Butterfly Cauldron
Thursday, August 03, 2006
This girl is my new heroine
Update:No sooner had I got back to work when I got an email from the ACLU saying the school system has changed its mind. Rather than face a court case, which they would inveriably lose, they decided to stick with mixed-gender classes. See, Michelle? You can make a difference in the world. So don't ever stop standing up for what you believe in.
Girls like this give me hope for the future of the feminist movement. Thirteen-years-old and she knows her own mind, knows what she wants and she's not afraid to ask for it. If I had a daughter, I'd want her to be this brave and certain.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 13-year-old scuba diver, firefighter cadet and kung fu student taken the Livingston Parish School Board to court over its plans to segregate her middle school by sex.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Baton Rouge federal court for Michelle Selden, who is scheduled to start eighth grade in one week at Southside Junior High School, and her parents, Darren and Rhonda Selde
. . .
Supporters of the separate classes argue that boys and girls learn differently, and separating them can help both do better. Critics compare it to “separate but equal” segregation-era classrooms.
In a statement filed along with the lawsuit, the student wrote, “I have always had boys in my classes before when I have gone to school. I don’t think that having boys in the class has made it hard for me to learn. I think that boys and girls should be treated the same way by teachers and that is unfair for girls to be taught one way and boys to be taught another.”
. . .
According to the lawsuit, one of the experts cited by the school system contends “that because of biological differences in the brain, boys need to practice pursuing and killing prey, while girls need to practice taking care of babies. As a result, boys should be permitted to roughhouse during recess and play contact sports, to learn the rules of aggression. Such play is more dangerous for girls, because girls are less biologically able to manage aggression.”
. . .
“I don’t want to be required to attend all-female classes when I go back to school,” Michelle Selden wrote in the court filing. “I don’t agree that all girls learn one way and all boys learn another way. I don’t agree that all girls behave one way and all boys behave another way.
“I just became certified as a scuba diver. I am a firefighter cadet, which is a junior volunteer firefighter. I have a purple belt in Shaolin Kung Fu. I don’t know whether most girls would be interested in these things or not. I have done these things because I wanted to, whether or not the ‘average girl’ would want to.”
Seriously, listen to her. And listen to the idiots who want to make her stick to classes for girls-only. Girls need to practice taking care of babies?? What? Boys need to hunt and kill? Since when? What the hell? Girls don't need to roughhouse? Huh? Gee, someone should have told me that when I was a girl. Maybe then I wouldn't have been playing football with the boys. Or beating them up when they pissed me off. I had no idea I wasn't able to manage aggression! Clearly, that's why I'm single at my ripe old age. It all makes so much sense now.
Mandatory same-sex classes are illegal. Voluntary ones aren't. And, depending on the individual person, age and development, they can be useful. However, there's no reason to force gender segregation. How, exactly, are kids supposed to learn how to socialize if we keep them apart? How, exactly, are they going to navigate those really fucked-up waters of early adolescence if they are told they're only capable of relating to their own gender? That they are fundamentally different than the opposite gender? What kind of society is that going to create? If my daughter wanted to be in classes with boys and the state wasn't going to let her, I'd sure as hell file suit. Reinforcing gender stereotypes is so not the business the state should be in. It's bad enough girls have to deal with society's screwed up version of girlhood. They don't need it from schools. Schools are to teach, to educate, not to instill gender 'norms'.
Girls like this give me hope for the future of the feminist movement. Thirteen-years-old and she knows her own mind, knows what she wants and she's not afraid to ask for it. If I had a daughter, I'd want her to be this brave and certain.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 13-year-old scuba diver, firefighter cadet and kung fu student taken the Livingston Parish School Board to court over its plans to segregate her middle school by sex.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Baton Rouge federal court for Michelle Selden, who is scheduled to start eighth grade in one week at Southside Junior High School, and her parents, Darren and Rhonda Selde
. . .
Supporters of the separate classes argue that boys and girls learn differently, and separating them can help both do better. Critics compare it to “separate but equal” segregation-era classrooms.
In a statement filed along with the lawsuit, the student wrote, “I have always had boys in my classes before when I have gone to school. I don’t think that having boys in the class has made it hard for me to learn. I think that boys and girls should be treated the same way by teachers and that is unfair for girls to be taught one way and boys to be taught another.”
. . .
According to the lawsuit, one of the experts cited by the school system contends “that because of biological differences in the brain, boys need to practice pursuing and killing prey, while girls need to practice taking care of babies. As a result, boys should be permitted to roughhouse during recess and play contact sports, to learn the rules of aggression. Such play is more dangerous for girls, because girls are less biologically able to manage aggression.”
