Wellbeing Thread - who's in?

[AnonWasAWoman]

This is a sort of ?gap in the market? thread really, forgive the rotten title. I was thinking about women and wellbeing and a possible feminist slant on what I feel the beauty industry has colonised.

If I try to find a threads, or a magazine articles, about women?s wellbeing and health I can guarantee half of them will be written in what comes across to me as doublethink: ?you need to feel good about your body, so first you must wage war upon it for a woman?s body is naturally hideously ugly!?. This just makes me sad. So do diluted versions ? the kind of discussions or groups where participants begin with a focus on health, but gradually shift to ?what can you do to look good?, which ? well, just makes me feel ugly if I don?t do those things (And, ah, angry that some people think women should have to!).

It really worries me how, as women, health and beauty are constantly conflated, and there?s an ever-increasing list of treatments that begin as luxurious pampering, then quickly come to be essential ?maintenance? or even basic ?hygiene?. It?s taken that a sign of healthy self-confidence and body confidence is to buy into these ideas about what to do with our time and money and bodies. I?m sure there?s a spectrum of views among feminists as to what we feel is right for us and what?s not, and I don?t want to get into that because I think it?s the least interesting bit of the debate. So I?m not trying to start yet another ?do you wax your fanjo fur? thread ? interesting as they are ?!

I am sure there is a way to resist gendered body care/products without in any way denigrating or ignoring the female body. I bet some of you are brilliant at this and the Resisting Femininity threads were great for showing me the way. But I also want to replace the things I?m resisting, not just get rid of all focus on my body. My mum can as close as can be to this ? everything ?gendered? for women?s bodies, from women?s anti-perspirant, to shaving equipment, to perfume and cosmetics, came under the same heading of ?disgusting things?. In retrospect I find this quite disturbing and not remotely feminist. I am sure I would have been a happier and better-adjusted teenager if I?d not had to sneak off to buy deodorant and nick my dad?s used disposables (I didn?t know any better). If as an adult woman I want to do without any of this stuff, that?s fine ? but I certainly don?t want to feel it?s the only option, or that being a feminist has to mean focusing on the mind and forgetting about the body.

So what I would like to do is to try to hammer out a sense of what you do (if anything) to replace or contrast with what we?re offered by society in terms of caring for your body. So I thought maybe it?d be nice to have a sort of wellbeing thread on here, where we can do all the healthy stuff you hope for on a ?diet? thread (and don?t IME get), and we can do all the ?taking time for myself? stuff that the beauty industry has colonised and distorted, but we can also maybe chat about how to feel better about our bodies, instead of how to make them look better.

So, here?s my list (some, obviously, drawn from a certain S&B thread!). They?re what I?ll hope to do, not what I promise to do!

• I?m going to try to go for a walk at least twice a week, even if it?s just half an hour. And I?m going to take my camera so I don?t end up thinking about work the whole time!
• I?m going to try to eat two different kinds of fruit/veg (I get stuck on apples galore)
• I?ll try to cut my coffee intake
• I?ll try to take 15 minutes before I go to bed to think about something that is not work, or chatting on MN (!), or planning food shopping or whatever
• I?m going to try to make proper breakfast every day
• Go to bed early one night per week
• Ration my (awful) snickers habit! I have eaten three snickers ice-cream bars this morning and it is Not good.
• (You can laugh here) I?m going to do some pelvic floor exercises every week ? I always forget and I imagine I?ll be glad of them later on!

Please add in suggestions if you have them or say if you think I ought to change my mind about any of these.

Agh, sorry, terrible grammar and syntax in the first paragraph!

Crikey. That's awful about your female doctor.

You know, this gets me thinking about the way that people talk about foreplay - it's all focused on getting the woman/getting yourself 'into the mood'. I don't know if this is just me, but I have sometimes felt, reading sex columns and other such depressing wastes of time, as if there's a huge pressure on me to concentrate on convincing myself to feel sexy. I do find it disturbing/annoying. For me a big 'lightbulb' moment was the way Sakura talks about PIV, and the way all other sex acts are so relentlessly defined as precursors to 'proper' PIV sex. It is really quite worrying.

I think if we had a healthier social image of sex it would be much less about progress through stages, it'd be much more about stopping and starting at will, and then there wouldn't be this perceived pressure to have 'successful' sex every time you got into a bit of 'foreplay'. Even though I take on board what's said about a man orgasming inside a woman being a really restrictive, anti-woman definition of 'successful sex', I still find it hard not to feel a failure if sex doesn't end in orgasm for one or both of us. And that is a problem IMO.

