UK boob jobs double in 3 years

[Army Of Me]

well, that's putting it simply yes.

[soopermouse]

well, that's putting it simply yes.

you know I'm just a Barbarian

[resisterance]

Let's call the glamour model career as what it is- the easy and lazy way out.
It's neither. Women who get into porn or glamour careers are not "lazy". Just as women who choose to have children are not "lazy".

It seems to me that some are defining women as 'lazy' or stupid for not choosing the 'right' career, but as defined by who? I don't like defining people by their career. Most people I know don't have careers, they have jobs. I'm against work, myself. I don't agree with the capitalist mentality that has people working 40+ hour weeks, in order to create stupidly large surplus of product and of profit. I think the "work ethic" is pants.

In particular I dislike the way people who don't have "the right" "careers" are defined as lazy. This is a snobby way of thinking. That's what this American dream business is all about. A few people do work hard and achieve the dream, most work hard and don't, but not necessarily because they are lazy or stupid. It's got a lot to do with personal background and some to do with luck.

[soopermouse]

Let's call the glamour model career as what it is- the easy and lazy way out.
It's neither. Women who get into porn or glamour careers are not "lazy". Just as women who choose to have children are not "lazy".

yes it is. It's based on looks, something you have, or don't. You don't HAVE to study, to improve , to actually invest anything of yourself about it. What is not lazy about that?

It seems to me that some are defining women as 'lazy' or stupid for not choosing the 'right' career, but as defined by who? I don't like defining people by their career.

[/quote]

I am defining women as adults, and I expect them, all of them to take responsibility for their choices- namely those that are under their control. I factor in the circumstances that are not under our control and cannot be helped, and those that are. A choice that is damaging for one's wellbeing is a bad choice, and nees to be pointed out as such. Emphasis on CHOICE as opposed to somethign you are forced to do by economic and other out of your own control factors.

Most people I know don't have careers, they have jobs. I'm against work, myself. I don't agree with the capitalist mentality that has people working 40+ hour weeks, in order to create stupidly large surplus of product and of profit. I think the "work ethic" is pants.

If you are against work, good for you. I am of the strong belief that work does make us human, and that a career and a goal are very important for teh way one lives one's life. I do not like my current job per se, but I do believe in working at the best of my abilities- something that I call responsibility. I also do study in order to have the career that I do want, precisely because this is a choice I can make for myself and I take responsiblity for it.

[sunnysmiles]

it seems to me that you have a pretty low opinion of the young women of the 00's. Because you seem to be treating them as children who do not have the ability to make their own choices, and as such they are not responsible for their actions, and I resent that. We are all responsible for our actions.

Well then I guess women who have anorexia/bulimia should be responsible and MATURE enough to not fall into the trap of patriarchal expectations either. Battered women should also be responsible and intelligent enough to leave their abusive husbands and should stop repeatedly getting into relationships with abusive men, as we know most battered women get involved with other abusive men in their subsequent relationships...

You know all of that would be great and dandy - but guess what? Feminism isn't the foundation on which this society is running on. If society was infiltrated by feminist messages constantly - we probably could all have wonderfully responsible individuals, men and women. Saldy this is not the case.

I do not think that today's young women do not have choices at all - what I am saying is that it is in their BEST INTEREST (ALBEIT A TEMPORARY BASIS) to participate in the glamour industry, especially if they are good looking and poor to boot. i.e. yes, this is the easy way out, you want fast cash and you don't have a lot of money - flash your boobies and get a tacky boyfriend for a while too. It is easy, but it's NORMAL. My sister (who is 7 yrs younger than I) already has a friend who was a prostitute for a short while, my sister and her friend were asked to be glamour models just walking down the street ... Her friend even considered it for a while! THAT'S HOW COMMON IT IS nowadays. I didn't start wearing make-up until 5 yrs ago (I'm 28 now)... One of my sister's friend's has had a nose-job recently. She's not and idiot either, on the contrary a very intelligent young woman who's great in school, talented with a mic and very socially/culturally active. She's a very attractive girl - but why did she feel pressured to get a nose-job???? BECAUSE IT's CHEAPER NOW, MORE READILY AVAILABLE, IT'S NORMAL and 'she couldn't think about anything but her nose despite whatever she did'....

