... in which sometimes it's inevitable
You know, I don't love Hillary Clinton - I'm way to the left of her just by living in Blighty, for a start. But I don't think she's evil or irrational, and so when I heard all the stuff about how ZOMG SHE HAD THIS HUGE EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN ABOUT HOW SHE WAS LOSING, RIGHT ON STAGE!!1 I kind of thought '... really. A professional politican, who has done this for years, who didn't cry in public when her husband got impeached.'
And hey, guess what: by 'have a huge breakdown' they apparently meant 'showed a goddamn human emotion about the future of her country'. And yet what is the other major criticism shoved at Hillary? That she's an emotionless automaton.
Somehow that makes me think it's not so much about her being either overly emotional or an automaton (especially as she is showing a perfectly normal amount of emotion and - GASP - that she is able to control how much it shows up, like most other professional people doing their job), but about the fact she's running at all. And yeah, that pisses me off.
The thing that made me want to post about it, though, was this, which is a Flikr photoset featuring people and illustrating the various BMI categories. And looking at all those people, living their lives and doing things that are so much more interesting that their weight, I couldn't help thinking that it's the same thing. The people who are in the 'underweight' range for their height look no happier or sadder than the people in the heavier weight groups. Even the people listed as 'normal' don't get to just relax and be themselves either. They get told they are edging towards overweight, or should have more boobs, or should have a smaller arse. They are just as screwed as the people in the categories above and below them. Cause the really amazing thing, that I intellectually understood before seeing it but am feeling like I finally, finally emotionally get, is that for none of those people does their weight really matter. They're doing things, being things, that a number on a scale has no relevance for at all. It doesn't affect who's happiest, or even most attractive or physically fit - lots of the people looking healthiest and happiest are not in the 'normal' range. And all of them are being told, every single day, that they are wrong. Whatever they do.
And that REALLY pisses me off.
And hey, guess what: by 'have a huge breakdown' they apparently meant 'showed a goddamn human emotion about the future of her country'. And yet what is the other major criticism shoved at Hillary? That she's an emotionless automaton.
Somehow that makes me think it's not so much about her being either overly emotional or an automaton (especially as she is showing a perfectly normal amount of emotion and - GASP - that she is able to control how much it shows up, like most other professional people doing their job), but about the fact she's running at all. And yeah, that pisses me off.
The thing that made me want to post about it, though, was this, which is a Flikr photoset featuring people and illustrating the various BMI categories. And looking at all those people, living their lives and doing things that are so much more interesting that their weight, I couldn't help thinking that it's the same thing. The people who are in the 'underweight' range for their height look no happier or sadder than the people in the heavier weight groups. Even the people listed as 'normal' don't get to just relax and be themselves either. They get told they are edging towards overweight, or should have more boobs, or should have a smaller arse. They are just as screwed as the people in the categories above and below them. Cause the really amazing thing, that I intellectually understood before seeing it but am feeling like I finally, finally emotionally get, is that for none of those people does their weight really matter. They're doing things, being things, that a number on a scale has no relevance for at all. It doesn't affect who's happiest, or even most attractive or physically fit - lots of the people looking healthiest and happiest are not in the 'normal' range. And all of them are being told, every single day, that they are wrong. Whatever they do.
And that REALLY pisses me off.