This Curvy Girl Anthem Isn't Helping (Curvy) Girls

Hey Steph,

I recently got an email from a friend asking my opinions on a song called "I'm All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor. The song has accumulated almost 71 million views on YouTube, but  I had actually not heard the song before her email. The song is all about the appeal of a curvy woman. It's exactly the type of song that you're not allowed to critique because it is "representing" the disenfranchised in our social hierarchy. It's the curvy girl anthem, so if you critique the song, you could be misunderstood to bully curvy girls. But I am going to critique it because this song is not actually helping the curvy girl or any girl at all.

Disclaimer: You can find the song here. Just a warning, I found some of the lyrics to be pretty offensive, so bear that in mind if you choose to listen to it.

Photo Credit: therealcape.com

Here's why I'm not a fan:

1) A big part of the problem of women accepting their bodies stems from comparison. Generally the media only shows a small sliver of body types for women. These women are usually very thin. We see that as glamorous, beautiful, and sexy. While songs like "I'm All About that Bass" and other Pinterest/social media catch phrases like "Real Women Have Curves" may appear to help out this narrow standard of beauty, they are not really fixing the root problem of comparison. They are just replacing it. If propagators of "Real Women Have Curves" had their way, then the beauty ideal would swap from thin women to "curvy" women (which probably would end up being a select size of "curvy"). It's just changing what we compare ourselves to. The problem is comparison. We don't need to put down other women in order to accept ourselves. If we want to create a better beauty ideal, we should be seeking to have women of all body types and ethnicity in our media (where, sadly, I think we will continue to turn for our definition of beauty). This leads me to my next point.

2) Just as we currently have a very narrow physical representation of women in media portrayals, we also have a very narrow view of what it means to be a women as a whole. This song is talking about "accepting" ourselves, but it is really about finding a way to feel beautiful. Unfortunately, liking our looks isn't really going to  make us feel whole and confident because we are complex beings. A better message would be calling out the media for limiting the role of complex women on the screen. What makes the ideal women shouldn't be a discussion about her looks, but a discussion about her strength, her ability to inspire others, her ability to serve, her ability to think. Instead, we are stuck trying to figure out how to feel pretty. It's a waste of time. 

3) It makes me sad that the lyric is "Yeah, my mama she told me don't worry about your size/She says boys like a little more booty to hold at night." Besides the implication that her daughter's worth comes from sexually fulfilling a man (which I'll just leave at that as an obvious offense of women's worth), it's the focus on her size that bothers me. "Mama" is reiterating that she should worry about her size because she suggests that there is a preferred size to be loved by a man. What happens if the daughter slims down? Is she no longer desirable? What if she gains weight? She desirable still? You're not helping, "Mama." I recently read a few studies talking about the power of mothers. Mothers who accept their bodies and don't talk about their weight all of the time transfer those beliefs to their daughters. If Mom loves herself, her daughters will too. That's powerful! We women have the power to break this chain of self-loathing and self-deprecation; we just need to love ourselves first. 

It's frustrating to me that in our attempts to empower women, we so often miss the boat and end up perpetuating the same old problems of comparison and focus on appearances.

Cheers,

Amanda

3 Reasons Nuclear is Better than Wind

Nuclear power is the cleanest reliable energy source on the planet, and will continue to be the cleanest reliable energy source on the planet until either a)we find out that everything we know about chemistry is wrong or B) we make fusion work economically....which is really just nuclear power plus.

Every time I've ever brought this up to anyone even mildly concerned about the environment they always retort with "what about wind." Wind Power is the crunchiest of energy sources. Like a distrust for vaccines though, wind power has no data to support it's validity. And unlike solar, I don't believe any amount of investment will make it worthwhile.

(Sometimes you win the blog picture lottery.)
via Remflex

1) Wind is Not Reliable
We often still want our refrigerator running when the flags are limp on their poles. But unlike the sun which rises despite weather patterns, and dumps super-energetic photons onto the earth even on the cloudiest of days. Some days it's just not windy. Even if we had Tony Stark himself to design the turbines--they can't catch any wind if there's no wind to catch. Which means regardless of how good the technology gets, wind farms will at best only give supplemental power.

The thing with the grid system is it doesn't do bonus power. If the grid is designed to handle a load when it's not windy, then there's not much that can be done with the excess when it is. You don't turn off power plants. It's not efficient to stop burning coal for those six hours of gale-force winds. So we invent ways to waste energy during high-wind days to prevent surges, because unlike solar, wind power stores badly.

Wind power demands a reliable back-up power source. If there's not a dam nearby, that means wind will never shutter coal plants. And that's unacceptable.

2) Wind power is hardly clean anyway.
Renewable, yes. But dirty.

Imagine Chernobyl in your mind.  Now including Chernobyl, wind power has killed twice as many people per kilowatt hour than nuclear has. Pretty crappy considering that wind power produces less than 1 percent of the earth's energy, whereas nuclear provides around seventeen. So in other words, nuclear incidents are about as likely as winning the lottery, and wind farms are surprisingly dangerous. (And even more perilous if you're an eagle, goose, or bat.)