That's why. Social conditioning is NOT a choice - the world around me is out of MY IMMEDIATE CONTROL. It is however, all around me - the mass infiltration of patriarchal images and ideas affects not just 'irresponsible women' but 'feminist women' like myself. Women who I have known to have sworn never to diet, now diet (or starve if they gain a few pounds). Sure, we have a 'slight' choice to abstain from these activities - but who's going to tell you otherwise? A feminist? Your parents? Your teachers (who probably wear playboy bunny purses themselves - as I have SEEN)? Your friends (who are too busy obsessing over 16 magazine and cosmo)?

What I am saying is simple - the beast is fucking bigger than imagined, and there are VERY few people advocating for change - and hence it's not about choice/no choice - it's the NORM. You see everyone else doing it - and it's not such a big deal anymore. Taking off your clothes for money is not a big deal anymore.

Even in a patriarchal society, we still have some choices, and by making it appear that the sexualizing as career choice is ( almost) compulsory, you are denying recognition for the rest of the young women, namely those that do not become models or sex workers, which funny enough happen to be the majority. Do you know why? BEcause the majority of the women actually do not fit into the porn object standard of looks.

Do you know what adult friend finder is? Have you ever been to Lavalife? Have you looked at a porn site and seen that on the side bars there are photographs of partially/fully clothed women who actually live in your area? No, none of these women look like glam models, hell they're pretty average looking to say the least.... But what do most of these 'adult' sites and "dating" sites have in common? Most of the women on the adult sites ARE really just women who want to find a boyfriend - but feel compelled to directly compete with porn so they put their ads up in sexee poses to find a guy. How telling... Though lava life and other sites are just 'dating' sites - you'll find that the women on these sites OFTEN have sexy photos of themselves OR talk about their sexual preferences/fantasies in their profiles. There is also a preference that says seeking 'casual relationships'...

My point simply being that though NOT ALL WOMEN are going into stripping/glam modelling as a career - we are ALL affected by the porn industry in the way we talk (normalizing porn words like pimp/hardcore etc...), the way we mate/court (i.e. average women sexing it up for their bf's by learning pole dancing/taking sexy shots/making home videos/ sending naked pics on cell phones/ watching porn with their SO's)... etc... Our intimate interactions in our life are affected by Pornography.

I am sorry, but I am not buying this "treat women like powerless infants" crap. Women are full human beings, they make choices, they can screw up and we cannot blame the patriarchy for all of them. If you deny women the responsibility for their actions and try to coddle them in the " she was forced to do so by the Patriarchy" blanket, you are dehumanizing them and treating them like inferiors that are incapable of making their own choices, just like te Patriarchy has done for a long time.

Women make their choices when they are anorexic and bulemic, they make choices when they marry batterers, they make choices when they don't report sexual harassment, they make choices when they watch their bfs watch porn/go to strip clubs, they make choices when they go for a walk late at night, they make choices when they wear short miniskirts to a nightclub and get hit on/raped, they make choices when they star in girls gone wild, they make choices when they say 'yes' to coercive boyfriend and then regret having sex the next day (I still call it 'rape'), they make choices when they forego their shit-end careers for their overpaid husbands to raise his babies, they make choices when they do well.... just about anything... Why do I even bother being a feminist.

Strange as it might seem, the young women of today still manage to have careers, to study and to have lives that are NOT those of glamour models.

yes, but don't for a second think that the rest of the women - including myself, are not affected by the patriarchal standards of beauty because of the glam industry. There are reasons why the most average woman get's a boob job - and it's not because of the page 3 girls, it's because patriarchy loves page 3 girls naked.

Let's stop with making excuses. Last time that happened, we ended up with the pornification of society because some feminists decided to defend everything all women did as their choice, and not to be criticized. You are falling into the same pit..

Yeah, and you wonder why pro-porn feminism is such a big hit in academia? Don't forget it was because some feminists gave off the impression (not saying they DID advocate this, but gave the impression) that they hated prostitutes and reinforced patriarchy by looking down on them. I don't see you acting very differently here towards girls who enter glam.

[delphyne]

Rock on,.

