I just wasn’t up for the struggle today…

I haven’t posted for a while, but I came face-to-face with the dreaded OMG! DEATH FAT! WHY AREN’T YOU DEAD ALREADY? talk from a doctor today. A 70 year old, paternalistic, condescending, old-school, doctor-is-god doctor who was the only doctor available for me to see. Today, at any rate.

He asked me “Do you think you are overweight?” in a condescending manner. When I responded, “Yes, I’m fat”, he smirked like he had scored a point (fatties never know they are fat and need to be told, often).

He ridiculed me when I repeatedly asked for a larger blood pressure cuff (what would I know, I’m only a fat female) and ignored me when I said that the metal fastener was cutting into my arm (fatties deserve pain). He stated my blood pressure of 120/90 was “high” and was a warning that I was about to drop dead (and clearly, it had nothing to do with the too small cuff or my
stress and ANGER temporarily going through the roof).

He quoted discredited actuarial tables at me to prove that I was a walking, talking death bomb. He listed every disease on the planet from stroke to kidney disease to scare me into compliance. He told me it was for my own good. He refused to believe I am healthy. Afterall, hadn’t my blood pressure just proven him “right”?

He refused to listen to me at all.

He wrote on my medical record in CAPITAL LETTERS that he had WARNED this fatty she was going to DIE, while telling me what he was doing his duty and “No-one could say I haven’t warned you”.

I tried, really I did, but by this stage, I was just too weary and sick to convince this aging, bullying doctor that even fat women deserve respect and may not, in fact, be walking timebombs.

He finally dealt with what I had actually gone to see a doctor for in the last 2 minutes of the appointment, but even then had to have a for-my-own-good snark about my weight.

On the way out of his office he told me he was a very kind doctor, because he hadn’t insisted on weighing me. I just smiled and said, “Oh, that’s OK. I know how much I weigh, thanks”.

How can this happen?

How can it happen in this day and age for police to be called out to a domestic violence incident and then walk away without making an arrest because the man lies and tries to divert attention from his actions?

That’s what happened yesterday to my sister. She was viciously assaulted by her husband (in front of her 3.5 year old and nearly 2 year old), prevented from ringing the police by him unplugging the home phone and throwing her mobile phone on to the roof, prevented from leaving by his throwing her purse and keys onto the roof. When she finally managed to call the police from the home phone, he threw her against a bookcase and she hit her head. He also when they were outside pushed her violnently to the concrete where she hit her head badly. She managed to get up and push him away into the fence and then the police turn up.

My sister was suffering amnesia and confusion from, not suprisingly, concussion – so she couldn’t remember what happened to tell the police. You would think that would ring alarm bells with the police, wouldn’t you? Really, wouldn’t you?

But no. They listen to my fuck-wad of a brother-in-law who tells them only that my sister pushed him into the fence (and not that it was her doing it in self defence). And he told them that she was “off her medication”. Anti-fucking-depressants for Post-Natal Depression. She gave birth nearly 2 years ago. Off her medications, give me a break. Ooh, she’s a dangerous psycho and must just be making trouble for the poor man. Fuck off.

So what do the police do? Not arrest the fucker. Not clue into the fact that my sister could be is brain injured. Oh, no. They believe his obfuscations and leave. Oh, and they gave her a card and said she could call if she wanted to. And left her there with him.

Apparently he eventually got her keys and purse etc down from the roof. So my sister left to go to a friends.

It seems the police turning up calmed him down enough to do that. But my question is: What if he hadn’t? What if, after they had left, the situation had escalated? Where the fuck was their duty of care?

But she was confused and dizzy all night. I wanted her to go to emergency last night to get checked out, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Dad got there this morning and has taken her to the hospital now. She is being treated for concussion and checked for skull and spine injuries.

I will be heading up later. We will be going to the police and charging the motherfucker and getting an AVO.

But really, what the fuck was wrong with the officers who attended last night? Do they have no training in DV? Do they not know how to assess a person’s basic medical condition? Do they have no fucking idea about basic mental health issues that they think a mother who once suffered post-natal depression is unreliable and unstable? Do they have no idea that men who commit DV will lie and obfuscate and divert attention from themselves?

