Follow the Fortune Cookie

FTW?

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." ~Oscar Wilde
Currently listening to: "A Blossom Fell" - Diana Krall
Currently reading: "In His Majesty's Service" - Naomi Novik

Don't you hate it when our day is going well, then you come across something that completely throws it for a loop? You become enraged or incensed and what to beat someone over the head with a heavy object. That was my day today. I get back from my long day after classes and check my email. My father, crap-disturber that he is, sent me an email in the hope it would pique my interest. (... should have been my first clue this was not going to go well)

As a student of psychology, this article pissed me off so much that I wanted to throw my laptop through a window. This past week, J.Crew released their magazine with a spread of the founder and her son spending a weekend afternoon together. The kicker that spurred a well-known psychiatrist to hastily write an article about the cultural peril that J. Crew is putting their readers in is the fact she was painting her son's toenails pink...

Are you kidding?!

This woman, who obviously cares deeply for her son, was spending time with him. The psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, however, felt this was a large step into sending this child into several years of therapy later on. Was it the toenail polish or the color that bothered him? The fact that he and his mother were happy must have completely sent him escaped her notice.

Gender identity is a difficult subject in the United States because of perceived expectations on gender roles. Ablow believes people should be shown how to be comfortable in their own sex given to them at birth instead of trying to be something else. He states boys should be boys, girls should be girls. But what the hell does that even mean? He goes on to say, gender equality while a good thing, is partially breaking down "feminine" behavior. This, he believes, will lead to mankind not wanting to have children and risk human survival. Really? REALLY?

My opinion on the whole thing - he's an asshat with a medical degree.

This type of bullshit is what's going to my job and those of my classmates harder. I can't even imagine being a patient, unsure of how to deal with emotions where you feel you a man in female form or a woman in a male body. What happened to compassion? Where can one find these rules that he feels are breaking down? The existence of human life is failing because of pink nail polish? Because I like baseball, hockey, prefer pants over dresses, and curse like a longshoreman, does that mean I'm a part of growing female population that will be ill-equip to nurture a child? Can I gag now?

Here's the article. Read it for yourself and make your own conclusions. I'm off now to go bang my head against a wall from reading such madness.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/11/j-crew-plants-seeds-gender-identity/