This bastardisation of the idea of choice is one of the worst things that has happened to women recently. A concept that started out as "the right to choose" i.e. having control over our reproductive abilities (because that's where the phrase came from) has metamorphosed into everything a woman does she can be blamed for because she "chose" to do it, and not forgetting that other sexist standard, every choice a woman makes is a feminist choice because a woman made it.

The concept of choice needs to stay where it belongs, referring to reproductive freedom, everywhere else it's a distraction.

We live in a male supremacist society. Women's choices are limited. That's what happens when men have all the power.

[soopermouse]

sunnysmiles

I do not particularly believe in the "taking the easy way out approach". It does not work. Just because it has become almost normal in the society... that does not make it a good choice, does it?

As far as I am concerned, yes I do see "glamour" as a career as being a lazy, damaging easy way out. Defending it like it is as appropriate of a career choice as becoming a doctor seems extremely off putting.

Would you defend a choice of a girl becoming a porn star by the same logic?

I have no intention to deny the influence that pornography does have in our society. However- excusing its results hardly seems like a feminist act. On the contrary. It seems that you are giving the good ole Patriarchy a helping hand by refusing to admit that women can be wrong, cn make mistakes, and can fuck up, and that they can be educated in order to avoid falling into patriarchal traps such a glamour career.

The influence is there, indeed. No one is denying it.
But you advcate succumbing to it instead of fighting it where it matters, at the grassroots, where the girls can still be educate to make the right choices by themselves.

Also, I am extremely offended by your comparison of Eds with the attraction of a glamour career. It is an ignorant, damaging and insulting point to anyone who has ever suffered from an ED, you are comparing pain and suffering and health damage with the taking off of a dress. You have done that by skipping over the fact that I have said this "I expect them, all of them to take responsibility for their choicesnamely those that are under their control. "

There is a huge difference, and you are glossing over it, and managing to insult a lot of women in the process.

Yes, I have seen adult friend finder and lavalife. I am aware of their existence. HOWEVER, making it normal does not make it right and that is what you are doing.

In the time when a lot of feminists of all colours discuss the glamour model careers as a valid choice and whatelse, a hell of a lot of young girls are attracted into this vicious cirle- and you want to allow this to happen under the pretense of its "normality".

It's gonna be a lgn time until the patriarchy is brought down. Until then, why do you want the young girls to be sucked into this particular swamp just because it has become normal now?

Principle discussions are wonderful, but they don't solve even the tiniest problem when they only remain that. I believe that even helping ONE girl to not fall into that trap can be a hell of a lot more effective than slipping all of this into a comfortable normality and wait patiently until the Patriarchy falls, and to hell with those hurt in the process.

The tendence to "never criticize a woman's choice" has already helped a lot with the pornification of society ( the pole dancing, sexy pictures, plastic surgery as norm)because a lot of second wavers were too busy patting themselves on teh head to notice that some of these choices were wrong and this needed to be said.

Frankly, i do not really want to see this process going further on my watch. Women as mindless drones that will invariably fall for the next patriarchal pitch- this is what you are advocating.
It's going to hurt a hell of a lot of women in the process. And until the patriarchy is defeated, whichwill not happen overnight, and will not happen if we treat women like hapless mindless children, a lot more women will get hurt. Unless the girls get educated and taught the difference between being a human being and a sex toy, then our work is pointless.

Sitting on our asses and waiting for the males to kindly bring down patriarchy does not work. We need to take the rights that we want, and until we educate all women as to what they are and what their condition really is, I am afraid that it's not gonna happen, and acknowledging the glamour as a valid career choice is not going to help. Just further the pornification of society, with your blessings.

[SaltyC]

vgl, I really like your analysis of work and life.


Also, let's keep perspective on who really benefits and aho is to blame here -- the men.

[buttonwillow]

I have conflicting feelings about this issue, much as I do about "support our troops".

My guess is that some of us here have been involved in sex work at one time. If not, at least we may have completely bought into the whole patriarchy-induced insanity at some time in our lives. For that reason alone it would be hypocritical for *me* to condemn anyone else who's still there.

That said, I do feel that adult women are responsible for their behavior. The trouble is, how does a young woman or girl learn the true root/result of their actions when the world is telling them that what they're doing is what they SHOULD be doing? For the most part, they can only learn the hard way - after buying into it and finding out what it's all really about. And even then some women have less imagination or less courage or less confidence -- less *something* -- than what they need to get out of it or over it. That's a sad fact.