I want to scream at the police officer who left my sister without medical attention and in a potentially dangerous situation with her husband. I want to charge down to the police station and ask what their god damned DV policy is, because last I heard police had a duty of care when called out to DV incidents.

But of course I won’t, because that will not help my sister’s situation at all.

We will support her when she makes her statement. And we will support her when she, as she says she is going to, leaves the cunt who did this to her.ent

That thing that’s so enjoyable

From the Jan 2009 edition of Vanity Fair (the full article is posted at ohnotheydidnt):

Fey says, “I got to that thing that’s so enjoyable where people tell you, ‘Oh, you’re thin, you’ve gotten too thin.’ [my emphasis] Lorne was like, ‘Please, please make sure you’re eating.”’ McKay recalls Fey telling a story about her heavier days. “Steve Martin walked right past her at the coffee table, and then, after the makeover, he was like, ‘Well, hel-looo—who are you?’ ”

Wow. I’ve been there, when I dieted. Not the too ‘thin thing’ – I’ve never been ‘too thin’, even at my thinnest I was fat – but I’ve had the thrill of having people tell me I was losing weight too rapidly or that I needed to eat enough. And I saw those comments as a measure of my success as a dieter and as a person. So I understand the triumph that Tina must have felt at that point.

Tina Fey is amazing. She’s witty, funny and her parodies are clever and insightful. She is rightly worshipped after her all to accurate Sarah Palin skits. Shit, we don’t even get SNL in Australia so I watched her every skit on the SNL website (before they regionally restricted access to the videos).

But it is tragic and telling that Tina’s massive talent was not the key to her success. It was, sad to say, her looks.

A make over. The sexy librarian thing. Going from 150 pounds to 120 pounds.

According to the article, Tina is 5′ 4.5″, so at 150 pounds, she was by no means fat. Using the examples in the Photographic Height/Weight Chart, Tina may well have had a body shape like one of these two women.

In other words, only fat by entertainment industry standards.

Her makeover is the stuff of legend. The Hollywood agent Sue Mengers warned her pal Lorne Michaels that he simply could not bring Fey out of the writers’ room and put her on-air for “Weekend Update.”

“She doesn’t have the looks,” Mengers told him.

“Lorne brought her over to my house when she was head writer,” Mengers recalls. “She was very mousy. I thought, Well, they gotta be having an affair. But they weren’t. He just appreciated her talent. [My emphasis, again] And now, suddenly, she’s become this sexy, showing-tit, hot-looking woman. I said to Lorne, ‘What the fuck did she do?”’

‘

Mengers, an agent, appears absolutely stunned that a man’s admiration of a woman’s talent can be independent to either a) access to that woman’s body for fucking or b) his perception of the woman’s sexual attractiveness.

Tina was head writer on SNL for heaven’s sake.

So the lesson presented to us today by society and the media is that success is looking too thin and that looking too thin is the key to success.

Fuck that.

This is what I am rebelling against. This is why I am a Fat Acceptance Activist and a Size Acceptance Activist and a Feminist.

I refuse to learn that lesson.

My head just exploded…

The mayor from Mt Isa (a mining town in Queensland, Australia) clearly has difficulty attracting women. Perhaps his lack of success in love is not due to the gender imbalance of the town but can be accounted for by the indisputable fact that he is a complete and utter tosser whom no self-respecting woman would touch with a barge pole.

As evidence, take his charming comments below:

A simple concept, one would think

Thank you, Kate Harding, you’ve nailed it down and driven it home:

Children’s bodies are not a problem for the government to solve.

It’s such a simple concept, isn’t it? So why is it so hard for the fuckers to grasp?

Let’s say it again, with emphasis:

Children’s bodies are not a problem for the government to solve.

Children’s bodies are not a problem for the government to solve.

Children’s bodies are not a problem for the government to solve.

Children’s bodies are not a fucking problem for the government to solve.

End of story.

By the way, if you haven’t already, go and read Junkfood Science’s take on the NSW Government’s Munch ‘n’ Move program (and as well as pretty much every thing Sandy has ever written.)