Again, I don't know if this is just me but sometimes, I'll end up thinking 'mmm, this is really soothing and pleasant, and actually I just want to enjoy it for a good long while without feeling there has to be a 'next stage', you know? And obviously I can say that to my DH and he can carry on stroking my hair or whatever it is, but society would tell me that's a failure, foreplay that didn't progress to sex.

Sorry, lots of half-worked-out thoughts here but thanks for making me think about it all.

And thanks for the kind comments btw.

i had a really interesting night last night. i was volunteering for our not for profit at a 'town party' and was sitting at eye level to everyone else's waist and below, so spent 6 hours studying the female form and 'party clothes'. (in an academic sort of way - no judgement at all tbh. we've just moved here and so i had no real idea what the 'norm' was...) there were the obligatory (and stunning in some cases) heels, there flat doc marten-ish boots, a few in bare feet, one in multicolour stripey socks and no shoes and everything in between. there were lots of short skirts with opaque tights, on all shapes and sizes, and lots of trousers. i managed to cast my eyes upward and noticed that the vast percentage of women were wearing little or no make-up, although hair was v carefully styled. and people wearing v casual alongside floor length ball gowns. it was amazing. and no-one cared it felt very liberating.

i should add, we've only been living here for 6 mos, and haven't been 'out' on the town as such, so it was my first peek at the social scene. and we've lived in places with a lot of conformity.

and i bought a bigger pair of trousers for the occasion, as i couldn't be arsed with being uncomfortable when i was supposed to be enjoying myself.

weirdly, having the opportunity to just sit and look (i was selling drinks tickets lol, and it was quite quiet) was very cathartic. is that weird? it felt a bit voyeuristic, and not unlike looking at the 'real breasts' website, but there was no sense of anyone not fitting in, because they didn't look right, and no lecherous gawping that i noticed, everyone was just having a really good time.

it reinforced that we have moved to a good place, i think. and the bigger trousers were very comfortable as well. and we raised about $20,000 and had a donation of a $7900 bit of kit as well, so that all helps with the general feeling of wellbeing.

mad that sounds like a really lovely experience. (I'm wondering where this dream place is ).

I do love people-watching for just that reason. There is a coffee shop where I go sometimes and one of the other regulars is a girl with the most striking, unplucked black eyebrows that totally suit her face (she is usually wearing eyeshadow and mascara, incidentally). It cheers me up to see her (though doesn't make me much better at being more confident with my own brows because I am a wuss!).

That's a huge amount of money you raised, nice one.

butterfly - yes, I agree totally. Pamela whatsername in the Guardian is like that - awful and really annoying because people think she must have some authority to come out with all the crap. Grrr.

I just thought I'd post a link to an interesting post on the Guardian women's blog. It's quite slight and obviously not uncomplicatedly feminist (IMO), but a really interesting perspective on body image and fitness and so on:

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/nov/17/why-women-want-gain-weights

that's an interesting link (particularly in view of the VS thread) but yy, lots to think about. i did lol at 'able to carry my bags home from sainsburys' though. and at least she is attempting to resist the 'sporty/ sexy' idea in favour of strength. this stuff is so intertwined.

even better news today i've been helping out with some grant proposal writing for the same not-for-profit over the last couple of weeks, and it's been a bit manic. but the general manager called me today and our very first bid was successful! so we have $10,000 en route towards purchasing sit-skis, to enable everyone to access the mountains, whatever their (dis) ability.

sgm knows where i live . just down the road (ish) from her mum. no idea why i'm being coy, i post on those 'do you like where you live' threads all the time. and it's sooooo touristy, so make sure you post your holiday plans and i'll let you know if you can pop round for a

so, from a wellbeing pov, i'm doing pretty well today! i've also got the painters in to rid my walls of the murky mushroom colours that have been bringing me down (and indeed am going for 'menstrual joy' in both the dining room and the downstairs loo. ) so it's all good. i haven't told dh it's being referred to as 'menstrual joy' on mn.

i'm knackered. but happy knackered.

(the vs thread and the 'extreme sports' thread)

I've sat here and read this entire thread over the course of the evening. Not only do I have metaphorical lightbulbs pinging in my brain, I now quite possibly have eye-strain.

I feel very divorced and distant from my body at the moment. I'm undergoing chemotherapy and the steroids that I get given after each course are making me put on weight, or at the very least, they are contributing to it. I want to be thinner because I feel better that way - less sluggish, more energy and just overall healthier - but at the same time, I know I need to be kind to myself right now.

I hope you don't mind welcoming a newbie! I like whoever said she feels like she's trying to keep up with her big sisters, I feel a bit like that.

Hello bubble!

I'm so sorry for my part in contributing to eye-strain ... terrible, I know ...

I can completely see where you're coming from btw, it makes sense.