Some girls - and yes, women - don't KNOW any better because they don't have any other information. And saying that is not infantilizing them -- it's a reflection of the pervasiveness of patriarchy. Where would they GET opposing information? It's not out there like all the other opposing messages they get every second of their lives. They can't just happen upon the Radical Feminist Channel while they're changing stations during an HBO commercial. Some women only learn it as they go - and sometimes then it's too late for them.

On the other hand, I do feel it's important and critical for women and men to be held responsible for their actions. When you take a job stripping, to some degree you do know what you're doing. You know that you wouldn't have that job if you weren't conventionally attractive, and you decide to take advantage of that. There is some woman-hating involved, if only in that you may think to yourself, screw it, it's not MY fault the world is this way, I need to take what I can get, other women need to do the same.

I feel similarly about 'the troops'. Part of me says, I DO NOT SUPPORT THE TROOPS, they're killing innocent people! and the other part of me says, the troops are innocent people to some degree themselves. They're perhaps kids, they don't know better, they've been sold this line about protecting the country and their loved ones and patriotism/patriarchy and they're just trying to do the right thing.
I think...
--but they didnt' have to buy into that shit, i never did!
--but maybe they're not as smart as you, Miss Big Head, that's not their fault, or maybe they really honestly do believe that this is the only way to save the world, how do you know?
--but they're killing innocent people!
--maybe they think if they don't, their own loved ones will die or their country will be destroyed. They're so young, they're trying to be good Americans in the only way they know how! Maybe they're totally in denial about killing innocent people and they'll come back from this war with PTSD and struggle with depression and suicidal impulses for the rest of their lives.
--but how can they not know? how can they not know better?
--they don't get the news we get. they don't know what we know. WE aren't even sure we know what we know. They're the ones there, not us.
--GAH!
--GAH!

Mostly what I feel is sadness and a desire to do what I can to help (with my own hard earned profound wisdom of course, haha). But I can't criticize the anger I see here in this thread because I share it myself.

[resisterance]

As far as I am concerned, yes I do see "glamour" as a career as being a lazy, damaging easy way out. Defending it like it is as appropriate of a career choice as becoming a doctor seems extremely off putting.

Just on this paragraph, alone, I want to say something.

Glamour, as a career, and porn, as a career, are not lazy options. I have no doubt whatsoever that most of the women in the sex industry work a lot harder than the great majority of us outside the sex industry. Some of them are on 24 hour duty. Some of them are working part time in the industry on top of other work. Some of them are working part time in the industry on top of full time parenting. Some of them that are in the public eye could be thought of as ALWAYS at work, in that they have little to no life outside of their job-persona. Even glamour 'models' work long and i would've thought physically demanding hours.

There are many reasons I hate the sex industry in all it's forms. But this idea that the women inside it are lazy is so wrong and judgemental it makes me actually seethe to see it.

I've noticed that women in most 'careers' are seen as lazy. 'Lower class' women are always seen as lazy, even more so if they are mothers, more again if they are single mothers. Whether on benefits or working two full time jobs and raising a family on top (which is not an uncommon scenario, if you have doubts), if she hasnt achieved some mythical "right" career it is because she is lazy or stupid or both.

Yet women who earn packets in demanding careers are also seen as lazy. They are often assumed to have "slept their way" to the top, or to have got there through "daddys connections".

Soopermouse - you're a nurse or something right? I see nurses slagged off in the papers quite regularly, for being lazy or neglectful or abusive. Nurses I know are none of these things. Because nursing is seen as a women's job, which it still is, nurses are still going to be assumed to be lazy. I've heard countless tales from nurse friends about impatient patients who made demands for this or that on overworked nurses and talked to them like they were scum, skivvies, rather than as qualified professionals.

On "easy".. I don't understand how any one could say the sex industry was easy. Other than the shit women go through to get into it in the first place (sexual abuse, bullying, conditioning), once there they are subjected to a scrutiny beyond belief. Porn and glamour are not easy on the women 'workers'. Their bodies are subjected to no end of abuse and they are made to feel like they are worthless inside of those bodies.