. . .
“I don’t want to be required to attend all-female classes when I go back to school,” Michelle Selden wrote in the court filing. “I don’t agree that all girls learn one way and all boys learn another way. I don’t agree that all girls behave one way and all boys behave another way.
“I just became certified as a scuba diver. I am a firefighter cadet, which is a junior volunteer firefighter. I have a purple belt in Shaolin Kung Fu. I don’t know whether most girls would be interested in these things or not. I have done these things because I wanted to, whether or not the ‘average girl’ would want to.”
Seriously, listen to her. And listen to the idiots who want to make her stick to classes for girls-only. Girls need to practice taking care of babies?? What? Boys need to hunt and kill? Since when? What the hell? Girls don't need to roughhouse? Huh? Gee, someone should have told me that when I was a girl. Maybe then I wouldn't have been playing football with the boys. Or beating them up when they pissed me off. I had no idea I wasn't able to manage aggression! Clearly, that's why I'm single at my ripe old age. It all makes so much sense now.
Mandatory same-sex classes are illegal. Voluntary ones aren't. And, depending on the individual person, age and development, they can be useful. However, there's no reason to force gender segregation. How, exactly, are kids supposed to learn how to socialize if we keep them apart? How, exactly, are they going to navigate those really fucked-up waters of early adolescence if they are told they're only capable of relating to their own gender? That they are fundamentally different than the opposite gender? What kind of society is that going to create? If my daughter wanted to be in classes with boys and the state wasn't going to let her, I'd sure as hell file suit. Reinforcing gender stereotypes is so not the business the state should be in. It's bad enough girls have to deal with society's screwed up version of girlhood. They don't need it from schools. Schools are to teach, to educate, not to instill gender 'norms'.
Friday, July 07, 2006
And this is why fat people don't go to doctors...
Court orders disciplinary case stopped against doctor accused of making rude remarks to patients
By DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI
Associated Press Writer
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A judge has ordered the state Board of Medicine to stop disciplinary proceedings against a doctor accused of telling a patient she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men and advising another to shoot herself following brain surgery.
Judge Edward Fitzgerald made clear in a ruling released Thursday that he did not condone remarks attributed to Dr. Terry Bennett and found them unnecessary, but ruled Bennett had a right to speak bluntly.
"It is nonetheless important ... to ensure that physicians and patients are free to discuss matters relating to health without fear of government reprisal, even if such discussions may sometimes be harsh, rude or offensive to the listener," he concluded in the ruling Wednesday.
The complaints against Bennett included charges that he told a white patient that she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men.
"Let's face it, if your husband were to die tomorrow, who would want you?" the board has said Bennett told the overweight patient in June 2004. "Well, men might want you, but not the types you want to want you. Might even be a black guy," it quoted him as saying, based on the woman?s complaint.
Bennett, 68, has denied making the comment, but has said he's seen polls supporting that position.
"If you look at the polling, nobody likes fat women," he said last year. "Is it right? No. Is it sensible? No. Is it true? Yeah ... Black guys are the only group that don?t mind that. Is that racist to say that?"
A 2001 complaint accused Bennett of telling a woman recovering from brain surgery to buy a pistol and shoot herself to end her suffering. The doctor was also accused of speaking harshly to a woman about how her son might have contracted hepatitis, according to the ruling.
Bennett claimed victory.
"The question now is: Will the board waste more of your and my tax dollars and appeal this, or accept done as done?" he said in a telephone interview.
Fitzgerald also ruled that state and American Medical Association requirements to treat patients with "compassion and respect for human dignity and rights" are so vague they are unconstitutional. Bennett probably would have won his challenges before the board, the judge said.
Bennett said he planned to sue everyone involved for "malicious prosecution."
"I am not inclined to be forgiving about it," he said. "It's been devastating and infuriating."
Assistant Attorney General Elyse Alkalay, who represented the board in the court case, said she was reviewing the ruling and had not decided whether to appeal.
Bennett could have faced penalties ranging from a written reprimand to suspension or revocation of his medical license.
_______________________________________________
Where do I begin? Seriously. First, no one likes fat women? Uh, no. I do. I tend to prefer them. So, point one against the good doctor.
Second...what the fuck? I mean, seriously. What.The.Fuck? This is what's passing for good bedside manner these days? I know there was a point in my life that, if a doctor had spoken to me that way, I'd never darken their door again. And I'd stay sick and suffering, because of the "blunt" nature of his advice. Only black men will want you? What? What's the problem with that? There's nothing inherently inferior or wrong with black men. What the fuck? I just...what the fuck???
