Wednesday, June 08, 2022



A damaging obsession?

Since ancient times, women have long sought to improve their appearance by colouring their faces and hair in various ways -- and that is a major industry to this day. Modern times differ in the availability of surgery -- with face-lifts and boob-jobs being well-known.

The article below is aimed at curbing the surgical adventures. But it is not clear why that should be so. Where the procedures do harm, one can be critical with some justification but otherwise if it gives satisfaction, why not?

The small point in the critique below is that people sometimes feel pressured into undergoing the procdures and are not really happy with it. But that is a personality matter. Susceptibility to social pressure is real but so can the the ability to withstand it be. And if that resistance is lacking, who else is able and entitled to supply it?.

I personally inherited a "Roman" or "aquiline" nose, which is both unusual and sometimes regarded as ugly. I have never felt the slightest urge to alter it but I understand that affected women sometimes do. The President of France has such a nose


Australians' body image problems are getting worse. Amidst an 'epidemic of body image anxiety', could one simple act change everything?

The term 'body modification' covers everything from hair-dye and braces, to lip fillers, nose jobs and butt augmentation.

What's considered normal or extreme comes down to who you hang around with: depending on your social circle, you might consider make-up unusual, or regular botox injections the norm.

But across the spectrum of procedures, there are two powerful common points. More of us are opting for body modification than ever. And more of us are judging the choices others are making. UK philosopher Heather Widdows says we are increasingly comparing ourselves to others online, with a "moral judgement that goes both ways".

It's directed towards those who do and those who don't modify their bodies, she says. And it's becoming a destructive force. "We have an epidemic of body image anxiety," Professor Widdows says. "We have to move away from that."

In Australia, more than 43 per cent of people are highly concerned about their body image, according to Monash University's Body Image Research Group.

In a study of over 3,000 mostly female Australians, aged 18 and over, the Butterfly Foundation found that over 70 per cent said appearance was "very important" and wished they could change the way they look.

Roughly one-fifth of the respondents had attempted to change themselves to look like images they saw on social media. Nearly half felt pressure to look a certain way.

Behind statistics like these is the influence of beauty ideals on body image "” and it's time to talk about that, Professor Widdows says. "We need to start taking it seriously."

Joseph Taylor, 36, says he grew up hating his "stereotypical [ethnic] big nose". He's since had three nose jobs, the first when he was 17.

Schoolyard teasing played a part in his decision. "Kids can be horrible," he says. "Someone probably said something like, 'Oh, you big nose'. "It must have, at some point, really got to me."

"When we're young, we're constantly trying to be the best that we can be on the exterior because we feel that's all that matters "¦ and we're so impressionable," Mr Taylor says.

But it's not only in our youth that we are susceptible to this influence. For young people and adults alike, beauty has become "our primary obsession", Professor Widdows argues.

She's not out to criticise beauty rituals. After all, as she notes, "we are embodied beings; we live in our bodies. It's how we see other people, how we relate to them".

The cosmetic enhancement industry in Australia is booming. We meet the people chasing their aesthetic ideal and those jumping off the cosmetic enhancement conveyor belt.

And plenty of beauty practices are enjoyable. Mr Taylor, for example, says today he is happy and confident with his appearance, and he feels in control of the influence of beauty in his life. "I've definitely grown to like the way I am," he says.

It's when beauty ideals tip into an obsession that problems can arise. For example, when not weighing what you'd like ruins your day. When getting one selfie right takes hours of preparation and editing before posting. Or when not being happy with the way you look might even stop you leaving the house.

These, Professor Widdows says, are things she's observed in researching her latest book, Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal. She believes they signal a "very profound shift" in values.

"We've gone from beauty being one thing we care about to it being almost defining of who we are," she says. "How we present success used to be the car or the house. Now it's how we look."

Professor Widdows suggests several reasons for this shift.

* We live in a more "visual culture" today, where "the image always speaks louder than words", she says.

* Courtesy of social media, we are able to constantly examine our appearance in relation to that of others.

* Also, where once beauty treatments were "very topical and superficial", now "we literally can change the shape of our bodies", she says. "You go from the cut of the dress to the cut of the breast."

