All women with faulty breast implants should have them removed given the ‘uncertainty and lack of knowledge’ about the extent of the problems, a leading surgeon warned today.

Tim Goodacre, a member of the Government-commissioned panel investigating the scandal, said the latest estimate of rupture rates was “very much higher” than he would consider acceptable.

About 50,000 British women are thought to have received the silicone implants made by Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) filled with gel meant for mattresses.

____________________

Deborah adds: Oh, but you have to look at the one practical side! Most high heels are slip-ons! Way easier than bending over (or trying to bed over) to tie my converse shoes! And you don’t have to put on socks to wear heels, so even less trying to reach your feet! (Admittedly, I was determined to be able to wear heels while pregnant, especially after one of our priests exclaimed early on (not too seriously) “Heels! Why are you wearing heels? You shouldn’t be wearing heels, you’re pregnant!” But then the hormones made my ligaments too lax and now I don’t even do any walking without a cane. I guess the joke was on me!)

_______________________

Véronique adds: It’s just like at my house!!

In the pale-turquoise ladies’ room, they congregate in front of the mirror, re-applying mascara and lip gloss, brushing their hair, straightening panty hose and gossiping: This one is “skanky,” that one is “really cute,” and so forth. Dressed in minidresses, perilously high heels, and glittery, dangling earrings, their eyes heavily shadowed in black-pearl and jade, they look like a flock of tropical birds. A few minutes later, they return to the dance floor, where they shake everything they’ve got under the party lights.

But for the most part, there isn’t all that much to shake. This particular group of party-goers consists of 12- and 13-year-old girls. Along with their male counterparts, they are celebrating the bat mitzvah of a classmate in a cushy East Coast suburb.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what this is like. Maybe the other girls my age did, but when I hit junior high, I turned into the biggest dork ever (that’s me on the right, don’t worry, things got better after university). It seems worse than when I was their age and I’m not sure why, but maybe the author is on to something:

I have a different theory. It has to do with how conflicted my own generation of women is about our own past, when many of us behaved in ways that we now regret. A woman I know, with two mature daughters, said, “If I could do it again, I wouldn’t even have slept with my own husband before marriage. Sex is the most powerful thing there is, and our generation, what did we know?”

[ . . . ]

So here we are, the feminist and postfeminist and postpill generation. We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn’t), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don’t know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily. We’re embarrassed, and we don’t want to be, God forbid, hypocrites.

I think she might be a little hard on herself here, calling herself a hypocrite. It’s perfectly okay for us as human beings to change our opinions and views on things over time. It’s okay to learn from past mistakes.

I’d like to see more girls respect themselves enough to cover up more. If you ask me, when it comes to the superficial, pretty is way more important than sexy. And as a dork, I have to point out that what is on the inside is what really counts. It’s not hypocritical, it’s GOOD if mothers teach their daughters these things. When girls stop treating themselves as objects, it’ll make it much more difficult for men to do treat them as objects. Personally, I plan on being an obsessive control freak mother and will dress my daughter (if I have one, we’ll see in a few weeks) every day until she’s 18. (Okay, maybe not, but I won’t let her dress in 1980s fashions. Or 1990s. Or 2010s since they’re just a repeat of the 80s. Okay, I’ll just try to give her really good advice.)

________________________

Véronique adds: As the mother of four girls (so far) I consider myself to be an expert of sorts. We can say what we want about society but I lay the responsibility solely at the parents’ doorstep. It is the mother’s job to lead by example from a very young age. My daughters have never seen me in a triangle bikini, a painted-on t-shirt or with my boobs sticking out of my cocktail dress. You may say “after 6 kids, thank goodness” but whether I would look good in these items is beside the point (and if you have been to a water park recently, you know that looking good is not a factor, holy TMI people!) There is no need — certainly not the demands of comfort — to show so much anatomy to the public at large. It is the job of the father to avoid objectifying women, whether it is by the movies they watch or the magazines they read or the drinking holes they patronize. But most importantly, it is the job of the father to teach his daughters how men are wired when it comes to physical attraction. My husband is brutally honest when he tells my oldest daughter what 15 year-old males think when they see skin. Sex-ed is about more than the birds and the bees… If my daughter left the house for a party looking like a clown, I would tell her in that many words and why.

