. </p> <p> My mother told me she recently shared this story with my young nephew, who was anxious after seeing another kid bullied at school. Apparently he felt a lot better after hearing it, and after being told by my sister that he wouldn’t be punished if he fought back. </p> <blockquote><p>I have to think some of the bullying about other’s social ineptitude (see Blackbloc’s teacher correcting) is helpful.</p></blockquote> <p> There’s teasing for specific issues and then there’s bullying, which is basically on-going physical and/or psychological terrorism. Bullying really doesn’t help in that area, and can often drive the victim into further social ineptitude. In short, bullying is an unacceptable method for socialisation. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #18: Gracchus on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243341">01:40 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243342"></a> <blockquote><p>TLDR - Bullying RE looks always bad. Bullying because you raised your had to talk about WoW or magic cards in the middle of English class = beneficial, to an extent. </p></blockquote> <p> Yes, cruelty is fine because your victims deserve it. There’s nothing shit-tastic about that attitude, no sirree. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #19: Well, what? on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243342">01:41 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243343"></a> <blockquote><p>Bullying because you raised your had to talk about WoW or magic cards in the middle of English class = beneficial, to an extent. </p></blockquote> <p> Who has ever done this? If a student is disrupting class, whether to talk about WoW or something more socially acceptable, then it’s the teacher’s issue to deal with. If kids are getting bullied simply for liking WoW on their own time, then why that should that be bullied out of them? Who’s it hurting if they like “dorky” things? Why should they have to change their hobbies to fit in better with an arbitrary group of people who have decided that they know what’s best socially? </p> <p> This type of thing can also be used to enforce gender roles, because it is never applied fairly. I was a smart kid, very smart. I never bragged about it or made a big deal about it, but that’s just who I was and it was easily noticeable. And throughout elementary school, nobody had a problem with it. Then as soon as I grew some boobs, suddenly boys felt the need to put me back in my place. Starting in 7th grade, they suddenly felt emasculated by a smart girl. I never acted like a know-it-all; I just did what was practical for me. So I would finish my homework in class and then read a book, and boys got mad. When I chose to read books in study hall instead of goofing off and being bored, boys teased me about it. And they teased me about the thickness of the books I read too. I have been reading thick books since 2nd grade, and nobody had a problem with it until middle school. I also had to develop the compulsion to always put my book face down so other kids wouldn’t see that I was reading about math, history, or science. So basically my only way of being socially inept was reading books for fun. Why is this something that should have been bullied out of me? And why out of me and not the boys who did the exact same thing? </p> <p> In 9th grade computer class we were allowed to play computer games after we finished our in-class assignments. This was the late 90s, so we could choose from solitaire (not even the spider kind), hearts, freecell, and minesweeper. I played minesweeper because it’s a fun game. I never even noticed that nobody else played that game. I certainly wasn’t trying to show off; I just wanted to decrease my boredom. There was a boy who got literally mad when he noticed I was playing it! I couldn’t believe someone would get mad at me for playing a game and minding my own business. I guess it was emasculating to him to see a girl who was good at it. He would bother me every single time no matter how much I tried to ignore him. Then he started playing minesweeper and put it in custom mode so that it was really big but had very few mines. Then he tried to brag about it to me to prove that he was better at the manly game than I was. I’m sure he would not have felt so threatened by a boy playing minesweeper. When a kid can’t play a simple freaking computer game while minding her own business without getting teased, how could that be a good thing. And if he had been successful and managed to bully the love of the game out of me, how would that have been a good thing? I might have fit in better and certain boys might like my better because I could prop up their fragile egos, but I would be stuck doing things that I don’t enjoy. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #20: catgirl on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243343">01:43 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243344"></a> <p>I apologize, the example I used was a bad one (the hobbies are irrelevent. If a guy brought up his stellar football game during class during a wholly unrelated discussion, that would be inappropriate). I suppose I am saying (and perhaps I am wrong here) simple teasing to correct innapropriate social behavior can be beneficial </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #21: John Joel Glanton on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243344">01:51 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243345"></a> <p>Since we’re understandably going to hear a lot of negative stories in this thread, I’m going to post <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/portrait_of_an_adoption/2010/11/anti-bullying-starts-in-first-grade.html">this story of a positive outcome</a> which contains some good insights. Between the top-notch parenting, the grade-A proto-geek-girlery, the community response to the article, and the sheer adorableness of the 1st-grade moppet, I challenge anyone to come away from it without getting all misty. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #22: Gracchus on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243345">01:52 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243346"></a> <p>You know, I don’t look at it quite that way at all. I’m much more self conscious than I would like to be, but not all bullying hurt the same to me. If I was bullied about a flaw that I hated about myself it was the worst. There’s no comeback to something you feel is the truth. But I also got teased for things like using big words and having a sweet rack or some other feature/behavior that I didn’t feel bad about and it just wasn’t as powerful. It still sucked to have someone attack you, but I understood that the problem was that they sucked, not that they sucked + I’m a loser. I am not really pro-surgery, but I can understand how it might be totally awesome to fix that thing about yourself that you hated. Perhaps some of you remember how awesome it was to get your braces off? That was a permanent ego boost to me, after years of hating my busted teeth. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #23: ElleDee on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243346">01:53 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243347"></a> <p>Simple teasing to correct inappropriate social behavior /= bullying. If it’s enough to qualify for bullying, it is a) no longer “simple” teasing and b) has itself become inappropriate behavior, and therefore a failure at its supposed purpose. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #24: Well, what? on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243347">01:53 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243348"></a> <p>e.g. </p> <p> guy makes creepy comment </p> <p> friends, others call guy out on his creepiness </p> <p> guy thinks twice about making creepy comments </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #25: John Joel Glanton on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243348">01:53 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243349"></a> <blockquote><p>I suppose I am saying (and perhaps I am wrong here) simple teasing to correct innapropriate social behavior can be beneficial</p></blockquote> <p> What I think you’re talking about is not “simple teasing,” which is why (as catgirl noted) it’s not the province of children but responsible adults who, as harsh as they might seem, know what they’re doing and understand boundaries. Even then, there are better ways to correct inappropriate social behaviour than public humiliation. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #26: Gracchus on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243349">02:00 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243350"></a> <p>calling someone out =/ bullying. What part of this is not getting through? BULLYING is bullying. Calling someone out is calling someone out. Applying social correction is applying social correction. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #27: Well, what? on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243350">02:00 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243351"></a> <p>John, I see where you’ </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #28: mamram on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243351">02:01 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243352"></a> <p>I’m going to go ahead and say it: there’s absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever with her getting a nose job. Last I checked, we still support “my body, my choice”. If the bullying had been nipped in the bud, would she still want a nose job? Maybe. Maybe not. But guess what? In every possible circumstance, it’s still HER nose. </p> <p> There is, however, everything wrong with the fact that those in a position of power were unable (or unwilling) to stop the bullying. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #29: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://andrea-thenerd.xanga.com/">The Nerd</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243352">02:06 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243354"></a> <p>#27 - I could see how some people think being told “you’re wrong” = bullying. </p> <p> I don’t think they’re right, but I’ve known people for whom this was the case. They were not well-adjusted people, for the most part. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #30: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.geekgirlsrule.wordpress.com/">GeekGirlsRule</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243354">02:08 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243355"></a> <p>Gah, my comment was eaten. Basically I was saying that while I see where John is coming from, there is a big difference between gently teasing somebody as a way of saying, “hey, you made a faux pas,” (even that, I’m not so crazy about) and pouncing on somebody’s missteps as a way of humiliating them. Saying that genuine bullying is okay if it targets a problem behavior is like saying that smacking a kid is okay if you’re doing it to get her to learn her multiplication tables. Trying to “help” is not an acceptable justification for abuse. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #31: mamram on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243355">02:15 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243356"></a> <blockquote><p>e.g. </p> <p> guy makes creepy comment </p> <p> friends, others call guy out on his creepiness </p> <p> guy thinks twice about making creepy comments </p></blockquote> <p> This is a pretty crappy example. The creep shouldn’t stop being a creep (in public) just because he’s worried that others will tease him about it. He should stop being a creep because he realizes that the bad thing he’s doing is hurtful to others. </p> <p> And shaming him wouldn’t necessarily make him stop being creepy; it would more likely drive him to hide his creepy behavior and/or become resentful at the people he is creepy to because they got some support from others. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #32: catgirl on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243356">02:15 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243357"></a> <p>By the way, if you want to see an example of an adult who, despite writing a book on the topic, doesn’t really know what she’s doing or understand boundaries, check out <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html">this trolling article she wrote to flog the book in the <i>WSJ</i></a>. How’s this for “simple teasing”? </p> <blockquote><p>As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. </p> <p> [...] </p> <p> Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, “Hey fatty—lose some weight.” </p> <p> [...] </p> <p> Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, “You’re lazy.</p></blockquote> <p> Nothing like a mom who takes her parenting cues from Dean Wormer. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #33: Gracchus on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243357">02:19 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243358"></a> <p>@30. I’m not going to say you’re wrong about that; certainly there have been times that I’ve felt emotionally vulnerable and would have been crushed by, well, basically any comment that wasn’t positive. HOWEVER, that doesn’t make a constructive critical comment, or even a gentle teasing (like mamram i’m not crazy about that either) into a bullying tactic. </p> <p> Words mean things, guys, and bullying means something specific even as it encompasses a range of behaviors. It is not the only hurtful thing in the world, nor is every hurtful thing in the world automatically bullying. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #34: Well, what? on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243358">02:22 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243360"></a> <p>I was amazed at the woman who said she “let” her FIVE YEAR OLD daughter get botox. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #35: Terra on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243360">02:30 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243362"></a> <blockquote><p>Last I checked, we still support “my body, my choice”.</p></blockquote> <p> That’s odd. Apparently I missed the part where someone advocated making nose jobs illegals. Or maybe I didn’t miss it because it didn’t actually happen. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #36: catgirl on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243362">02:35 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243364"></a> <p>Yeah, I think this is a gross misunderstanding of “my body, my choice.” Respecting choice doesn’t mean that we have to approve of the circumstances that coerce somebody into making a choice. To go back to the origin of the phrase, if a pregnant woman is abused by a partner who wants her to have an abortion, and then has one, do we have to sit back and say that it’s just dandy, because after all, it’s “her body, her choice”? This attitude that feminists must grant blind and gleeful approval to any choice that a woman makes is the same kind of nuance-less “feminism” that makes Sarah Palin some sort of women’s rights pioneer. It’s nonsense. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #37: mamram on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243364">02:45 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243365"></a> <p>@John: I fail to see how correcting teacher, especially when a single misplaced minus sign once was responsible for a math-challenged friend of mine fucking up an entire afternoon lesson because he was sure he was the stupid one for not understanding where that minus came from, is supposedly socially inept behavior. I guess nodding along with authority figures IS usually better for your social standing, but there’s a reason I’m a motherfuckin’ anarchist. </p> <p> I could have just shut up and let everyone who didn’t ‘get it’ just screw up their education by wondering what the hell the teacher did, while my own notes and those of the few top students in the class who were able to correct the mistake themselves were pristine and accurate. But I’ve never been like that. My father still gets comments from teachers from my alma matter who still haven’t gotten over the fact that in the ultra-competitive libertarian douchebag world of our computer science department, this one kid (me) was actually helping out the students at the bottom of the class understand what they were doing wrong in their class programming projects when we were graded on a curve (a zero-sum grading approach where your grade depends on the average of the class, so it’s in your best interest to sabotage everyone around you so you’ll get a better GPA for yourself). </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #38: BlackBloc on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243365">02:48 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243366"></a> <p>To clarify, my concern does not lie with the nose job itself, but I don’t think we can separate the bullying from the fact that this girl was willing to have her face cut open to stop the bullying, and say, “Bullying: bad! Face cut open: fine!” </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #39: mamram on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243366">02:53 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243367"></a> <p>BlackBloc, having many times in college been the student sitting in class bewildered wondering where the extra negative sign came from, or where the second dx disappeared to, I can say it’s a relief when somebody finally shouts, “you forgot a differential!” </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #40: mamram on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243367">03:00 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243368"></a> <p>“I was amazed at the woman who said she “let” her FIVE YEAR OLD daughter get botox.” </p> <p> Yeah, that was just like...whoa. If you’re not correcting an actual developmental issue or dealing with something substantially and immediately stigmatizing, you really shouldn’t be subjecting your kid to cosmetic procedures until, bare minimum, they’re old enough to understand the idea of side effects and complications. </p> <p> “Last I checked, we still support “my body, my choice”.” </p> <p> If a person is feeling so socially pressured to do a specific thing that they resort to self-injury in an attempt to escape said pressure, that’s not really reading as “their choice” in quite the sense it’s meant in your quote. You know, since that’s pretty fucking coerced, right there. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #41: preying mantis on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243368">03:07 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243369"></a> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://popculturecomics.com/graphics/archive/strips/2011-01">http://popculturecomics.com/graphics/archive/strips/2011-01</a> January/2011-01-13.gif </p> <p> (Not a favorite webcomic, but relevant to the topic today...) </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #42: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.yamara.com/">Yamara</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243369">03:17 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243370"></a> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://popculturecomics.com/graphics/archive/strips/2011-01">actual link</a> </p> <p> Must. Pre. View. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #43: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.yamara.com/">Yamara</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243370">03:19 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243371"></a> <p>Perhaps if high school students were given a ritual alternative to cosmetic surgery. </p> <p> ... </p> <p> What mamram said. It’s another assault against consent (and against childhood). </p> <p> The St. Nicholas in <i>Struwwelpeter</i> knew who needed the cosmetic surgery done to them. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #44: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.yamara.com/">Yamara</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243371">03:26 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243372"></a> <blockquote><p>if they put a target on a victim’s back, the bullies will find something, anything, to focus on. And if the victim changes it, they’ll find something else.</p></blockquote> <p> This is so true because bullying is not about anything rational, it’s just about establishing social strata and picking out who is going to be kept down at the bottom of the strata as a means for those at the top to maintain their position. It doesn’t matter WHY, it matters that someone has to be there, and from the perspective of the bullies it doesn’t matter who. </p> <p> Whatever first brings you to their attention, once they’ve locked on to you you’re firmly cemented in their minds as being subhuman and everything you do is wrong. You can have a nose job but then you’ll be a slut or something. It takes movement of those social strata in some way to change that, and movement of the social strata is a lot harder to effect than a nose job, a different wardrobe or listening to the “right” kind of music. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #45: kristin on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243372">04:19 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243373"></a> <blockquote><p>While bullying about physical characteristics is certainly abhorrent, I have to think some of the bullying about other’s social ineptitude (see Blackbloc’s teacher correcting) is helpful. A lot of kids come into high school with no idea how to act around human beings. It is interesting how many of the most socially clueless finally learn how to interact after some (at times harsh) correction from their peers. </p></blockquote> <p> Moreover, whether correcting teachers....even being an asshole about it is a bad thing to be corrected depends on the prevailing high school campus culture. At the one i attended, correcting teachers....even to the point of being an asshole was considered a matter of course, even by the teachers. If anything, it was the kids who complained about such students who got viciously picked on for being “brownnosers”, “mediocrities trying to suppress academic excellence”, “mindless conformists”, etc. Then again, being more concerned about “social etiquette” and being “polite” were commonly considered by many high school classmates...especially the top performers and even some teachers as “refuges for losers who can’t cut it academically”. </p> <p> While I disagree about doing it to the point of being an asshole about it, correcting teachers in front of the class is educationally valuable. First, it allows the entire class to be aware of the mistake and more importantly, that even teachers are infallible and cannot be relied upon 100% to provide the right answers. That is, provided it is done in a civil respectful manner. </p> <p> Also, I personally prefer classes where students are engaged...even to the point that the class discussions turn into academic/political slugfests than ones where students are so damned passive that the Profs have to strive mightily to get the rest of the class to participate in classroom discussions which I observed at several large universities....including two Ivies. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #46: exholt on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243373">04:20 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243374"></a> <p>@43, I’d preview a whole lot more here if I could still Blaspheme after previewing. Alas, if you preview, you can only Submit. Which seems way less fun. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #47: libdevil on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243374">04:41 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243375"></a> <p>I have been bullied and I have (shamefully) been the bully. The self realization that I had become that which I had loathed was horrible for me. I had trouble accepting that I could do that, which I had hated done to me, to someone else. </p> <p> I would imagine lots of people go through this as they get older. They’re bullied for one thing (physical difference) when they are younger and as they get older they grow out of it (or more likely grow into their body & become less goofy?) and find themselves in the position to make fun of those who are physically different. Maybe its a “it was done to me so I’m going to do it” revenge type thing? All I know is, it makes me sick when I think back on it. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #48: Mark on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243375">04:42 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243376"></a> <p>Choice implies informed choice. If you are seeking plastic surgery as a means to the end of stopping bullying, you are deeply misguided. ABC News made this crazy idea seem like a viable, if controversial, option. Two seconds of thought about the dynamics of bullying in the real world will tell you that surgery is unlikely to solve the problem because the bullies will just move on to something else. </p> <p> This focus on bullying seems like a marketing technique by the plastic surgery industry to convince parents to spend money on procedures for minors. The girls profiled in the video seemed like the perfect target market. There was nothing even borderline unusual about their “before” pictures. Their features were proportional and well within the bounds of conventional attractiveness. Strangers were not doing double-takes at them. </p> <p> There is a gray area between correcting deformity and “improving” cosmetic appearance, but these girls were nowhere near that fuzzy zone. These are the kind of changes that responsible parents would say, “Wait until you’re an adult and make up your own mind.” (Which is what the second girl basically did. She waited until she was 19 to get her implants.) </p> <p> By hyping the bullying angle, they create a false sense of urgency about plastic surgery. It’s exploiting teens and their families. Bullying can be almost as hard on a parent as it is on the kid. Loving parents will do anything to make it stop. The idea that plastic surgery is a solution is just exploiting desperate families. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #49: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243376">04:52 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243378"></a> <p>Mark @ 48 </p> <p> I know one possible motivation for the bullied to become bullies is the fear of sliding back down down to the bottom of the social hierarchy. Even in grade school I noticed that those who were next to the bottom rung of the ladder gave the absolute worst treatment to those on the bottom rung (i.e., me). I also recall turning bully for a brief time, after having been bulled for several years. Most of us crave some measure of power and control, and bullying others is probably the easiest way to get that feeling--false and fleeting though it is. </p> <p> The good thing is that you had the insight to recognize what you were doing and to put a stop to it. Some people never do. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #50: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://captainbathrobe.blogspot.com/">Captain Bathrobe</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243378">05:01 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243379"></a> <p>@exholt: I was only an asshole to the few insufferable authoritarian teachers that every high school has (and if you’re lucky you’ll only get one of those in your entire lifetime). Authority is something you get from character, for bringing forth enthusiasm to learn in your students or for being a born leader that people can be confident will make decisions for the good of all. It does not come from something as artificial as a title or position. If a teacher does not understand that, I think it’s a student’s duty to be a troublemaker (and I sure hope if I have any children that they’ll do the same I did when I was a kid). </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #51: BlackBloc on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243379">05:02 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243381"></a> <p>To clarify, I am not saying correcting a teacher is always bad. Politely interrupting e.g. “Excuse me, maybe I’m off my rocker, but did you mean to ___” Is obviously acceptable. Compare to “Um” *loud chuckles “Mr. Smith, do you have any idea what you are doing?” </p> <p> An aside, but my high school had very, very subtle bullying. Rarely (if ever?) did I hear an actual insult. The perferred method was talking loudly about the social events you had attended the weekend before in front of those who were not invited. That and (what I am told was) an almost aggressive refusal to acknowledge the have-nots. </p> <p> I’m not sure what would be worse, constant abuse or going whole weeks without a single peer uttering a word to you. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #52: John Joel Glanton on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243381">05:17 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243383"></a> <blockquote><p>To clarify, I am not saying correcting a teacher is always bad. Politely interrupting e.g. “Excuse me, maybe I’m off my rocker, but did you mean to ___” Is obviously acceptable. Compare to “Um” *loud chuckles “Mr. Smith, do you have any idea what you are doing?” </p></blockquote> <p> But even if that’s rude, is bullying by classmates the right way to deal with it? Is that even an effective way to deal with it? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #53: catgirl on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243383">05:27 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243385"></a> <p>RPM, where did I say girls are bullied more than boys? I searched and searched my post, and didn’t find that. I said they got plastic surgery more, but not that. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #54: Amanda Marcotte on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243385">05:46 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243386"></a> <p>I don’t have a coherent position on this, but a couple of thoughts: </p> <p> I went to this talk recently by a couple of psychologists who’ve founded an Appearance Studies Institute at a university nearby, and they talked a lot about deformity and how we construe it. One of them gave this example of working with hair-lipped children being considered for corrective surgery, and she : </p> <p> “ok, imagine young Kevin, age 8, comes in to this panel with lots of doctors, and the surgeon sits him down and looks at him very closely and turns his face this way and that, and shines a light at him, and then he asks him quite kindly, ‘so ho do you feel about your nose, Kevin?’. Now it so happens that Kevin had never thought there was anything wrong with his nose - he was only aware that his mouth was a bit different - and even though this surgeon was not judgemental or critical in any way, he may have alerted Kevin to the fact that he has a deformity he wasn’t aware of”. </p> <p> Really what I’m getting at here is that there is no such thing as a straightforwar “defornity” that we “have to” correct, or any line - clear or fuzzy - beyond which plastic urgery is obviously OK and the right thing to do. Deformity is just as socially construed as beauty or ugliness. </p> <p> *** </p> <p> I gew up in Israel, which means, surrounded by Jewish girls, which means - nose job central. I can name at least 3 girls I was friends with in school who’ve had their noses fixed before they were 18, and that’s only the ones I’m still friends with on Facebook. And this normalisation of sweet sixteen nose jobs (originally an American thing - there was a funny class and culture envy element to getting one, but that’s a whole other story) bled over into other things, so I have a couple of friends who’d had breast reduction surgery as well, also for essentially aesthetic reasons. </p> <p> And all I can say about that is it never worked. I don’t mean these girls were bullied - in fact it tended to be teh rich popular girls who could afford / were allowed by their parents to get plastic surgery while still at school, so this didn’t enter it. But not one of the young women I knew didn’t live to regret it. A new nose is not an eyebrow piercing; making such a dramatic change to your body while you’re still figuring out your relationship with it is just never a good idea. </p> <p> I’ve no idea whether it works out better for adult women or not, and I concede there may be a conceptual difference with e.g. a fully sexually mature woman getting a breast enhancement in order to boost her confidnece. But at 16 or 15, in a way the more you’re desperate to solve your problems by altering your body, the less psychologically beneficial it’s likely to be, I think. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #55: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/">TheLady</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243386">05:48 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243387"></a> <p>That should, of course, have been “hare lipped”. Sorry ‘bout that. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #56: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/">TheLady</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243387">05:49 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243388"></a> <blockquote><p>I was only an asshole to the few insufferable authoritarian teachers that every high school has (and if you’re lucky you’ll only get one of those in your entire lifetime). </p></blockquote> <p> Yeah, I had a few asshole teachers in high school. One in particular took great joy in reminding me how if I cannot hack it in his class that I’ll never make it through my first semester in college. He also gave other classmates similar levels of mistreatment...but loved to single me out in particular It was one reason why a classmate and I made a resolution to do whatever we could to drive him into retirement...which succeeded a year after I graduated and for which I was given partial credit by classmates. </p> <p> Was great to encounter him back at my high school as a college junior and to inform him that 1.) I am a scholarship student at [respectable private SLAC] and 2.) Everything he said about college being much harder than high school was 100% complete garbage. He ran as if he saw a ghost as my high school classmates looked on laughing at him. </p> <blockquote><p>Nothing like a mom who takes her parenting cues from Dean Wormer. </p></blockquote> <p> That article has gone the rounds among my circle of friends and even some Profs I’ve had. Am hoping someone will introduce her to the wonders of punk rock or hip-hop/funk/blues....preferably with the volumes cranked up to 21. <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137im_/http://slicedbreadtwo.com/images/smileys/smile.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="smile" style="border:0;"/> </p> <p> People like her were the reasons why I went through a brief anti-classical music phase....and my parents never forced me to learn an instrument. Just being around many stuck-up assholes who are a seemingly substantial part of the classical music fanbase was enough..... </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #57: exholt on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243388">05:50 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243389"></a> <p>Deformity is socially constructed. Even so, there’s defensible distinction between surgery to make your child look normal and surgery to make look her look prettier. Both “normal” and “pretty” are social constructions, too, of course--but they are different constructions and we should take that distinction into account in our value system. </p> <p> For example, nobody expects health insurance to cover breast implants to turn healthy B cups into DD cups. However, we should demand that insurers cover breast reconstruction for women who have had mastectomies. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #58: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243389">06:01 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243390"></a> <p>@Lindsay: To Kevin, his nose was “normal” an the surgery made him look “prettier”; to the girl in Amanda’s example, it was exactly the other way around. On the girls I went to school with it conferred status beyond mere attractiveness. Notice that I’m not saying that any of these are wrong or right, only that the whole “corrective” vs. “elective/vain” plastic surgery divide is misleading and I think incorrect. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #59: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/">TheLady</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243390">06:10 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243394"></a> <p><i>Choice implies informed choice. If you are seeking plastic surgery as a means to the end of stopping bullying, you are deeply misguided.</i> </p> <p> On “my body, my choice”, no I don’t think kids should be getting nose jobs so as not to be bullied, but… it is very easy to say “don’t get a nose job” when you have a small and socially acceptable nose, and frequently these conversations can tip into a sort of victim blaming as this one has done. How many of you saying “don’t have a nose job” have an enormous nose?Of course the bullies ought to have been stopped, but they <i>weren’t</i> – did the victim have a moral duty to turn the other cheek whilst society took it’s time learning to be nice? Or could she decide that a nose job was the lesser of two evils and at least it would solve one of the problems. </p> <p> To take a personal example, I am a white woman who has inherited from her father (thanks, Dad!) a hell of a lot of body hair. This includes luxuriant, black, visible-from-a-mile-off leg-hair. Funnily enough, I wax my legs (which is not without pain and potential complications, though no general anaesthetic). I can say “I’m doing it for me” or “I think it looks nicer”, and it is true that I have been as conditioned as anyone else to think that hairless legs look prettier. But I mostly do it in order not to get shouted at in the street. It is a lot easier to stand up to the patriarchy and not wax your legs because that would be caving in to the bullies when you are a white woman with sparse, short, blond leg hair, than when you look like you’re wearing leg-warmers in July. Until people have been reduced to tears by their non-normal (but not deformed) face in the mirror they can fuck right off with their “you’re shallow and wrong and it doesn’t help”. I haven’t got time for society to catch up. I have a life to live right now and waxing my legs and other cosmetic treatment is what makes it possible for some of us. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #60: Nineveh on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243394">06:39 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243395"></a> <p>Kevin’s nose is not normal in any reasonable sense of the term. It may be okay for him, and he and his parents may have had good reasons to leave well enough alone, but it isn’t normal. </p> <p> A harelip (or cleft lip, as they’re usually known these days) is a congenital malformation. Cleft lips are associated with a variety of medical and dental complications including feeding difficulties, impaired speech, and increased vulnerability to infections. Those are not social constructions, those are biological realities. Also, a cleft lip is so far beyond what our culture construes as socially acceptable that not getting it fixed is consigning your child to a life of, at the very least, hassle. It won’t just be the product of a particular social dynamic at a particular school. It will be a day-in, day-out feature of his life. At the very least he will be stared at and teased because he has a cleft lip. It’s not at all clear to me that Erica was bullied because of the way her nose looked. That was what the bullies in her school chose to focus on, but it could just as easily have been something else. </p> <p> The surgeon subtly cued Kevin that there was something unusual about his nose, but a lot of other people probably cued him a lot less subtly over the years. </p> <p> Having b-cup breasts is not abnormal in any way. It’s not a sign of illness or disease. It’s not statistically unusual, on the contrary it’s very common. There is no social stigma to having b-cup breasts. Your life prospects are not going to predictably affected in any way by having them. If you want them larger or smaller that’s purely your idiosyncratic preference, shaped by competing beauty standards. There’s not even very much evidence that changing the size of your normal breasts (or nose) will make you happier in the long run--let alone change how people react to you. </p> <p> TheLady, if you’re serious about your view that there’s no distinction, are you prepared to argue that insurance should cover both Kevin and Erica’s procedures? Because that sounds crazy to me. It would be intolerably cruel to force Kevin to go through life with a cleft lip because his parents couldn’t afford to pay for the surgery. Doctors who volunteer their time fixing cleft lips and cleft palates in poor communities are widely regarded as heroes--and rightly in my opinion. Are you really saying that they’d be doing just as much of a service if they took nose jobs to poor kids? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #61: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243395">06:41 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243396"></a> <p>I don’t think there’s anything wrong or shallow about purely aesthetic plastic surgery. I’m just saying that it’s a choice that informed adults should make for themselves. It’s not something that parents should have done for children in the vain hope that surgery will improve a bad social situation. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #62: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243396">06:47 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243397"></a> <p>In short: no, a nose job/ears pinned back won’t help in every case when a child is bullied because of physical appearance. But it really does help in some, and when it does it can make an enormous difference to people’s lives. We SHOULD stop the bullies, but we don’t, and in the meantime blaming victims for taking rational action to make their lives more bearable is just, well, bullying. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #63: Nineveh on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243397">06:47 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243399"></a> <p>Er, every part of your face is a day-in, day-out feature in your life - whether you, I, society at large, your mom or some surgeon think that they’re “normal” or not. Everybody has to live in the bodies they have, and to say that people who look different by the standards of one of these observers should seek intervention is othering, and opens the door for uncritically normalising all other kinds of things like skin lightening, “good hair”, and other damaging phenomena of normative appearance. </p> <p> People don’t get body dismorphia because there’s something objectively wrong with them, but because they perceive their bodies as being the wrong bodies. Do you propose that their insurance denies them treatment because their problem is no a “real” deformity? </p> <p> Not solving children’s social prolems with invasive procedures is very much the direction in which my speculative thinking was leaning by the way - I’m not sure how you got from that to me being crazy and suggesting people get D cup boobs but not cleft palate corrections on the NHS. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #64: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/">TheLady</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243399">06:58 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243407"></a> <p>A cousin of mine was once told that her perfectly beautiful 8-year-old daughter should get surgery for her ears because they stuck out and the other kids sometimes made fun of her. The person who told her this <i>was the little girl’s teacher.</i> I <i>really</i> hope this person didn’t stay in the profession. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #65: Bitter Scribe on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243407">07:58 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243412"></a> <p>TheLady, it would be malpractice to knowingly perform cosmetic surgery on someone with BDD. That’s not just my opinion, any ethical plastic surgeons will tell you so. Of course these patients deserve insurance-paid treatment for their their persistent and painful delusion that their bodies are hideous. They must also be protected from unscrupulous quacks who would exploit their delusions. </p> <p> Everyone has to live in their body. Yet, some people clearly meet the criteria for our socially constructed category of “deformed” and some clearly don’t. If you read as deformed, you can expect to be treated significantly worse, by a significant percentage of the population. You will get double-takes on the street. You will have a harder time getting a date or a job, pretty much across the board. </p> <p> Erica is not deformed by any stretch of the imagination. Even the bullies who are teasing her didn’t believe she’s deformed, they just knew they can get a rise out of her by saying mean things about her objectively unremarkable nose. The shape of her pre-op nose had no bearing on her prospects in life. Some people will like the new one better, some would have found her more attractive with the old one. Pre-op and post-op, she gets all the privileges of a conventionally attractive white woman. </p> <p> I’m saying that insurance should cover cleft lip correction but not breast implants. Your argument that there’s no distinction between corrective/reconstructive surgery and aesthetic surgery seems to imply that insurance should cover neither, or both. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #66: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243412">09:07 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243415"></a> <p>Amanda, and assembled disciples, PLEASE take the following link and watch Katie Makkai’s poetry jam performance about plastic surgery. “Will I be pretty?” is one of the most inspiring, jaw-dropping vids you’ll ever watch, and it brought a tear to this old fart’s eyes when he watched it. It should be mandatory viewing for all women, in my opinion. </p> <p> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0</a> </p> <p> “… now I haven’t seen my own face in ten years...” </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #67: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.squatlo-rant.blogspot.com/">Squatlo</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243415">09:58 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243416"></a> <p>I dig the blog and agree with most of this post, but this part sticks out: </p> <p> “As any woman here can likely tell you, there are a lot of men who feel entitled to dictate the beauty and fashion choices of any random woman they see, no matter how little they know her. I’ve had men whose names I don’t even know suggest I wear too much make-up and too little of it, that my hair should be shorter and that it should be longer, that I need to lose weight and that I need to gain it. There’s a whole culture that teaches a huge percentage of men that women aren’t subject to the rule that says you should keep your opinions to yourself on these matters.” </p> <p> Women definitely take more shit about appearance than men do, but the phenomenon you describe here isn’t as one-sided as you make it sound. I’ve had plenty of women I barely know if at all make comments about how I should cut my hair (when I still had more of it), how I should shave my beard, or how I should dress. These comments are often accompanied by such encouragement as speculation on how much tail I would get if I would just follow their helpful advice. The most galling thing is when they get offended when I won’t let them touch my beard. I don’t know where the fuck they get off with that. Admittedly, this does also happen with some men as well. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #68: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://megamahan.blogspot.com/">megamahan</a> on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243416">09:59 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243417"></a> <p><i>It was one reason why a classmate and I made a resolution to do whatever we could to drive him into retirement...which succeeded a year after I graduated and for which I was given partial credit by classmates.</i> </p> <p> Whatever you could, huh? Bullying is bad unless you don’t like the person, in which case it’s alright, I guess? I mean c’mon, I was an angry (and smart) teenager too but I don’t look back on being a snot to teachers with <i>pride</i> now that I’m an adult. </p> <p> Maybe everyone is just describing their behavior too dramatically, but several commenters sound like they were gleefully <i>assholeish</i> children. Yeesh. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #69: Bagelsan on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243417">10:14 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243420"></a> <blockquote><p>It should be mandatory viewing for all women, in my opinion.</p></blockquote> <p> Aw, that’s so kind of you, Random Q. D00d, to come in here and declare that our teensy widdle gurly-brainz would be <i>so</i> much more enlightened about beauty pressured if we watched that thar video. I mean, it couldn’t <i>possibly</i> be that blog full of regular feminist blog readers could have come to such realizations on our own… No, we needed an “old fart” with a penis to come in and guide us toward them. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #70: Nobody in Particular on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243420">11:05 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243421"></a> <blockquote><p>Whatever you could, huh? Bullying is bad unless you don’t like the person, in which case it’s alright, I guess? I mean c’mon, I was an angry (and smart) teenager too but I don’t look back on being a snot to teachers with pride now that I’m an adult. </p></blockquote> <p> Bagelsan, </p> <p> Actually, it is more like the teacher was the big bully and I and the other classmate were two kids who finally decided to fight back rather than take any more of his abusive BS....especially after finding the school administration wouldn’t do anything about it despite having a heinous prior history of mistreating students because he had tenure. Considering the school administration/board of ed wasn’t going to do anything about him, we had two choices, accept being terrorized and bullied like most of our classmates or to stand up to him..whatever the cost and show him that not all of us will be bullied into submission. </p> <p> One thing I learned early in life is that in situations where there is ineffectual or no effective oversight over abusive bullying teachers, one either submits like Chip Diller at his Omega initiation rite to the bullying and says “Thank you, sir! May I have another?” or decides enough is enough and tries to fight back..whatever the cost. I’m certainly not going to feel any sorrow for standing up to bullies, especially when he was a fully grown man who should have acted better and I was a 13 year old kid at the time. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #71: exholt on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243421">11:10 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243425"></a> <blockquote><p>It should be mandatory viewing for all women, in my opinion.</p></blockquote> <p> It might do more good being mandatory for all men, in my opinion. It could give them insight into the realities of being a woman. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #72: catgirl on 01/13 at <a href="site/comments#243425">11:39 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243427"></a> <blockquote><p>Related, I have always found children from large families to be much more socially skilled than only children. More of that social correction. </p> </blockquote> <p> Correction, children from large families may by more socially skilled in interactions with other children, or more specifically in the unnatural and never-encountered-after- K-12-warehousing of the public education system. On the other hand, only children, children of older parents and non-education cohorted children have the ability to interact with children both older and younger than themselves and adults of many ages. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #73: phylosopher on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243427">12:03 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243430"></a> <p><i>It should be mandatory viewing for all women, in my opinion.</i> </p> <p> “You watch that video, young lady, or the chastity belt lock stays <i>on</i>!” </p> <p> (Which is to say… how would you mandate it? Would I have to turn in my ladycard and/or vagina if I skipped it? <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137im_/http://slicedbreadtwo.com/images/smileys/smile.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="smile" style="border:0;"/>) </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #74: Bagelsan on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243430">12:14 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243431"></a> <p><i>“You watch that video, young lady, or the chastity belt lock stays on!”</i> </p> <p> You may have hit upon the only effective way to still teach today’s teenagers. </p> <p> ("I want a 6 page essay on Moby Dick by the end of term, or you’ll be wearing the things all through teh summer holidays! And in the interests of gender equality, I’d like to introduce you young men to something I like to call The Sleeve...") </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #75: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://walkingwithghosts.blogspot.com/">Phoenician in a time of Romans</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243431">12:24 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243432"></a> <p>It’s kind of like you are allowing the negative aspects of the system to shape you, if you change in response to them. I think it is better to learn the lesson of how to develop thick skin and a certain amount of psychological defensive skills than to learn the lesson of ‘adapting’. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #76: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com/">scratchy888</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243432">12:24 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243433"></a> <p>Excellent distinction, Lindsey! Any physical abnormality that affects physical functioning is simply not subject to the same ethical questions about correction that physical attributes that are a matter of preference do. I would also say that about surgery meant to repair/restore a former appearance changed by accident - e.g. burn victims </p> <p> There are incidences that are truly grey areas though. E.g breast so large they interfere with a sport or cause back pain - and make the bearer (no pun intended) subject to harrassment/bullying. </p> <p> Weightloss falls into that category, too. How much of a teen’s changing diet is wanting to alter the body for aesthetic reason (outside influences) aesthetic reasons (inner preference) and how much is an (inner) desire to improve health and well-being and how much outside parental medical expert concern? </p> <p> And is there a ‘when” to having enough life experience to change the appearance, with full knowledge weighing all the pros and cons? Look at the disaster of Jennifer Grey’s nose job, and the beauty the world would have missed if her parents had offered to spring for Barbra Streisand’s in what surely must have been a sometimes bullied about it youth (think I read that somewhere she had considered it, but was already concerned with possible damage to her voice.) I mean, c’mon - most late-bloomer/small chested girls probably have a moment of I want to do something to make them bigger, just as many late-bloomer guys read (and buy) those magazine ads for “go from a 90# weakling to a 180# behemoth with out easy exercise/supplement/whatever.” Isn’t a certain amount of maturity necessary to making a truly informed, wise decision? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #77: phylosopher on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243433">12:26 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243443"></a> <p>Well, here in Belgium, if your heavy breasts can be medically proven to hurt your back, breast reduction surgery is (at least partly) covered by social security. But it’s not such a grey area because it is a biological fact that big breasts can hurt a woman’s back. </p> <p> As far as distinguishing between someone’s individual reasons for altering their appearance and society’s pressure, no matter how old you are, it is practically impossible to do. We don’t live in a vacuum and not only is attractiveness a social construct, we live in a very appearance-focused society, where we are constantly bombarded with messages of beauty, thinness, youth, etc. However, if someone waits until 18 to have cosmetic surgery, there’s a better chance that they will be mature enough to handle it (and freed from the bullying and specific pressures of high school). Except in cases of medical deformity, as in Lindsay’s cleft palate example, I’m quite uncomfortable with cosmetic surgery on minors. I don’t think most 15 or 16 year old kids are psychologically mature enough to go through a procedure that will dramatically alter their appearance. And teenagers tend to see cosmetic surgery as some sort of magic trick that will solve all their problems. Also, I’m not a healthcare professional, but I think some parts of your body are not really fully grown until you reach your 20s (breasts are en obvious example, but I think your nose and facial features change pretty much until adulthood). </p> <p> Cosmetic surgery is not something that should be taken lightly and I’m quite concerned that it is increasingly being presented in the media as a minor procedure. People seem to think it’s no bigger deal than going to the dentist and I think teenagers, in particular, tend to downplay the risks of surgery. </p> <p> I don’t think weight loss should be lumped into the same category, to be honest. I know diets are not necessarily harmless, but they’re still quite different from major invasive surgery. (Of course, there are EDs, but not every teenager’s diet turns into anorexia and EDs in general are a very complex issue and cannot just be boiled down to “kids wanna get thinner because of the girls in the magazines"). </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #78: Scarlet on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243443">05:03 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243449"></a> <blockquote><p>You may have hit upon the only effective way to still teach today’s teenagers.