Philosopher and physician Yves Saint James Aquino argues that with an increase in accessibility, there's now a "normalisation" of body modification, which has also fuelled its rise. "Now because it's so common, it's part of people's lives, they feel less stigmatised "¦ and therefore they feel freer to do it," he says.

Dr Aquino says another factor has led to the rise of body modification: prolonged exposure to our own faces on video calls throughout the pandemic.

Yves Saint James Aquino says body modification has become normalised and destigmatised. ABC RN: Siobhan Marin
"People are encountering their faces more than ever," he says. "That's when they start noticing things that they haven't really noticed before."

This, Dr Aquino says, has led to an uptick in cosmetic surgery around the world.

In the last five years or so, there's been a sharp increase in the use of injectables (such as in wrinkle-reducing or lip-filling procedures) in Australia. And the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) operation is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world today.

At 2018, Australians were spending more per capita on cosmetic surgery than people in the US, with anti-wrinkle (Botox) injections the most popular operation at the time. And while it is mostly women choosing cosmetic surgery, the number of male clients is growing.

Former Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Kirstie Clements had the majority of her cosmetic procedures in her 40s, including lip fillers, Botox and collagen injections.

A decade later, she'd had enough. "I didn't like that sort of overworked look that it gives you, the kind of chubby cheeks and squinty eyes," she says. "When I got to my 50s, I thought, 'Oh, who are you kidding now?' "So I gave it up."

Ms Clements, now 60, believes ageism is a driving force in the increase of cosmetic enhancement. "The pressure is for us to try and keep up and to stay young and to be fresh," she says.

And cosmetic procedures are even more readily available today. "There are now literally lunchtime procedures where you can go back to work and nobody cares that there's a few marks in your face," Ms Clements says.

"They're not taboo. It's as fashionable as getting a piece of clothing, which is quite sobering. It's your skin that's being punctured."

Ms Clements calls out the "constant hammering" of edited or altered images that prompt us to question if we should benchmark ourselves against them. "It's the brave woman who says, 'No, I don't care what any of you do. I'm happy in my own skin'," she says.

But resisting pressure isn't just about bravery or defiance; it's about deflecting messages that arrive with increasing frequency. Where once we might have encountered beauty images 12 times a year in a monthly magazine, today "you're seeing things 12 times in 10 minutes" on social media, Ms Clements says. "It's getting more and more pervasive ". So it's the strong person who can stand back and say 'no'."

Professor Widdows is concerned about a future in which we might "begin to see exceptionally modified bodies as normal".

To downgrade the status of beauty in our lives, she is calling for a culture shift.

What do people of colour, who've often been racially vilified for their appearance, have to say about others cherry-picking their features?

She wants us to ditch the negative comments about other people's bodies and appearance. "Often, cosmetic surgery recipients report that their insecurity began with a nasty comment," she says.

Professor Widdows believes more of us need to understand the harm that negative comments and body shaming can cause, arguing that it should be considered as seriously as any other form of discrimination.

"I say, if you don't do [body modifying], don't feel smug because you don't feel the pressure," she says. Similarly, if you do engage in body modification, don't question those who don't.

"Rather let's think about, culturally, do we want to live in a society where people feel pressured to engage more and more? That's the bit I want to push back against, the social pressure," she says.

Professor Widdows' plea? Stop talking about other people's bodies "” full stop. "Let's not look at what people do or don't do. Let's not say, 'this practice is okay, that perhaps is not'," she says. "Let's just take the pressure completely off."

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CASES TO WATCH

This is a quick update on a few cases for you to be watching as summer begins and the U.S. Supreme Court’s term comes to an end:

Cake artist Jack Phillips continues to be harassed for living and working consistently with his religious beliefs. He’s now been pursued in court for 10 years! In the latest bout, an activist attorney filed suit against Jack for not designing a cake celebrating a gender transition. We are currently appealing a trial-court ruling in his case.

College of the Ozarks, otherwise known as “Hard Work U,” is challenging a Biden administration directive that could force religious schools like itself to open girls’ dorms, showers, and other private areas to males. If the college operates according to its beliefs, it risks devastating financial penalties. Right now, we’re waiting on a federal appeals court to issue a ruling in the case.

Emily Mais, a former assistant principal in Virginia’s Albemarle County School District, is suing the district for creating a racially hostile environment. Emily had no choice but to resign after a period of intense harassment by coworkers and administrators because she questioned the school district’s radical policy rooted in critical race theory. Her lawsuit was filed in April and is currently before the Albemarle County Circuit Court.