I trust the safety of nuclear power plants so much that not only would I live on the property, I would set up an orphanage for baby pandas there too. Consider that an earthquake and tsunami hit a nuclear reactor head on, and no one died from radiation exposure nor have they seen or expect to see an increase in cancer or birth defects in the surrounding area or anywhere else (pg. 17, point #3).

via Misstilli

3)Nuclear has a tiny footprint
Although Nuclear waste is, granted, more dangerous than wind's, there is so little nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants that nearly all spent fuel is stored on site. To put that in perspective, a single coal plant produces 318,000 tons of ash and smokestack scrubber sludge every year. Each coal plant require acres of coal ash ponds to handle all of its toxic waste. But a typical nuclear reactor only produces 20 tons of waste in a year.


Coal ash is dangerous for a multitude of reasons, but one is the high concentration of heavy metals. Arsenic will still be arsenic in a hundred million years. Nuclear waste is not any more persistent than other toxic byproducts of the energy industry. It's just  comes in much smaller quantities and is a lot scarier to us for whatever reason.  Never mind that coal plants have given cancer to thousands more people than nuclear power ever has or will, and I'm not even including coal miners in that assessment.

Basically, I understand discomfort with  nuclear energy. But it's purely an emotional reaction. An aversion to nuclear isn't logical, and it certainly is not ecological. Maybe I can't convince you to love nuclear power. But stop mentioning wind, please.  Solar is awesome, and quite honestly, poised to benefit from the circuit and battery improvements of the smartphone era. Since they share an investment pool, every dollar spent on wind is a dollar not spent on solar. Which is ridiculous.

Wind is like H.G. Wells holding a Kindle with the complete works of Shakespeare. He's pretty impressed until I pull out a smartphone from my pocket that can not only store over a thousand books, but can access lectures from the greatest universities on the planet, and makes video calls to China. That's how much more powerful nuclear energy is.

Wind is a cool concept until you realize how bad it looks in comparison to almost anything else.

-Stephanie

P.S. Coal is absolutely the worst thing to use for power, claiming the most lives directly and indirectly. It supplies 50% of worldwide electricity and 44% in the US. So seriously, anything would be better than that. I just don't think wind will actually ever get rid of coal, and is therefore part of the problem. 

Muddling Through with the Atonement

Hi Steph,

When I was younger I believed in an Atonement which took away our burdens. I don't believe in that Atonement anymore, though my belief doesn't necessarily negate reality. It may very well be that the Atonement truly can take away burdens, but I'm not sure I have ever experienced that for myself. (Maybe someday I will have eyes to see.)

But I do believe in the Atonement. I believe in an Atonement which runs parallel with another great gift we have been given: agency. Steph, we are all sent here with our own sets of beliefs, our own way of thinking about things, our own way of dealing with stuff. We're all sent here trying to figure out how to deal. How do we deal with suffocating insecurity? How do we deal with the darkness of doubt? How do we deal with opening our hearts again and again after they've been hurt? How do we deal with a seemingly insurmountable belief that we are broken and irreparable?

Photo Cred: Susanne Nilsson

I think we all deal with that by muddling through. We somehow get up the nerve to once again aspire to confidence, to have the audacity to choose faith even when it seems foolish, to care about and be vulnerable with someone, and to somehow pick up the broken pieces of our souls and try to piece them together even when it seems an impossible task. And we do all of this stumbling along, failing a big chunk of the time.

That's all the agency part of our lives, but the miracle of the Atonement is that all of that muddling through can actually get you somewhere better. There are parts of my being that I look at and think, "You're too far gone. You are completely incapable of overcoming these deep-seated fears. You are not enough to find your way through all of that." At times these words are paralyzing. For some years of my life, I had just decided to not even acknowledge that these demons existed. It is a cowardly way, but a fairly peaceful way to live.

But my belief in the Atonement is that I can have more. I can be both courageous and at peace. I can overcome. Steph, the power of the Atonement in my life is that as I muddle through, Christ is aware of my struggle. And better yet, He has provided a way for me to get through the struggle. It just so happens that, in my experience, the way by which my burdens are made light is by gaining strength through the struggles themselves.

In the midst of confronting these weaknesses, the storminess of uncertainty and fear are so great that I am left with little assurance that I will succeed. At times, it takes all of my faith, all of my courage, and all of my persistence to look toward Christ and actually believe that His Atonement is real, that His power will strengthen me here a little and there a little as I need it and often later than I think I need it, but I believe that He does provide what we need. I have experienced it in many muddled journeys and in a dark, lengthy abyss in my life.

Instead of asking for Heavenly Father to take away the pain, I now pray, "Lord, please help me muddle through." And it's good enough for me.

Cheers,

Amanda

Brandon Sanderson Thinks I'm a Creative Genius

This week Brandon Sanderson told me I was awesome.