Modesty and good taste have never been issues with my oldest daughter. But her two younger sisters, who are competitive gymnasts, are a bigger challenge. Gymnasts, for one, spend a significant amount of their childhood wearing what amounts to a bathing suit. Their notion of “enough fabric” is not the same as mine, let’s say. They are very comfortable in their own skin, used to be trained and spotted by male coaches and quite proud of their six pack. Every spring, I have to explain to my daughters why they cannot have a bikini. Who cares if they look great in a bikini? Pedophiles? Seriously!

_____________________

Deborah adds: I could not put it better myself, Véronique. Maybe I’ll make you my go-to woman on raising children in the near future! I must confess that I do wear a bikini. However, 95% of the time it’s covered by a 5mm full-body wetsuit (which makes a person look like a black pillsbury doughboy).

Isabelle Caro, a French actress and model whose emaciated image appeared in an Italian ad campaign and whose anorexia was followed by other sufferers of eating disorders, has died aged 28.

For at least the last decade, young girls in search of something to be a part of have been lulled into anorexic culture. I won’t link to any of the Pro-Ana/Pro-Mia websites, because medical studies have universally shown that simply viewing the sites can result in lower self-esteem.

They lure the impressionable and persuade them that the Pro-Ana community is providing caring and nurturing advice.

[...]

A study published in European Eating Disorders Review exposed healthy college girls with no history of eating disorders to 1.5 hours of pro-ED sites and they showed decreased caloric intake the week following their exposure.  Some participants admitted using techniques and tips they viewed on the sites and had “strong emotional reactions” up to three weeks after the study.

It’s easy to blame the fashion industry for these unhealthy ideals, promoting images of increasingly thin women, but we could just as easy blame the myth of “choice” for the epidemic, a product of a world view that sees the self as a decision one makes as an isolated individual.

What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone living in circumstances of late modernity – and ones which, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behaviour. (David Gauntlett, Media Gender and Identity, Routledge, 2002)

The Pro-Anorexic community claims the disease is a “lifestyle choice”, that this choice should be respected by the medical community and their family and friends.

Pro Anas who defend their anorexia not as a disorder or an affliction from which to recover, view it instead as an accomplishment of self control and a part of their identity and one that defines them to a very significant extent.

It’s difficult for me, as a women myself, to see others conned into the belief that something so terrible, menacing and deteriorating for them is something to be respected. Sound familiar?

For the last seven years, Tuttle has been teaching women how to “capture” their beauty with her course, “Dressing Your Truth.” “Most women do not know how truly beautiful they are,” she writes in her book of the same name. The problem for most women, she believes, is that they don’t know what “type” they are and are therefore “misunderstood.”

Women who take her course start by examining their personalities, then their facial features. Tuttle believes there are four types of women. Sarah Palin, for instance, she sees as a Type 1. Type 1 women typically “talk readily and easily to people” and “like to keep things light and fun.” Yet, “in an effort to be taken more seriously, and not to look so cute and youthful,” Type 1s tend to dress in black, their biggest fashion mistake, writes Tuttle.

[...]

A Type 2 woman is “diplomatic, empathetic, meticulous, preferring to observe rather than participate in larger social settings.” Julia Roberts is a classic Type 2. The most common fashion mistake of a Type 2 is the tendency to wear bright clothes to counter a subdued nature, says Tuttle, “making her complexion look pasty,” so she seems “weak and shy.”

A Type 3 woman is “swift, fiery, intense, practical and abrupt.” This kind of woman “may have been told as a child, ‘Relax! You’re too demanding.’ ” Jean Price believes Laureen Harper is a Type 3. “She’s got that rich dynamic energy, and whoever is advising her, they’ve got her in tailored, structured Type 4 clothing, including the black, and that really dramatically ages her. She should be wearing browns and rich autumn colours. And her hairstyle! They’ve even got it too soft! She needs it to be cut edgy and uneven with more height to it.”