Email from adflegal.org

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Seattle Implodes After Defunding Police

Seattle’s efforts to defund its police department and transfer its duties to other city agencies resulted in $5 million worth of wrongful parking tickets and other administrative dysfunction, according to The Seattle Times.

Seattle is refunding roughly 100,000 parking tickets worth approximately $5 million total after transferring parking enforcement duties from police to civilian parking enforcement officers in the fall of 2021, finding that the civilian officers lacked the legal authority to write the tickets, according to The Seattle Times. Parking officers also conducted more than 10,000 car tows and impounded 1,700 cars without the proper authority during this period.

“What’s going to happen here is that we’re going to get sued, I can guarantee it,” said Chuck Labertew, president of Lincoln Towing, which has the sole contract for city-initiated towing, according to The Seattle Times. “And I’m going to forward every one of those lawsuits on over to the city.”

The decision to remove this responsibility from police was part of a push in 2020 to reduce police funding and have civilians take on jobs typically handled by police, according to The Seattle Times. The City Council cut the police budget by 17% in 2020, far short of its 50% goal.

The cost of the city’s mistake may not be limited to the $5 million in refunded tickets: People will likely contest the tows and impounds authorized by the non-police parking authority, Labertew told The Seattle Times, but the city will not refund those tows automatically.

On top of the $5 million parking ticket debacle, efforts to defund the police have limited law enforcement’s ability to prosecute serious crimes: The Seattle Police Department is not investigating new sexual assault cases due to understaffing after more than 400 officers left the force, according to The Seattle Times.

Crime has soared in Seattle in recent years: the city saw a 95% increase in shots fired and a 171% increase in people being shot from 2021 to 2022, according to The Seattle Times. Seattle’s violent crime rate, which had been steady for 30 years, suddenly jumped 20% in 2021.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/06/06/seattle-implodes-after-defunding-police/ ?

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Rep Ocasio-Cortez Moves to Take Over Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Reservation, Claims 'Indigenous Heritage'

Wanna-be socialist superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just made a big move to take over Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s reservation by claiming she is in touch with her “indigenous heritage:”

Via Fox News:

“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Saturday her connection to her “indigenous heritage” was awakened while protesting the Dakota Access pipeline with Native American tribes at Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Responding to a comment on Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez said she wanted to connect more with the ancestral roots of the Taíno, an indigenous people group of the Caribbean, and that American Indian tribes welcomed her as family.

“One of the things that first started awakening and connecting me in a deep to my indigenous heritage was connecting to the Lakota Sioux at Standing Rock,” Ocasio-Cortez says in the video.

“It really just clicked that this is nuts, like, the grace that they extended to say ‘no, you are a relative,’ was really formative for me. While we may not be and come from the same exact lineage, there is a commonality to that ancestry. And it’s important for us to recognize that we were raised and we were told growing up that we were extinct, that Tainos don’t exist, and it’s really important for Puerto Ricans to understand that that narrative is being challenged right now.”

In addition to indigenous and Hispanic roots, Ocasio-Cortez, whose family emigrated to New York City from Puerto Rico, has over the years claimed to have Jewish, European and Black ancestry.”

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Obeying the law now optional in NJ

Acting New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced a new directive last week aimed at reducing the amount of time police officers spend on low-level municipal bench warrants.

Police will no longer be arresting residents with outstanding bench warrants in cases where the bail amount is set at $500 or less, according to NJ Spotlight.

A bench warrant is issued when an individual fails to show up for a court date or otherwise “violates the rules of the court.”

Platkin issued a statement that read, “Residents will no longer be subjected to unnecessary and intrusive custodial arrests for hundreds of thousands of outstanding low-level warrants — and officers across New Jersey will avoid spending time effectuating and processing such arrests that by and large do not further public safety.”

This will allow police “to use law enforcement resources more efficiently and safely,” the statement claimed.

Under the new order, defendants will be “given notice of a new court date and released on scene.”

According to NJ.com, there is widespread support for this measure. It is backed by “the state association of police chiefs, the ACLU, black clergy and the state’s largest police unions.”