Can I offer a (un-MN but very feminist) hug and a welcome?

mad - ah, I wasn't really hinting about where you live! I am pleased to hear about the, ahem, colour scheme. I nearly died the other night, it'd just occurred to me to check if DH and I actually like the same colours on walls (we've always rented so never really had an opportunity to find out), and he was trying to express the exact shade of red he'd most prefer ....

The grant proposal sounds amazing, brilliant news. It's very wrapped up with feminism isn't it? I know next-to-nothing about disabilities but I often notice how people who do seem to have that extra bit of perspective of inequalities of other kinds too. Which makes sense, of course.

As to 'wellbeing', today I've been sitting sorting out my reams of paperwork trying frantically to find all the forms I need/may have thrown out/dimly recall being sent in about 2004 ... is there any way to spin paperwork in a feminist or uplifting way?! I am doubting it. I will cheer myself up with the thought of finally getting out for a walk tomorrow - haven't been for a few days and really missing it, which is pretty good for a lazy type like me.

Morning all and welcome bubble :) sorry to hear about the chemo but I imagine that personal kindness is exactly what you need.

I've backed off slightly from CC with dd. whilst it is obviously working it simply goes against every instinct I have to do it. Dd slept from 7 - 6:15 last night so I think the new plan is working :) So bloody dark here that I thought it was 3 am when I woke up and tried to put her back to sleep! At Christmas I'm thinking of getting one of those lights that wakes you gradually with 'sunlight.' Has anyone tried one?

Mad that is brilliant news. Well done :o

How old is your DD comrade? I'm sorry, I'm sure you've said and I should know but it's slipped my mind ...

7-6.15 is amazing - wish I could get that much myself.

She's 10 months and an absolute delight but thinks sleep is for the weak :o

Welcome bubble. the chemo and steroids sound indescribably tough. stay for the feminist wellbeing!

madwoman love the paint. Hoping to move house soon & while I was not planning on painting it, 'menstrual joy' makes it worth designing a whole new concept colour pallet.

LRD you asked me have i always been sporty. definitely not! i was the last kid in the class to be picked for the team throughout my school days. after starting work I became super sporty then a lull due to family illness. Now I am hauling my fatter arse self back to a sensible ?-size-- level .

For me, habit is the most important thing in exercise. To make progress, I don?t need to always do what's planned, just do something more than nothing to bridge the gap when you are too busy/not in the mood etc.

At the moment DP is having a bad phase of Crohns and I want to get fitter together as I think it will help him feel better.

The feminist angle on exercise for me is (1) it gives a more realistic body image and positive interaction with your own body (2) women are much stronger and athletic than society gives us credit. i dont think many average men have a realistic understanding of their strength versus an athletic woman's.

in my old gym, on the rowing machines, it got quite competitive in a pretending not to race kind of way....i used to row 10 k before a 10 k run twice a week. i was 5 foot 7 so not Amazonian but fit. every time a man sat on the rower next to me they assumed they were 'better'' than me because i was a woman, however unfit they were.... time after time after time, for years, i beat almost every one of them, faster and for longer.

I could hear their breathing become strained as they tried not to be 'beaten by a woman in a physical activity' . If I were a man they would have admired my athleticism but as a woman most of them went through 3 stages (1) assumption of superiority (2) denial of my superior athleticism accompanied by an increased effort to beat me (3) something beyond their control meaning they had to stop, generally needing to fiddle with a shoelace, FFS, then moving to another piece of equipment.

If the average man was more realistic about his strength and fitness relative to a woman, i wonder how much closer to equality we would be?

(oh I am only basically fit at the moment so the WB thread is good for keeping me going )

Tilly that's so funny about the men being twits about it! It's fascinating too, what you say about men needing to be more realistic about strenght/fitness. I've often wondered about that and how to answer the eternal 'but men are just better at some jobs that need strength' thing. I know you can always say some women will be bigger/stronger than some men, but I wonder about the details. Oddly enough I was on the train with an army lad today (who, incidentally, stank of BO which was pretty unpleasant), and he was wanting to tell me all about how hard the training is and how fit they are ... I didn't want to say anything nasty because he looked horribly young and I felt for him, but I did wonder to be honest, how true it was (the implication was that was a woman I'd be hugely impressed, you see). So, digressing here but it is really interesting that your experience backs up what I was hoping was true.

I'm sorry to hear your DP's in a bad way - hope he feels better soon.

comrade - Sleep is for the weak! (No, I lie, if I could I would sleep 14 hour nights ...).