Type 4 women are “private, disciplined, influential, and uncompromising. You move forward with crystal clear focused determination while maintaining quiet confidence.” Elizabeth Taylor is a classic Type 4—the only type of woman who can wear black. A Type 4’s biggest fashion mistake is wearing soft, flowing clothes. It makes them look frumpy.

__________________

Update: I consulted with the authorities (aka hubby) and apparently I am a 3/4 hybrid. Or, as he puts it, “You have the best qualities of each”. So. In order to feel pretty with what you’ve got, you have to marry the right guy. Simple!

_______________________

Andrea adds: Put me down as types 1, 2, 3 and 4. I talk easily to people, I’m empathetic, I’m intense, I’m disciplined and just a teensy bit uncompromising (only on the things that count). On the positive side, this makes it very easy for me to dress in anything at all. On the negative side, I may have a personality disorder. Stay tuned.

And unhealthy piles of cash. Attention, classic movie fans: items from Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe will be for sale Dec. 8 in London. Doesn’t say anything about how mere mortals are supposed to manage to fit into those clothes…

It is the question that has troubled many a young woman as she dresses for a night out: How much should she dare to bare?

After all, if her clothes are too revealing, she may catch the eye of the wrong kind of man.

But too prim and she may attract none at all.

British scientists believe they have the answer, with an outfit that reveals 40 per cent of a woman’s skin providing just the right amount of attention.

No, not all flesh is created equal. “For the purposes of the study, each arm accounts for 10 per cent, each leg for 15 per cent and the torso for 50 per cent.” I’m not sure if that means you’re meant to get your calculator out when you dress up – I’m married and no longer have to bother with stuff like that; I just need to worry about looking my best…

It could soon be illegal to wear your pants too low in Tennessee. That is if a state lawmaker has his way. In fact, by wearing your pants too low you could be charged with a criminal offense. The saggy pants bill cleared one committee Wednesday, and it will be up for another vote next week. Democrat Joe Towns from Memphis is behind this bill. “It’s just a simple, no sagging, it’s an anti-crack bill, just pull your pants up,” Towns said.

But why stop there? What about thongs showing above the belt and a host of other “fashion crimes”?

I think this bill is embarrassing. Now police are supposed to do the mom thing, as in “you aren’t leaving the house looking like that”?

The serious note here is of course that many of these kids don’t have parents–dads absent, moms working too hard. I have a host of libertarian friends who say they want a smaller state but don’t support/don’t understand the work I do in my day job. Get with the program, my friends, or get ready for legislation on what you can and can’t wear. It’s pretty simple.

______________________

Brigitte wonders: While we’re at it, can we outlaw capri pants? They make me look terrible.

______________________

Andrea adds: No, we can’t, Brigitte. I look good in capri pants.  

______________________

Tanya wonders: What will happen to plumbers?

When I was in high school, I saw myself off to school (and back home for that matter).  Even 15+ years ago, that scenario wasn’t rare.  But I do recall school administration cracking down on our attire (no pun intended).  According to my 12-year-old niece, exposed cracks do not warrant being sent home, being called to the office, or sending a note to mom/dad.  That troubles me.

People for the Ethical Treatment of People

Read our press release, here. 

And buy a shirt, here.

These comfortable, cotton, ladies’ tees are ready for the ordering; a subtle pro-life message that hammers home our main point without ever saying the dreaded “A-word”.  

The story: At some point I realized our culture has a higher level of sympathy for animals and the environment than we do for women and babies. And at a different point I realized I would wear a T-shirt in defence of women and life, but there were none on the market I’d even consider. ProWomanProLife has now rectified this egregious situation.

Buy a T-shirt for 25 dollars, taxes and shipping included, and make a pro-woman, pro-life statement without saying a word.

A note for men: Yes, these are ladies tees. However, drop us a line/send us a comment if you are interested and we’ll be quick to launch PET-P T-shirts (spoken as if you were saying “pet-peeve”) for men.