The media outlet spoke to Sayreville police chief John Zebrowski who said, “These are low-level offenses in which municipal courts routinely issue new dates. This directive allows police officers to remain in-service and on patrol by reducing the time spent encountering the public about municipal court bench warrants.”

Jeanne LoCicero, the legal director for the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, considers this “an important step in preventing unnecessary arrests and jail time, which disrupt lives, jobs and families.”

There is one major problem with this new leniency. It strips the legal system of one of its most useful tools. What incentive is there for a defendant to show up for a court date or to pay a fine if there are no consequences? Why would anyone bother to take responsibility for their actions?

As for the argument that police will no longer have to use their valuable time and resources to chase down low-level offenders, the courts, which have allotted a period of time on their schedules to hear a particular case, will be the ones whose time is wasted.

The move toward relieving offenders of accountability for their actions has become a growing trend lately, particularly in Democrat-run states.

Last year, lawmakers in deep-blue Washington state passed House Bill 1054, a package of police “reforms aimed at addressing racial disproportionality in policing,” according to The Associated Press.

One of the law’s provisions bars police from engaging in “high-speed pursuits except in very limited circumstances,” the AP reported.

Unfortunately, one of the effects of the law has been that many drivers have stopped pulling over for police officers.

A report from the Northwest News Network cites data from the Washington State Patrol that found that since January, 934 drivers have refused to stop for law enforcement.

WSP spokesman Sgt. Darren Wright told the network, “Something’s changed. People are not stopping right now. It’s happening three to five times a shift on some nights and then a couple times a week on day shift.”

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Pandering to women won’t save Australia's conservatives

Bettina Arndt

‘Women were the forgotten people in this election’, pronounced Katherine Deves on Sky News Australia, following the election. The Liberal candidate for Warringah claimed, ‘Women want to be listened to and they need to have a voice,’ suggesting the Morrison government’s failure to pay attention to women contributed to the 6 per cent swing against her in Tony Abbott’s former seat.

Deves took a brave stance arguing for females not only in women’s sports, but supporting the notion that the Coalition government didn’t do enough for women – which is absurd.

For decades our conservative governments have bent over backwards to pander to feminist demands in an extravagant display that failed to win them votes but repelled their true base – namely, the majority of men and women keen that both genders in this egalitarian country should receive fair and equal treatment.

Yet Deves is joined by a mighty chorus of Coalition figures indulging in the same delusion. The newly appointed Deputy Opposition Leader, Sussan Ley, told Australian women that her party ‘hears them’ and is determined to ‘win back women’s trust’.

Give me a break. Won’t these people ever learn that the folk who created this notion of the Coalition’s ‘women problem’ would never think of voting for a conservative party? This is the same mob who ignored the fact that Julia Gillard’s famous misogyny speech was a desperate attempt to detract attention from her political reliance on Speaker Peter Slipper, who was then in trouble over a text comparing female genitalia to ‘a mussel removed from its shell… salty c***s in brine’.

We’ve seen successive Coalition governments cowering to the feminist lobby, throwing endless money trying to appease their insatiable appetite for an obscenely large slice of the cake. Malcolm Turnbull’s first act as Prime Minister was his plea for ‘respect for women’ as he announced the first $100 million of the never-ending bucket-loads of funding poured into the domestic violence industry. Last year, Scott Morrison topped up these rivers of gold with a 150 per cent increase in funding, from $100 to $250 million per year, as a result of the feminist’s Covid scare campaign about women being locked up with dangerous men – money paid out even as official statistics showed decreased violence during lockdowns.

Just last week, Tom Burton in the Australian Financial Review named the ‘shameful failure to end family violence’ as the greatest social policy issue which he claims led women to vote for ‘real change’. Do these journalists really have no idea that domestic violence rates are being artificially inflated by the current epidemic of false accusations related to family law battles?

The former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson has published a conversation with me covering, in detail, the evidence of how feminist ideology has risen to dominate public policy. It reveals how the movement has set about advantaging women at the expense of men through the distortion of the Australian media, tilting law, promoting anti-male ideology in schools and workplaces, and consistently manipulating government statistics to demonise men. This is the alternate reality that is usually kept well hidden from the world of powerful men.