I got out for a walk today, and it was grey and mizzly and horrible but you know what? It still felt great afterwards so it has really motivated me .... I'm so glad, in the middle of November, I have something to kkeep pushing me out of doors.

tilly, you are quite quite right re men's attitude to women and competitiveness. i've been very fit at various points, and have witnessed similar phenomena, including men actually complaining that i must have cheated because i have come in ahead of them in a run, for example. v v odd. (and that, lrd, was during military training. so your chap on the train is quite likely to be of the same whinging 'she can't be better than me, i'm a man' variety as my colleagues were...) and don't start me on the 'some jobs need strength' bolleaux. i used to have a whole schwack of men working for me who moaned and whined about how crap the one female peer colleague they had was, and yet whenever she actually had a day off, they moaned and whined because she had far more useful skills and no-one else was qualified. they actually couldn't do the brawn without her.

but, i will confess to being equally bizarre, and so protective of my culturally perceived inferior status, that if i ran with blokes (which i used to all the time) i controlled my breathing to such an extent that i'd rather actually pass out than sound as though i was struggling

it's a really useful talent for psyching people out though. (until you do actually pass out, obv.... not that i ever have...)

This is making me think ... I wonder how much the perceived difference is partly due to women and girls not getting into sport and fitness enough? I've always assumed it was a factor but wasn't sure how big it was. You see I was the kind of wimpy girl who got knocked down in a few fights with boys at primary school and pretty soon 'learned' that they were just stronger and fitter than me - if I'd carried on and been more sporty (just the regular kind of sporty that is more expected of boys), I wonder what I'd have ended up like?

I'm never going to be of the army-training-running-with-men standard but it is really good to think, no, but other women are, maybe really quite a lot of them?

it starts really early lrd, that pressure for girls not to take part in athletic pursuits, and is tied up in all the old 'horses sweat, men perspire, women glow' bollocks, or hwatever the saying is. back in the day, girls were allowed to opt for typing class instead of pe, and the cross country run round the park was the cue for the girls to skive off to the corner shop en route and just join in on the way back. and all that 'i'm excused pe today because i've got my period' stuff. the expectation was that girls were honour bound to get out of sport, because it was totally unnecessary and a bit disgusting, all that b.o. if you add into that the facts that girls' bodies will be changing and developing, and bouncing bosoms in the face of male adolescence, it's unsurprising that (some) teen girls start to think they can't be equals in this regard. i do like to think it's changing, though, but don't really know? any idea?

I don't know if it's changing - the 'it's my period' thing was exactly the same at my school (and tampax were, as I think I said before on this thread because it bugs me no end, considered by lots of people's mums to be associated with sex and therefore inappropriate for virginal teenage daughters). My cousin is 19 and still absolutely in the thick of the whole 'ewww, exercise makes you horrible and sweaty and masculine' - someone commented on her facebook picture a while back that she had man arms (by which they meant a slight but toned bicep muscle showing).

OTOH I find it quite exciting that women's body shapes have changed so dramatically in the last few generations, with better nutrition and so on. We're taller, but also broader in the shoulders and proportionally less nipped-in at the waist, as well as having bigger busts. I think that women's poor diets, lack of healthy exercise/enforced strain by the wrong kind of work, and restrictive clothing (tightlacing corsets!) must be responsible for so much of this idea women are weak. I like to think we are getting closer to the genetic blueprint (not being a scientist I dunno if that really makes sense!).

oh gosh, if you are looking historically, i find it fascinating. all that laying on couches and being too weak to be generally involved with anything. (notwithstanding the female cook in the kitchen slaving away from 5am until midnight )

19! that's really sad. i only hope i can keep the dd's away from that nonsense. i think here it is less prevalent though.

Yes, the cook must have been exhausted! I think that's where the idea of sherry being medicinal comes from ... you'd need it!

I have read that red meat, being expensive and associated with feeling aroused, wasn't thought good for women, so it was routine for women to be anemic (which makes you very tired I think) all their lives.

Thank god we don't live back then!

Sorry, I seem to have got into a depressing vein here but at least it's good to think that progress has been made and is being made.

Anyhow, now I must drag myself off the sofa to Sainsburys, I am planning to get a load of delicious snacky things. And maybe icecream.

enjoy! ice cream and snacky things are often essential for wellbeing. x

damn you've reminded me i need to do an online shop lrd. i'd caught up and was just about formulating something to say and there it was - the chore that broke the exhausted girl's will to string a few sentences together.

i'm shattered. not sleeping great - waking up every hour or so and feeling like i'm never hitting deep sleep.

did get out for a good long walk today though despite feeling slug-like and felt better for having done it. have also managed to avoid fatty food and processed sugar today which i've been leaning on because of the tiredness but it really doesn't help.

so online shop and try to buy healthy food and find the energy to cook it rather than let it go off in the fridge.