</p></blockquote> <p> Oh, come on. Teenagers aren’t that horrible. I was a teenager myself just 6 years ago, and I managed to learn things at school, as did the vast majority of my peers. Movies and tv shows are <i>fiction</i> and don’t reflect actual teenagers. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #79: catgirl on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243449">10:11 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243450"></a> <blockquote><p>Related, I have always found children from large families to be much more socially skilled than only children. More of that social correction.</p></blockquote> <p> You’ll have to provide some actual data for that, or I’ll assume that it’s confirmation bias on your part. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #80: catgirl on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243450">10:12 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243452"></a> <blockquote><p>It should be mandatory viewing for all women, in my opinion. <br/> </p></blockquote> <p> @ 67 <br/> EXCUSE ME?!? So all women need to be told how important the world is always telling them their appearance is and how it just isn’t really true? Damn, you are an ass. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #81: helen w. h. on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243452">11:00 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243453"></a> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/socskill.htm">http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/socskill.htm</a> </p> <p> Interestingly, in this study, it was the teacher who reviewed the students’ social skills. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #82: John Joel Glanton on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243453">11:14 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243455"></a> <p>In fairness, I did hear of a study which found the difference lessened among public school children by high school. Though I think the measurement of social skills differed. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #83: John Joel Glanton on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243455">11:19 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243466"></a> <p><i>Oh, come on. Teenagers aren’t that horrible. </i> </p> <p> Yes they are. </p> <p> Mind you, my mother said teh same thing when she was my age. But she was wrong then and I’m right now. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #84: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://walkingwithghosts.blogspot.com/">Phoenician in a time of Romans</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243466">12:46 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243478"></a> <p>There’s always the option of having the surgery and remembering what it was like to be bullied for your looks, so you don’t bully others for their looks, and correct or stay away from people who bully others for their looks even though they like you because you’re “normal.” </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #85: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.oldfeminist.com/">oldfeminist</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243478">03:20 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243482"></a> <p>Ditto the comments that “fixing” the “flaw” won’t stop the bullying. When I was in middle school (God, those horrible years...), you were screwed either way. Either you had X flaw, and you got teased about it, or you had surgery/started wearing makeup/bought new clothes to address X flaw, and you got teased for trying to fix it. Either you got bullied for not fitting in, or you got bullied for giving in to the bullying and for thinking you could ever fit in. </p> <p> Terra @35 - I also was amazed by the mother who “let” her toddler have Botox. I mean, yeah, bullying starts surprisingly young, but I’m curious about the number of preschoolers taunting her for her “droopy grin.” Even more telling is that she only gets Botox before school pictures and on her birthday--so rather than sparing her the bullying year-round, she only gets her mouth “fixed” in time for photographs that Mom can show off. </p> <p> (And it’s only on second reading that I realized that Breanna of the Botox is the younger sister of Erica of the Nose Job. Of course I have no direct insight, but might we consider that these two procedures have as much to do with Mom’s influence as they have with bullying?) </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #86: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://practicallyharmless.blogspot.com/">ACG</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243482">04:29 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243486"></a> <p>I was a teenager fairly recently too but I still joke that all those libido-suppressing anti-depressants I was on should be mandatory from age 13 to 18. It’s like a chastity belt that makes you <i>not</i> want to kill yourself. ;p </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #87: Bagelsan on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243486">05:21 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243487"></a> <p>Lindsay #66: </p> <p> You’re straight up making shit up, man. Nowhere in my original post, which I prefaced by specifically saying that I am not making a structured argument one way or the other, is insurance coverage mentioned. And no, it is not necessarily implicit either, because I live in the UK where it’s an utter irrelevance to reduce either health issues or appearance norms to matters of cash payouts. </p> <p> All appearance - including cleft palates and club feet that do not cause actual medical problems - is socially determined, subjective, and malleable. Some Japanese children would be considered abnormally short if born in (or migrated to) the west. I’ve personally seen women seek medical interventions for levels of body hair in the UK that in the Middle East would be considered within normal range and treatable with non-permanent means. What is considered medically prolematic in matters of weight varies so widely as to be meaningless (except, again, where non-aesthetic, diagnosable health issues are concerned, and that is usually at the extremes). My sister was seriously looked at for being underweight as a little girl, at a weight that today’s pre-teens aspire to. I had acne severe enough to cause extreme comments from strangers on the street, never mind bullies; but it was seen as within normal range by my dermatologist until Accutane became commercially available, when all of a sudden it was deemed so severe as to merit an intervention that would give you squid babies of you got pregnant, or permanent liver damage as a remote possibility. It’s. All. Relative. </p> <p> <i>None</i> of which is to say that the mental suffering is not real, or shouldn’t be addressed, or can’t be adequately addressed by a serious intervention of that’s what is deemed appropriate by unbiased medical professionals, counsellors, parents, the person themselves of course, and any other disinterested persons in a position of trust. My argument is that there is <b>no</b> non-medical condition so severe that you, or any other outside person, can <i>dictate</i> that it is within some official correction range and therefore by implication ought to be “fixed”. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #88: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://notazerosumgame.blogspot.com/">TheLady</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243487">05:34 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243499"></a> <p>The only reliable way I ever found to deal with bullying as a kid was to get into a credible physical fight with the bully. Nothing else was relevant, because nothing else stepped well enough outside of the established social hierarchy. </p> <p> People said to ignore them, but that simply isn’t possible once the physical assaults begin. You start getting really crazy about your body and its boundaries. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #89: Punditus Maximus on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243499">08:15 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243501"></a> <p>@TheLady </p> <p> You said that the division between “corrective” and “elective/vain” plastic surgery was bogus: <br/> “Notice that I’m not saying that any of these are wrong or right, only that the whole “corrective” vs. “elective/vain” plastic surgery divide is misleading and I think incorrect. <br/> Comment #59: TheLady on 01/13 at 06:10 PM” </p> <p> You didn’t mention insurance one way or the other. But I asked you whether you were prepared to embrace the logical implications of your position. If there’s really no distinction between reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, do you think that insurance should treat cleft lips and breast implants the same way? </p> <p> I think they should be treated differently. But, logically, if you think there’s no difference, you have two options. You could say that insurance should cover both cleft lips and breast implants, or neither. </p> <p> The question of what insurance should cover is just as relevant to you in the UK. The National Health Service covers some procedures and not others. What it covers is a matter of public policy. I’m pretty sure it covers cleft lip correction but not breast implants for women with healthy, intact breasts. Most people think that’s reasonable and appropriate. </p> <p> It goes without saying that people shouldn’t be forced to get cosmetic surgery they don’t want. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #90: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Lindsay Beyerstein</a> on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243501">08:32 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243502"></a> <p>exholt, I’m sorry I wasn’t around to drive your music snob associates crazy, but I hope that the tool that some fools used to batter you with didn’t leave you with a bad taste in your mouth for music lovers like Professor Avenger and myself. </p> <p> I can assure you that the phenomenon is more related to that of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-upmanship">One-upsmanship</a>. </p> <p> This is my <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/07/01/women-have-emotionally-satisfying-relationships-with-each-other-alert-the-mayor/#comment-426513">reaction</a> to the “Tiger Mother” thing: </p> <blockquote><p>If I wrote an autobiography, I would start one chapter something like this: </p> <p> “One of the strongest bonds between parents and offspring found in the class Mammalia is the relationship between a Chinese mother and her eldest son.” </p></blockquote> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #91: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243502">09:04 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243504"></a> <blockquote><p>exholt, I’m sorry I wasn’t around to drive your music snob associates crazy, but I hope that the tool that some fools used to batter you with didn’t leave you with a bad taste in your mouth for music lovers like Professor Avenger and myself. </p> <p> I can assure you that the phenomenon is more related to that of One-upsmanship. </p></blockquote> <p> No, it doesn’t as you...and I presume Prof. Avenger do not act like the snobby stuck-up assholes on the basis of their classical musical tastes/amateur performance as my older relatives and high school classmates. The bad taste was also assuaged by the fact that in my old neighborhood and more mainstreamed American high school classmates, the classical music snobs were all regarded as brownnosing conformist tools to be mocked and disdained. </p> <p> My distaste for classical music was fortunately ended by meeting many cool conservatory students at my undergrad who were nothing like the abovementioned crowd. Their musical tastes ranged far beyond classical, were quite open-minded and accepting of non-musicians, and they disliked the snobs more than I did...especially when they have to put up with them on a regular basis as conservatory students/musicians. Still hate having to put up with the snob element whenever I attend a classical musical performance. </p> <p> As for the Tiger Mother thing, I suspect Chua is playing it up to drive sales of her book though I am disturbed at how she’s playing into modern Western stereotypes of the Asian-American “Model Minority” myth. Especially when as a Professor at YLS....she should certainly know better. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #92: exholt on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243504">09:47 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243505"></a> <blockquote><p> As for the Tiger Mother thing, I suspect Chua is playing it up to drive sales of her book though I am disturbed at how she’s playing into modern Western stereotypes of the Asian-American “Model Minority” myth. Especially when as a Professor at YLS....she should certainly know better. <br/> Comment #92: exholt on 01/14 at 09:47 PM </p></blockquote> <p> Heard the end of an NPR interview with Chua and her spouse today. He seems worse than her at spinning the book’s appeal to new audiences - paraphrased, he said that he “didn’t think of it as a particularly CHinese way of raising kids but really more traditional American” - uh oh - The Pearls meet the Orient? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #93: phylosopher on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243505">10:20 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243506"></a> <p><i>No, it doesn’t as you...and I presume Prof. Avenger do not act like the snobby stuck-up assholes on the basis of their classical musical tastes/amateur performance as my older relatives and high school classmates.</i> </p> <p> <i>Still hate having to put up with the snob element whenever I attend a classical musical performance. </i> </p> <p> How are they evident in that situation? </p> <p> <i>Especially when as a Professor at YLS....she should certainly know better. </i> </p> <p> Maybe we can dig up <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Mae_Wong">Anna Mae Wong</a> to play her in the movie version of the book. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #94: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243506">10:23 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243511"></a> <p>“All appearance - including cleft palates and club feet that <b>do not cause actual medical problems</b>” </p> <p> Wait… <i>what</i>? How are you determining “actual medical problems” here? (And do you mean “cleft lip” I assume?) </p> <p> You’re being pretty blithe about a complicated issue. And it’s not like “medical problem” is an objective measure. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #95: Bagelsan on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243511">11:18 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243512"></a> <p><i>My argument is that there is no non-medical condition so severe that you, or any other outside person, can dictate that it is within some official correction range and therefore by implication ought to be “fixed”.</i> </p> <p> Also, considering that whether or not a condition is termed “medical” can be partially based <i>on</i> the severity of it… that’s kinda a meaningless statement. Not to mention that plenty of so-called medical conditions are not universally considered something to be “fixed” either. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #96: Bagelsan on 01/14 at <a href="site/comments#243512">11:22 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243534"></a> <blockquote><p>How are they evident in that situation?</p></blockquote> <p> It is hard to miss as I commonly overhear or are part of struck up conversations where they say/imply the following: </p> <p> 1. Loving/listening to classical music makes them “civilized”, “cultured”, and even “virtuous”. </p> <p> 2. Those who enjoy other musical genres....especially modern music after Jazz are “uncouth”, “barbaric”, “lowbrow”, and lead to the “road of ruin”. Chua herself implies this when in one quoted part of her book, she said “I wanted her to be well-rounded and to have hobbies and activities. Not just any activity, like “crafts”, which can lead nowhere - or even worse, playing the drums, which leads to drugs - but rather a hobby that was meaningful and highly difficult with the potential for depth and virtuosity.” A statement I find quite amusing as I know many stellar conservatory grads from Eastman, Oberlin, and Julliard who aren’t above partaking in the enjoyment of imbibing certain weeds. </p> <p> 3. How popular culture and society commonly equates classical music with the Western upper/upper-middle class establishment.....whether this is actually true or not. <br/> </p> <blockquote><p>Maybe we can dig up Anna Mae Wong to play her in the movie version of the book. </p></blockquote> <p> Quite ironic considering Chua banned her kids from taking part in school plays according to that WSJ article. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #97: exholt on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243534">01:37 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243536"></a> <p><i>1. Loving/listening to classical music makes them “civilized”, “cultured”, and even “virtuous”</i> </p> <p> Really, you hear that at every classical concert you attend? That’s a bit strange. </p> <p> #2: That’s not surprising, she sounds as stupid as the classical snobs you describe. </p> <p> #3--It would be more correct to say that they are associated with each other, although you ignore the increasing middle-class interest in classical music in the last century. </p> <p> Basically, I believe that holding the resentments generated by what I would call ‘untypical’ classical music snobs against the artform itself. </p> <p> I cannot take off the blinders you have placed over your perceptions, only you can do that for yourself. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #98: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243536">02:38 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243537"></a> <p>against the artform itself is unwise and short-sighted, IMHO. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #99: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243537">02:39 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243538"></a> <blockquote><p>against the artform itself is unwise and short-sighted, IMHO.</p></blockquote> <p> Dark Avenger, </p> <p> My issue is not with the classical music artform itself or its musicians(friends with many of them), but with the obnoxiously visible stuck up asshole fans it seems to attract. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #100: exholt on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243538">03:03 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243541"></a> <p>Again, you’re placing the cart before the horse. </p> <p> If the classical music artform has OVSUOFs involved, that might be more a regional variation than a true state of the facts. </p> <p> When I lived in St. Louis, aside from the older, stuffier types who felt they should be here, there were some regular folks who just loved the stuff, like a fellow at the SLO concert who favorably compared the death of the German composer Webern to that of a bluesman, or my date who was amused to learn that after 2.5 years of reviewing concerts, I didn’t realize the call in tune from intermission was taken from Finlandia by Sibelius. </p> <p> I did encounter one snob in the practice rooms one time that made a music major and I stare at each other in amazement, and not just because she proclaimed “My teacher studied with Horowitz”. </p> <p> You have a bad regional problem, and don’t really realize it yet. </p> <p> Let me put it this way: </p> <p> Recently, I called Professor Avenger while he was listening to a violin concerto on the radio, and he challenged me to name the performer. </p> <p> I stated from the performance it had to be either Oistrakh or Heifetz, and it was the latter. </p> <p> Did he lord it over my stepmother that I did what neither she or any of her descendants could pull off, if they were interested in classical music in the first place? </p> <p> No. </p> <p> Did he think excessively of himself being the father of the worlds “only amateur concert pianist” as he termed me in my college years? </p> <p> No. </p> <p> He was proud that I had enough love of the subject to do well on such a blind test, and he neither resents nor envies my performance talent because I developed it for myself, not at his behest or for his purposes whatsover. </p> <p> Anyway, if I’m ever in NYC, I’d like to encounter these musical snobs you speak of, so far I’ve yet to find anyone of my age with my knowledge of classical music,. </p> <p> That’s the result of a youth misspent in libraries when I had nothing else that would satisfy me in my summers in San Jose, CA. </p> <p> But that’s another story for another day. <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137im_/http://slicedbreadtwo.com/images/smileys/rolleyes.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="rolleyes" style="border:0;"/> </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #101: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243541">04:12 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243543"></a> <p>So far, I managed to go though only some of posts you discuss here, but I find them very interesting and informative. Just want say thank you for the information you have shared. <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137im_/http://slicedbreadtwo.com/images/smileys/smile.gif" width="19" height="19" alt="smile" style="border:0;"/> <br/> Regards. <br/> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.heroes-episodes.org/">http://www.heroes-episodes.org</a> </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #102: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.heroes-episodes.org/">Deney Triler</a> on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243543">04:26 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243547"></a> <p>I had a nose job as an adult, and I refuse to be bullied because of it by anyone! I’m not a lesser person because I did it, I’m still a feminist. I wish I lived in a world where I didn’t feel I had to do it but I don’t regret it. </p> <p> I wasn’t bullied as a teenager, I was a nerd but generally ignored by bullies, with good close friends. I was however left in no uncertain terms that I was classed both by my peers and by the world at large as deeply unattractive and the reason was my undeniably large nose. (Certain adult family members were quite effective at giving me this impression too.) </p> <p> Keep an eye and an ear out for the number of references to big-nosed people you hear on TV, in books, in general overheard conversation. A big-nosed person is a joke in popular culture, undeserving of love or respect. I cringed every time I heard one of these references, there’s an episode of Frasier that I still can’t watch, forget Cyrano De Bergerac! </p> <p> Since the surgery, the world treats me completely differently. Men and women of all ages, races and positions in society are nicer to me. I am smiled at by strangers, I get better, more courteous service, people hold doors and offer assistance if I seem to need it. </p> <p> Its really quite rubbish that the world is this way, but in my opinion it takes an exceptionally brave person to be in my position, have the means to make the rest of their life so much more pleasant and easier and not do it. I wish I was that brave person but I’m not and I won’t be made to feel guilty for that. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #103: Larrabee on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243547">04:39 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243549"></a> <p>“To clarify, my concern does not lie with the nose job itself, but I don’t think we can separate the bullying from the fact that this girl was willing to have her face cut open to stop the bullying, and say, “Bullying: bad! Face cut open: fine!” “ </p> <p> This. </p> <p> I have certainly thought more than once about getting a breast reduction. One of the many things that stops me is the realization that I most often think about it when I am trying to find bras and shirts, and I think how much easier it will be to find clothes that fit and look professional if my breasts were just a couple of cup sizes smaller. That’s when I kinda freak out - because then I realize that I am thinking of cutting my body instead of finding <i>fabric</i> that is cut to fit my body. </p> <p> Now, this doesn’t mean that I think breast reductions are a bad thing, or that I won’t ever get one, or that I don’t have plenty of other reasons for wanting one. Or even that this is exactly a bad reason on an individual level. </p> <p> But it’s one thing for that to be a passing, random thought in one person’s head. It’s another for there to be a significant number of people who find it easier to have elective surgery than to find clothes that fit, places they can live/work where they are not bullied, etc. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #104: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://jennygadget.livejournal.com/">jennygadget</a> on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243549">05:41 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243557"></a> <blockquote><p>But it’s one thing for that to be a passing, random thought in one person’s head. It’s another for there to be a significant number of people who find it easier to have elective surgery than to find clothes that fit, places they can live/work where they are not bullied, etc. <br/> Comment #104: jennygadget on 01/15 at 05:41 PM </p></blockquote> <p> Oh yes. I often have my students read an essay “androgyny as an ideal.” It is interesting to see some panic at the idea - the typical response - but how will little kids know which bathroom to use. Like the fabric amount controlling surgical decisions, they are very willing to let building plumbing dictate social structures. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #105: phylosopher on 01/15 at <a href="site/comments#243557">11:25 PM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243570"></a> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.cheaptruereligionoutlet.net/">true religion outlet</a> <br/> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.cheaptruereligionoutlet.net/">true religion jeans</a>, <br/> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.cheaptruereligionoutlet.net/">true religion jeans outlet</a> <br/> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.cheaptruereligionoutlet.net/">true religion</a> <br/> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://www.cheaptruereligionoutlet.net/">Discounted true religion</a> </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #106: outletjeans on 01/17 at <a href="site/comments#243570">12:57 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243571"></a> <blockquote><p>You have a bad regional problem, and don’t really realize it yet. </p></blockquote> <p> Dark Avenger, </p> <p> My experience with the snobbery has been on both coasts(Urban NE and the bay area/Hawaii). In fact, the only place where this wasn’t an issue was at my midwest SLAC. I believe a large part of that was because being a snob...especially about bourgeois things like classical music was considered declasse there....along with the fact that the conservatory students I’ve met regarded such folks as shallow people with extremely constrained musical tastes. </p> <p> Nowadays, I would go to a classical concert to enjoy the music with good friends, quietly humor the snobs while secretly enjoying mental images of them being serenaded in the same way Dee Snider did to Mark Metcalfe’s character, and then proceed to enjoy a late dinner with friends where we discuss how we enjoyed the music and get into one of our long conversations on the history, society, and culture behind the composers/music. </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #107: exholt on 01/17 at <a href="site/comments#243571">02:07 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243573"></a> <p><i>My experience with the snobbery has been on both coasts(Urban NE and the bay area/Hawaii).</i> </p> <p> If it’s a universal issue, then you’ve failed to established why this would not be so in the Midwest, so therefore you’ve yet to establish a consistent hypothesis based on your observations of areas that can all be characterized by being high-income areas rather than being established centers of Western Classical musical. </p> <p> People with a lot of money tend to be unreasonably snobbish. </p> <p> Stop the presses. </p> <p> I also forgot to mention that I visited some Chinese relatives who were studying at UI Champaign Urban in music, and there was little musical snobnery there as well. </p> <p> <i>I believe a large part of that was because being a snob...especially about bourgeois things like classical music was considered declasse there....along with the fact that the conservatory students I’ve met regarded such folks as shallow people with extremely constrained musical tastes.</i> </p> <p> Yes, the belief that classical music is some sort of doorway to culture, life, the universe and everything is perhaps more misguided now than in the days when I came of musical age. </p> <p> The popular music of the 50s and 60s that included the rise of the guitar and the fall of the acoustic piano has something to do with it as well, the thought of learning piano so you could play the popular tunes today sounds about as archaic as asking you to take the stagecoach through Apache country. </p> <p> And of course, such classical music pseudo-sophisticates as you describe couldn’t begin to tell you why George Shearing studied Bach in Braille musical notation, or how a J. S. Bach Minuet became the basis for a pop song: <br/> </p> <blockquote><p>A Lover’s Concerto” is a pop song written by American songwriters Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell and recorded in 1965 by The Toys. Their version of the song was a major hit in both the United States and the UK during 1965. It peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number two. <br/> Critic Dave Thompson wrote, “Few records are this perfect. Riding across one of the most deceptively hook-laden melodies ever conceived ... ‘A Lover’s Concerto’ marks the apogee of the Girl Group sound."[1] The song also had an unusual structure that blurred the differences between its verses and choruses. </p> <p> The lyrics begin with: </p> <p> How gentle is the rain <br/> That falls softly on the meadow, <br/> Birds high up in the trees <br/> Serenade the flowers with their melodies </p> <p> Linzer and Randell based the melody on the familiar “Minuet in G major” (BWV Anh. 114) from J.S. Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. One key difference is that the “Minuet in G major” is written in 3/4 time, whereas “A Lover’s Concerto” is arranged in 4/4 time. (Although often attributed to Bach himself, the “Minuet in G major” is now believed to have been written by Christian Petzold. The Notebook, a gift from Bach to his second wife Anna, begins with works by Bach but also included many blank pages, onto which members of the family copied works that they liked to play; the famous minuets in G major and G minor are not in Bach’s handwriting.)</p></blockquote> <p> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lovers_Concerto">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lover’s_Concerto</a> </p> <p> I think we had a breakthrough tonight. </p> <p> Same time, next week? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #108: Dark Avenger Guardian Chow Mein on 01/17 at <a href="site/comments#243573">03:10 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243576"></a> <p>Hmm, am I in moderation? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #109: halfspin on 01/17 at <a href="site/comments#243576">07:31 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body2"><a name="243577"></a> <p>I don’t know too much about classical music. I played piano for only a couple of years, nothing enough to leave much of an impression. I find myself having pretty strong reactions to different pieces and artists, though: I find a lot of Mozart and Chopin rather boring, but I enjoy the Bach contrapunctus(sp?) in the Tocattas and Fugues; I find Beethoven pretty vibrant and listenable, Tolstoy’s a little bombastic, Mahler is ok, Bartók is better, Rachmaninoff is awesome, I really like Stravinsky’s ballets, Shostakovich blows me away, Vaughn Williams touches my heart, as does Jacqueline du Pré playing Dvořák(sp?) and Elgar… What else shoud I look for? (sorry if this posts twice or not at all) </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #110: halfspin on 01/17 at <a href="site/comments#243577">07:32 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="comment-body1"><a name="243578"></a> <p>Also, how does one live with a physical deformity and flaw and recognize that the rest of the world is going to react and find you unattractive? I guess statistically the people faced with that problem have to end up somewhere. Is it with equally flawed people, or are they able to somehow see past that flaw and manage to get turned on by that blemished skin or bulging thighs covered with stretch marks or hairy beer belly? </p> <div class="comment-posted">Comment #111: halfspin on 01/17 at <a href="site/comments#243578">07:35 AM</a></div> </div> <div class="paginate"> <span class="pagecount">Page 1 of 1 pages</span> </div> <div align="center"><script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-2549884068263465"; /* 468x60, created 6/3/08 */ google_ad_slot = "9772360712"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; //--> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137js_/http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></div> <form id="comment_form" method="post" action="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/submission_is_the_wrong_lesson/"> <div class="hiddenFields"> <input type="hidden" name="ACT" value="1"/> <input type="hidden" name="RET" value="http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/submission_is_the_wrong_lesson/"/> <input type="hidden" name="URI" value="/site/comments/submission_is_the_wrong_lesson/"/> <input type="hidden" name="PRV" value="site/comment_preview"/> <input type="hidden" name="XID" value="cfc41b7f652107a31ac2c0d49e3832e0c94ce82f"/> <input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="4505"/> <input type="hidden" name="site_id" value="1"/> </div> <p> <div align="center"><hr></div></p> <p> <font color="black">Please <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137/http://pandagon.net/index.php/member/login/">login or register</a> to post comments.</font> </p> <p> <textarea name="comment" cols="50" rows="12" style="width:100%"></textarea> </p> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Blaspheme"/> <input type="submit" name="preview" value="Preview"/> <p></p> </form> </div> </div> </div> <br class="spacer"/> </div> <script src="https://web.archive.org/web/20110117132137js_/http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> _uacct = "UA-4601490-1"; urchinTracker(); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> var _sf_async_config={uid:10725,domain:"pandagon.net"}; (function(){ function loadChartbeat() { window._sf_endpt=(new Date()).getTime(); var e = document.createElement('script'); e.setAttribute('language', 'javascript'); e.setAttribute('type', 'text/javascript'); e.setAttribute('src', (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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