Lea, off BB who was badly slagged off a couple of pages back, her life has been far from easy. She has been bullied her whole life. She has been through abuse and bullying and eating disorders and she has spent thousands and thousands on surgery to change the way she looks because she thinks she is nothing without it. She thinks she is worthless and might as well be dead without it. This is not an 'easy' life. She has been tortured, in my opinion. Tortured so that she has no sense of her self left - she just aims to please 24/7.

And of course she can't. Because the men will always find someone more luscious than her. Even with all that money spent she is still an object of ridicule. She can't stop aging and she can never achieve that inclusivity she wants. Lea just wants to be loved. I think it's desperately sad and when i see her I want to hug her, not laugh at her or judge her or call her a tart.

Yet women are supposed to hate her for being a "tart". She serves to define what the rest of us shouldn't be. It's so easy this way, some of us can be the dirty sluts and the rest can be the good hard working women who have the sense to keep our legs shut.

As for "damaging", well yes in that you're right. Its a damging career for those inside and for us outside.

But we arent going to achieve anything by alienating the women being damaged inside it, by blaming them for it all, by calling them names and criticising every 'choice' they make. There is a big wide chasm between analysis of a situation and just plain good ole' judging, and i think that much of this thread falls on the wrong side of that chasm.

[resisterance]

oh and i forgot - i dont think that being a doctor is quite all that either. not saying that all doctors are fucked up, but you know what, the medical industry is a misogynist and classist and racist and capitalist institution, and is extremely damaging to women in a thousand different ways. so i'm not sure that a medical career can be considered to be any better a moral choice, as far as women are concerened, than a career in glamour.

i've had to deal with a good couple of handfuls of doctors in the past few years, gps and obstetricians and pediatricians. and every single one of them has had misogynist ways of doing their work. every single one of them damages women every single day, if my experiences with them are anything to judge by.

thats something worth thinking about while we're talking about good career choices.

[Army Of Me]

I have seen first hand the reasons women go into the sex industry - no, the work is not easy, but the reasons many go into it is because their perception is that it WILL be easy. This myth is perpetuated to lure more women into it.

I've noticed that women in most 'careers' are seen as lazy. 'Lower class' women are always seen as lazy, even more so if they are mothers, more again if they are single mothers. Whether on benefits or working two full time jobs and raising a family on top (which is not an uncommon scenario, if you have doubts), if she hasnt achieved some mythical "right" career it is because she is lazy or stupid or both.

Yet women who earn packets in demanding careers are also seen as lazy. They are often assumed to have "slept their way" to the top, or to have got there through "daddys connections".

Disagree - I don't think of women as lazy in any way or form who have careers and jobs, and I wouldn't have thought many here would think that - why you have said this I don't know?

As for Lea, again, another potential icon for us feminists? I had abuse, eating disorders, low self-esteem, abusive marriage, bullying, and more than you will ever know, and more than I can ever speak about, but I didn't go and try to address this by getting the quick bucks from porn films and prostitution to pay for the enormous amount of cosmetic surgery that Lea has had.

Her way of dealing with this was wrong, and my point about her was that no example of any alternative way of dealing with the issues she has/had ever seems to be put into the public's eye. She was chosen because she had had all of those extreme things done to her, so what message is that giving to other women? Do this and you'll be on tv too! It's the patriarchal system she represents that I condemn. They set women up to have the self-esteem problems, then set them up to address these by doing extreme surgical procedures to their bodies, then hold them up as heroes on tv.

You have no idea how many women sell their bodies in order to obtain money for surgery. It's rife - I've heard it from a surgeon himself.

It's just wrong - poor Lea, but pity the other poor women who are just normal, who've had self-esteem, body-image and abusive treatment and don't resort to doing porn to get the money for cosmetic procedures -those are the brave ones, the ones who stick a finger up to patriarchy and tell him to shove it, the ones who dare to deal with it on other terms than the great pressure of patriarchy. They dare to be normal.

[oneangrygirl]

this is so weird: i agree with BOTH sides of the argument!
how is that possible?
for the time being i'm in soopermouse's camp just because she seems a bit lonely.
maybe we could compromise by saying that women OUGHT TO RESIST, but we understand why they may not be able to.

[CoolAunt]

Both sides of this argument are valid and based on fact. I could be swayed but since I started on SooperMouse's side and I still believe that not all women in glamor and sex work have no other viable options, I'll stick with SooperMouse, too.

