No matter what you do to disguise it, you cannot hide excess weight. If you have a chunky figure you cannot appear dainty, feminine, or girlish, even with the help of soft, flowing, feminine clothes. And yes, people like this hear “exercise!” all of the time, but it’s especially problematic given the context of Helen’s book: you must do exactly what she says or your husband won’t love you.īut, it was the “Control Weight” section that really got me: Because not everyone can exercise, and a lot of people have things like fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, even when they’re incredibly young. Here we hit “Exercise Regularly” and even more ableism. Same thing goes for “firm mattress.” I wake up in pain if I have to sleep on a firm mattress and sleeping on one for more than 3 days… nope. It took me until I was 24 to figure out that I just didn’t need to force myself into a sleeping pattern that didn’t fit me. If I try to go to sleep earlier, I have nightmares, I wake up three or four times, and I get up in the morning feeling groggy and confused. She also tells us to go to bed before 10p and to sleep on a “good, firm mattress.” I spent most of my life thinking I was a horribly lazy person because I was a night owl– for me, I get my best rest when I go to sleep around midnight and wake up around 9a. Getting a good night’s rest just isn’t possible for me most of the time. Then she moves into getting a good night’s rest, and this is where she gets ableist: some people have insomnia, including me. Later, she says we have to drink only “pure water” and says to buy bottled if we have to, which… this. I’m living on a solidly middle-class budget, and I can’t even afford to buy only fresh (and organic!) food. When someone tells me that I can’t cook with canned or frozen food and must only buy organic, and then links this to whether or not my husband will love me, the only thing I can think is well, shit. However, that’s not where Helen goes with it, since her definition of “eating right” is only attainable by rich people. From my short life, it seems like most of what we hear from medical professionals is that eating your fruits and vegetables and exercising seems to be the bulk of their advice.
#Fascinating womanhood reviews full
If you’re thinking this chapter is going to be chock full to the brim with fat-shaming, ableism, and classism– you’d be right!įirst off, there’s a lot in this chapter that’s just common sense– especially since it focuses on eating a healthy diet and exercising.