Okay. Calmer now.
Here's the problem with doctors like this -- they get fat people killed. Don't believe me? Let me offer my Aunt Vickie as an example. She died when she was 42 of a stroke. She was 5 foot nothing and probably 350 lbs. She was also a nurse in one of the best hospitals in the state, in the ICU. She knew, we found out after her death, that she knew something was wrong. She'd been taking drug samples from work to treat what she thought, it seems, was simply high blood pressure. The problem was, she didn't just have high blood pressure. She had an auto immune illness, one related to Lupus actually. One that a simple blood test could detect. One that could have been treated, though not cured, by taking one damned pill a day. One little, tiny pill. She'd likely had it for 10, maybe 15 years. It had damaged her blood vessels so badly, that the two main ones in her brain had actually rebuilt themselves, carving out a new pathway because the old one had been scarred to the point it was blocked.
She was around doctors every damned day. She was friends with dozens of them. And she wouldn't go to any of them, wouldn't talk to any of them about her symptoms because she was so very, very afraid they'd make it all about her weight. She was so ashamed of being fat that she died way, way, way before she needed to. And why was she ashamed? Because of bastards like this guy who thinks that "blunt" talk is the way to get fat people to loose weight. Why the hell is it anyone's business if someone is fat? Unless the fat is actively affecting a patients health, what the hell does it matter?
My aunt was an amazing woman. She was a second mother to me, the one I could actually talk to. She was the only other person in my family to escape the Fundy programming. I could do things with her, or tell her things, that would scandalize everyone else in my family. She was smart and funny and the most generous, loving person you'd ever meet. It didn't matter that she was raised in poverty. It didn't matter that she, like my mother, was told by her father she was worthless because she was female. She put herself through nursing school, she worked her way up to an awesome job, she bought a house when she was my age, she had great friends and was so very, very loved.
Christmas was her favorite holiday. She didn't have any children of her own, so she spoiled her nieces and nephews. I was the oldest, so I had the most benefit of her adoration. Every year, she brought in piles and piles and piles of presents. Whatever we wanted, we got. It was amazing, really. She let me crash at her house the summer before I started grad school. My boyfriend and I painted her house one summer. She took me on vacations to Disney World and the mountains and the beach. She really loved life and she wasn't afraid to just get out and do things.
But she wouldn't go to the doctor. She wouldn't do the one thing she needed to do most. She was so afraid of being told she felt bad because she was fat, that she just didn't go. And so, she died. Even that morning, when she was having the stroke, she wouldn't call an ambulance. She wouldn't go to the hospital. And because she waited, she died. Because she had been told, been brainwashed to believe that all her problems were caused by her fat, she died.
Being fat was not the physical cause of her death. Regardless of the fact that she was 350 lbs, that's wasn't the organic cause of her death. No, it was that damned undiagnosed autoimmune disease.
And you know what scares me? It scares me to think that, even if she had gone to the doctor, it wouldn't have changed anything. It scares me that people like this bastard are in practice. Because if she'd gone to someone like him, they wouldn't have seen a sick woman. They'd have seen a fat woman.
By DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI
Associated Press Writer
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A judge has ordered the state Board of Medicine to stop disciplinary proceedings against a doctor accused of telling a patient she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men and advising another to shoot herself following brain surgery.
Judge Edward Fitzgerald made clear in a ruling released Thursday that he did not condone remarks attributed to Dr. Terry Bennett and found them unnecessary, but ruled Bennett had a right to speak bluntly.
"It is nonetheless important ... to ensure that physicians and patients are free to discuss matters relating to health without fear of government reprisal, even if such discussions may sometimes be harsh, rude or offensive to the listener," he concluded in the ruling Wednesday.
The complaints against Bennett included charges that he told a white patient that she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men.
"Let's face it, if your husband were to die tomorrow, who would want you?" the board has said Bennett told the overweight patient in June 2004. "Well, men might want you, but not the types you want to want you. Might even be a black guy," it quoted him as saying, based on the woman?s complaint.
Bennett, 68, has denied making the comment, but has said he's seen polls supporting that position.
"If you look at the polling, nobody likes fat women," he said last year. "Is it right? No. Is it sensible? No. Is it true? Yeah ... Black guys are the only group that don?t mind that. Is that racist to say that?"