[SaltyC]

What does "holding the woman accountable" entail, in practical terms? How would you do that?

For those of us who have gotten ourselves into bad situations, how did we get out?

For me, it was because someone outside of my situation never stopped communicating, no matter what. For this reason, I would not alienate women I have known who were involved in prostitution or stripping, I still see them as humans worthy of respect. They know my position, that what they are doing is wrong, but also that I don't think they are less than me because of it. They still are wonderful human beings with worthwile contributions to make, just this one aspect, this one thing they do is wrong but it does not define them.

It is important that we are united in respecting the humanity of women who are in abusive relationships, have eating disorders, are in prostitution, be friends with them, don't alienate them. We must prove the critics of radical feminism wrong when they say that we want to put women down. We don't want to put them down because the reason they are in that bad situation is that they have low self-esteem. You need a lot of self-worth to cultivate the guts to escape. Their pimps and husbands and johns do quite a job putting them down, more than anybody, more than all our criticisms ever could,

BUT for some reason, our criticisms are what they will get defensive about. Oh yeah, stockholm syndrome. Still, we should let them know we are waiting to help them when they are ready to get the hell out.

[soopermouse]

What does "holding the woman accountable" entail, in practical terms? How would you do that?

For those of us who have gotten ourselves into bad situations, how did we get out?

For me, it was because someone outside of my situation never stopped communicating, no matter what. For this reason, I would not alienate women I have known who were involved in prostitution or stripping, I still see them as humans worthy of respect. They know my position, that what they are doing is wrong, but also that I don't think they are less than me because of it. They still are wonderful human beings with worthwile contributions to make, just this one aspect, this one thing they do is wrong but it does not define them.

It is important that we are united in respecting the humanity of women who are in abusive relationships, have eating disorders, are in prostitution, be friends with them, don't alienate them. We must prove the critics of radical feminism wrong when they say that we want to put women down. We don't want to put them down because the reason they are in that bad situation is that they have low self-esteem. You need a lot of self-worth to cultivate the guts to escape. Their pimps and husbands and johns do quite a job putting them down, more than anybody, more than all our criticisms ever could,

BUT for some reason, our criticisms are what they will get defensive about. Oh yeah, stockholm syndrome. Still, we should let them know we are waiting to help them when they are ready to get the hell out.

Fully agreed. We all fuck up. And, as stated before, there is a difference between fucking up because of my bad judgement and fucking up because of circumstances I cannot control.

I can tell you a longer story about EDs than I could type. My own left me with not being able to eat meat, not being able to eat anything salty, not being able to eat a cookie. Vegetarian by force because my body won't accept anything else. If I do eat something that has the slightest touch of any synthetic stuff or condiments in it, I am looking at 36-72 hours of diarrhoes and vomiting up until and including the lining of my stomach.

But that is not the point.

As elaborated on some posts at my blog, I lives for a while in the red light district in Stuttgart- from lack of money. I met a lot of sex workers there, a lot of poor girls who all agreed that "no one told them " that is would be so bad, that "someone should have warned them". Yes, I know, it's easy to say that afterwards. It's also easy to not take responsibility... but these were young girls. aged from 14 to about 18. They truly did not know any better. They thought it was something you can get in and out of... and once in they realized there was no way out.

I don't hate them. I don't hate the glamour models either. Most of them REALLy do not know any better, and by the time they llearn they are either in porn, or end up alone and scared and ill because they have no survival skills ( job training, and what I call reality training) for the real world. They wanted to be the disney princesses... and found out that princesses are replaceable about every year.

Each "glamour model" I see, I see as a failure. Of myself. Of every other radical feminist out there. These girls are throwing themselves out to the wolves... and we should let them??
No way.


Note that I was talking specifically about the glamour models. The sex workers face a more complex phenomenon, of which abuse is the main part.

[soopermouse]

Vg1
I am a web developer/systems engineer. My diploma and MA are not recognised in the UK, and as such I have a job that is part clerical and part IT.