Okay.He didn't actually say that. But it was close.
That's clearly what he meant.
Between the lines.

For all those not in the know, Brandon Sanderson is my favorite author of all time. Like my "dream dinner party" lineup is Richard Feynman, Maria Montessori, Brandon Sanderson, and Mary the mother of Jesus (not in that order). 

Because stories well-told are essentially little miracles, and Sanderson is miraculous.

Slavery, apotheosis, the role of government, the role of religion, inherent vs. cultural gender diversification,  the moral/immoral quandary of war, the paradox of prayer. The pressing conversations of our lifetime nested inside amazingly intricate worlds, and fantastic plots that make your heart pound with worry, and flutter with little awe-splosions. (People seriously underestimate the power and efficacy of SciFi/Fantasy to take on heavy subject matter....with dragons)

So hopefully you can now appreciate why I'm completely embracing this third-tier compliment as a full  endorsement of my creativity. In my dreams, there's a cover-quote from Brandon Sanderson on my first published novel, because seriously, I don't think it could get any better than that.

I dunno. Maybe if Ira Glass invited me on NPR to talk about my super huge best-selling novel. That might be better. Maybe. 

Readers (...and Amanda), you seriously need some Brandon Sanderson in your life. Start with The Emperor's Soul-- it's short and wonderful, and centers on what it means to be you. Are the roles you fill parts of your personality? Or are you "forging" your personality depending on who you talk to? Plus, the magic is cool.  

Vin  is awesome

I read it in 5 hours. All in one go. Just go read it. After you finish that one, then you really can't go wrong with any of them, but I'd probably read Mistborn.

With all my Sanderson love, 

Stephanie

P.S. "Smedry talent" is an allusion to the Alcatraz series. Which unlike the majority of Sanderson's books, is written for middle-schoolers. (Don't hate, so was Harry Potter.)  And the main character belongs to a family which has super-powered idiosyncracies: always late--arrives late to pain; clumsy--breaks stuff with a touch; etc. 

And my husband does have a super-power for ruining surprises. Seriously, I only had to hide the gift for two days. It wasn't for a birthday or particularly special event.  And within hours of the purchase, he still found out about it.  

Okay, your turn. 

What four people from all of human history would you want to share a meal with?

I'm American, and I Only Tolerate Hot, Skinny Chicks on My TV Screen

Hey Steph,

So a few years ago I discovered British television. At the time, I did mind-numbing work, in which my boss himself told me I better be listening or watching something while I worked because it was that boring. Needless to say, I was watching a lot of tv. I got tired of how skanky American television can be, so I tried out some Brit shows that my friends had highly recommended. Besides finding them to be much cleaner than American television (I've since learned that British television is either much cleaner or much, much more raunchy than American television.), I was surprised by the female faces I saw on the screen.

There were normal-looking women on the screen. So, all of them were cute, but some of them were a bit odd looking, some of them were chubby, some of them were black, and some of them were older than 40. It was lovely and refreshing. And depressing because it really shouldn't be that refreshing or noticeable to see these women on the screen in lead roles.

We just don't see this diversity in America. Take these two tv trailers below. The first one is for the show Broadchurch, a BBC crime show. The second is for Gracepoint, the American spin-off of Broadchurch with the same male lead but set in America.

So besides being the exact same storyline with the exact same dead boy named Danny, you may have noticed a big difference in a certain female police detective. Yeah, they replaced the matronly, short British detective for a tall, thin, younger-looking American one. Since pretty much everything about this remake is the same, including the looks of almost every character, it is extremely noticeable this major shift in the looks of the female protagonist. Honestly, I don't think Olivia Colman (our British detective) would ever be cast as the lead of a tv show in America.

As you look around the BBC universe, you'll find an assortment of leading ladies. Let's just look at the companions on Dr. Who. (Remember, I'm not saying these women are unattractive. They just aren't the type of women found in most American television shows and movies.)

Martha Jones, Donna Noble, and River Song (All from Wikipedia)

Now these lovely ladies above don't fit the typical profile of a lead female character on American television. Catherine Tate and Alex Kingston (who play Donna Noble and River Song, respectively) were over 40 when they starred on Dr. Who. Now, fortunately, all three of these women have actually played parts on American tv shows before or since being on Dr. Who; however, none of them played as prominent characters as they do on Dr. Who.

I worry what this means for us viewers. I'm sad that these women being leads on tv was so noticeable to me. When I see these women on British television, it is immediately obvious to me that these women were not cast purely to be eye candy. They were cast because they offered a complex character to follow and relate to. I worry that if we only see one sliver of all women on tv that we will stop seeing the diversity, complexity, and strength of women characters. I believe we tell stories to connect with and understand each other better, but if our stories only show one type of women, will we stop noticing her actions by only seeing her physical looks. Will we start thinking that to be a woman means to be beautiful and thin and young? I don't know. I plan to age in my life, and it'd be nice to still have stories be told about women my age.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers,

Amanda