A 2001 complaint accused Bennett of telling a woman recovering from brain surgery to buy a pistol and shoot herself to end her suffering. The doctor was also accused of speaking harshly to a woman about how her son might have contracted hepatitis, according to the ruling.
Bennett claimed victory.
"The question now is: Will the board waste more of your and my tax dollars and appeal this, or accept done as done?" he said in a telephone interview.
Fitzgerald also ruled that state and American Medical Association requirements to treat patients with "compassion and respect for human dignity and rights" are so vague they are unconstitutional. Bennett probably would have won his challenges before the board, the judge said.
Bennett said he planned to sue everyone involved for "malicious prosecution."
"I am not inclined to be forgiving about it," he said. "It's been devastating and infuriating."
Assistant Attorney General Elyse Alkalay, who represented the board in the court case, said she was reviewing the ruling and had not decided whether to appeal.
Bennett could have faced penalties ranging from a written reprimand to suspension or revocation of his medical license.
_______________________________________________
Where do I begin? Seriously. First, no one likes fat women? Uh, no. I do. I tend to prefer them. So, point one against the good doctor.
Second...what the fuck? I mean, seriously. What.The.Fuck? This is what's passing for good bedside manner these days? I know there was a point in my life that, if a doctor had spoken to me that way, I'd never darken their door again. And I'd stay sick and suffering, because of the "blunt" nature of his advice. Only black men will want you? What? What's the problem with that? There's nothing inherently inferior or wrong with black men. What the fuck? I just...what the fuck???
Okay. Calmer now.
Here's the problem with doctors like this -- they get fat people killed. Don't believe me? Let me offer my Aunt Vickie as an example. She died when she was 42 of a stroke. She was 5 foot nothing and probably 350 lbs. She was also a nurse in one of the best hospitals in the state, in the ICU. She knew, we found out after her death, that she knew something was wrong. She'd been taking drug samples from work to treat what she thought, it seems, was simply high blood pressure. The problem was, she didn't just have high blood pressure. She had an auto immune illness, one related to Lupus actually. One that a simple blood test could detect. One that could have been treated, though not cured, by taking one damned pill a day. One little, tiny pill. She'd likely had it for 10, maybe 15 years. It had damaged her blood vessels so badly, that the two main ones in her brain had actually rebuilt themselves, carving out a new pathway because the old one had been scarred to the point it was blocked.
She was around doctors every damned day. She was friends with dozens of them. And she wouldn't go to any of them, wouldn't talk to any of them about her symptoms because she was so very, very afraid they'd make it all about her weight. She was so ashamed of being fat that she died way, way, way before she needed to. And why was she ashamed? Because of bastards like this guy who thinks that "blunt" talk is the way to get fat people to loose weight. Why the hell is it anyone's business if someone is fat? Unless the fat is actively affecting a patients health, what the hell does it matter?
My aunt was an amazing woman. She was a second mother to me, the one I could actually talk to. She was the only other person in my family to escape the Fundy programming. I could do things with her, or tell her things, that would scandalize everyone else in my family. She was smart and funny and the most generous, loving person you'd ever meet. It didn't matter that she was raised in poverty. It didn't matter that she, like my mother, was told by her father she was worthless because she was female. She put herself through nursing school, she worked her way up to an awesome job, she bought a house when she was my age, she had great friends and was so very, very loved.
Christmas was her favorite holiday. She didn't have any children of her own, so she spoiled her nieces and nephews. I was the oldest, so I had the most benefit of her adoration. Every year, she brought in piles and piles and piles of presents. Whatever we wanted, we got. It was amazing, really. She let me crash at her house the summer before I started grad school. My boyfriend and I painted her house one summer. She took me on vacations to Disney World and the mountains and the beach. She really loved life and she wasn't afraid to just get out and do things.
But she wouldn't go to the doctor. She wouldn't do the one thing she needed to do most. She was so afraid of being told she felt bad because she was fat, that she just didn't go. And so, she died. Even that morning, when she was having the stroke, she wouldn't call an ambulance. She wouldn't go to the hospital. And because she waited, she died. Because she had been told, been brainwashed to believe that all her problems were caused by her fat, she died.
Being fat was not the physical cause of her death. Regardless of the fact that she was 350 lbs, that's wasn't the organic cause of her death. No, it was that damned undiagnosed autoimmune disease.
And you know what scares me? It scares me to think that, even if she had gone to the doctor, it wouldn't have changed anything. It scares me that people like this bastard are in practice. Because if she'd gone to someone like him, they wouldn't have seen a sick woman. They'd have seen a fat woman.
Labels: fat, lawsuit, medical care