I am not sure you understand what studying and getting a career entails since you are so happy to compare it with the posing half naked, so I will give you some details:

For me, it entailed working full time and studying full time as I am not a rich person (most of us aren't). I did not even get the benefit of a student loan because there was no such thing in Romania. So imagine working and studying full time- 16 to 20 hours a day, for 6 years. Imagine living on 5 hours of sleep per night, and most of the times on one meal a day because books are expensive, and they take priority. And I am doing that again in England, because my diploma and MA are not recognised here.

Imagine that, and then imagine the life of someone who studies to become a doctor. Aside from teh studying, the junior doctors work a lot more than you'd think. Some of them have on call rotas that are up to 100 hours per week. On top of that, they still need to study, take exams, etc.

So please, until you tried it yourself, do not slag someone who actually does work and makes sacrifices just because you have an aversion to work. And comparing that work, and the sleepless nights, and wrecking your eyes studying, and living on little because the money goes on books, by comparing it with getting photographed naked. Because it is not only extremely insulting, but the most patriarchal thing I ever heard of. And frankly, quite ing.

Feminism is not about a free meal ticket. It is about having teh rights to be more than just models, more than just pink collars. And that involves a hell of a lot of WORK.

[resisterance]

don't tell me about hard work sm. ive worked my arse off for years for nothing. i've done the two job deal, six days a week 9am to 11pm, for peanuts before minimum wage was introduced, not even been able to pay the bills for all the work i was doing, with only myself to support as well. i know what work is and i have my own views about work and its value in a capitalist system. i'm not going to sit and feel sorry for qualified people earning good money supporting an establishment that shits on everyone i care about. i'm certainly not going to look down on my peers and call them lazy for not "achieving". and ffs, i'm not going to sit and laugh or rant about women who "tart themselves up".

you talk like you're the only one who 'gets it' but you're not. you arent any better than me because of your qualifications and you aren't any better than a glamour model because of the work that you do. that might be something for you to think about. it's not just about you making better choices or working harder, some of it is about luck too, and luck is as fickle as can be.

we talk about personal background and cultural influence like it's everything, but there's a helluva a lot of luck in there too. i'm lucky because i'm still alive, i'm not on drugs, and i'm surviving. some of my friends i grew up with aren't, some are drug addicts, some were prostituting when last i saw them and god knows if they still are. our personal backgrounds play a part and god knows our cultural conditioning has truly fucked with us, but so much of the differences between them and me is still pure luck, being in a place at a certain time. i don't kid myself that i'm more intelligent or more worthwhile than them, fickle luck could so easily have made it the other way round, and it could be me in that shit and them sat here instead.

i don't think i'm any better than glamour models soopermouse, i'm really just incredibly lucky. a few years ago i was so into all that crap, then i became pregnant and had an epiphany and discovered feminism. i was as green as could be but i got online and i found women like witchy woo, one of the first feminists i really became friends with online, who watched me fuck up and watches me fuck up and doesnt throw judgement at me but talks to me like i'm still fucking human and not some shit on her shoe.

and tbh soopermouse, recently ive felt like shit on your shoe. you just dont seem to like women very much - women who don't make the right 'choices', stupid girls who leech off the NHS, women who get pregnant on purpose to avoid work, leech off your taxes - these are all such misogynist ideas and i'm not used to hearing them from other feminists.

maybe you dont realise thats how you're coming across, god knows maybe this is just me with the problem and i'm imagining it all. i can't help but be paranoid, particularly when someone sets off my "slagging off the chavs" alarm.

i just feel like you think you're better than me and people like me. i want to stand in solidarity with other women, not call them tarts or lazy or a drain on taxes. i don't want to educate other women in what i think they should be taught, like some sort of feminist propoganda machine, i want to find ways to help women access information and resources to learn and survive for themselves, and i think that's quite a differt approach. maybe you think i'm too wishy washy and need to toughen up, but i think you're too harsh and lack empathy.

[resisterance]

just to add - as far as i'm aware not wanting to hurt women like Lea does not mean I think she is some feminist superhero. A woman does not have to be a feminist for me to care about them. I'm not trying to defend her lifestyle as feminist, i've not seen anyone here say she is a feminist or that glamour is feminist or that paris bloody hilton is feminist.

but they arent tarts or slags or lazy or bitches either.

[SaltyC]

Soopermouse, I am asking you this not as a challenge but out of ignorance,is an eating disorder not a choice? I think this question is a big mystery to a lot of people, I always assumed it was like an addiction.