“This doesn’t get me,” remarked Carolyn Bates, a recent Notre Dame grad, from the dressing room of a mid-western retailer. (Fat Talk Carries a Cost, Hoffman, NYT, 5/28/2013, D4). This exchange from ‘Fat Talk Carries a Cost‘ highlighted body-centered self-deprecating women speak. Have you ever heard something like, “I can’t believe I ate that brownie. I am so fat!” Or responded, “You must be joking, you are not fat. Just look at my thighs!” (Fat Talk, NYT, 5/28/2013, D4) The article identified cultural norms that include all manner of negative retorts meant to maintain relationships. This doesn’t get me was presented as positive, a pivot. Continue reading…
Barriers: Real or Imagined? (Take 2…)
“There was no money,” said my mother in response to a question I’d asked her last week about my grandfather. “He was pre-med at St. Bonaventure‘s,” she said. My grandfather was a 1st generation American whose Italian immigrant family had settled in upstate New York close to the turn of the 20th century. His father died when he was very young leaving a family of 6 children. His mother remarried. Tony – as my grandfather was lovingly known – never went on to med school. Continue reading…