It wasn’t that the Morrison government didn’t listen to women. This whipped crew sniveled and groveled, like a cuckolded man clutching desperately at the ankles of his departing wife. Remember the awkward apology to Brittany Higgins? Or Morrison’s forced smile when Grace Tame gave him the side-eye? Or the cowardly act of allowing Christian Porter and Alan Tudge to be pushed out of their ministerial roles over unproven sexual assault allegations? Or the cringing over the parliamentary harassment report, denying the very low incidence of actual harassment and high rates of female bullying…?

Recent Coalition governments have gone in for the shameless promotion of women into every conceivable public role. We had Susan Kiefel appointed Chief Justice of the High Court. Ita Buttrose as Chair of the ABC. Lorraine Finlay for Human Rights Commissioner. Cathy Foley as Chief Scientist. Women, women, women. A constant stream of beaming female faces endlessly gracing our news.

Consider the extraordinary appointment of Christine Morgan, as National Suicide Prevention Officer, at a time when six of the eight people killing themselves each day were men and 4 of every 5 beneficiaries of their ‘gender neutral’ prevention programs were women.

The results of the Coalition government’s relentless push to get more women into higher levels of the public service are all too apparent in grossly biased policy outcomes, like the March 2022 budget allocation of $2.1 billion to services for women and girls and just $1 million to ‘improve long term health outcomes’ for men and boys.

For the last few weeks we’ve been treated to unabashed celebration from our biased media about the ousting of the Coalition and wild assertions that this was all due to angry women turning on Morrison. No mention, of course, of the fact that conservative parties everywhere are now struggling to attract women.

Irrespective of how desperately the Coalition tried to win them over, women are turning left. Five years ago, I wrote about the growing power of left-wing women, making the point that women are becoming more left-wing in their policy preferences – not only in Australia, but across much of the Western world. Analysis by the Australian Election Study (AES) of 2019 election results confirmed an ever-widening gender gap, starting back in the 1990s marked by dropping female support for the Liberal Party.

By 2019, 45 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women voted Liberal, while the split for the Greens was 15 per cent to 9 per cent.

The AES asked voters to rate themselves on a scale from left to right, where 0 is left and 10 is right. In 2019 the average position for men was 5.2 whereas for women it was 4.8, a significant shift from the 1990s when there were minimum gender differences.

One of the key factors I identified back in 2017 for why the shift was occurring was leftist university education.

‘The hearts and minds being captured in our universities belong mainly to young women’, I wrote, pointing to fascinating research from the AES showing women emerge from university education notably more left-leaning than women without degrees, whereas male graduates aren’t very different from less educated men in their political views.

Women’s increasingly left-wing policy preferences have been showing up in AES data on issue after issue: asylum-seekers; government spending on indigenous affairs; stiffer criminal penalties; positive discrimination for women and same-sex marriage. The 2017 postal survey on same-sex marriage showed that more women voted yes in every age group from 18 through to 75.

Over 60 per cent of graduates are now female, so women are disproportionately affected by the ideological indoctrination taking place in our universities, particularly as they are mainly the ones studying humanities subjects steeped in identity politics and neo-Marxist propaganda.

Unlike many men who become more conservative as they age, the work/life patterns in most women’s lives simply reinforce these beliefs. Women predominantly work in education, health care, and welfare services or as public service professionals. They make up 58 per cent of public service positions and are more likely than men to work in unionised jobs. All this means their working environment provides a culture that supports rather than challenges their political beliefs.

Then there’s the motherhood issue, with mothers particularly receptive to the Left’s big spending promises – and scare campaigns – on health and education. The growing number of single mothers significantly dependent on government benefits is another key issue, with the left-wing parties playing up their support for such disadvantaged families.

So, it goes on. Hardly surprising then that polling suggests the indoctrinated mob of professional women flocked to the Teal faux Independents with their trendy list of leftist policy proposals. No doubt when proper analysis of the gender gap in this election is available, we will discover even more women across the board may be turning their backs on traditional conservative beliefs.

But the biggest risk for the conservative parties currently licking their wounds is to believe the mad left media claim that they were ousted by the wrath of angry women. Somehow, we need to convince Coalition politicians that they have long been bleeding votes from ordinary folk who have had a gutful of seeing women endlessly privileged whilst the men they love, their fathers, sons, brothers, and friends, are pushed to the back of the bus and at every point denied fair treatment.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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