Dr. Condescension: Sexism and Medicine, Part I

Because dismissing a women’s health is the ultimate misogyny.

The strangest thing happened. After nearly two decades of dealing with my autoimmune asshole of a body, doctors suddenly decided that I was a hysterical moron. Up until that point, doctors took my health seriously, listened to me ,and took it for granted that I wasn’t neither neurotic nor an idiot…and I, in turn, took it for granted that they would believe me. Because I’m an adult…and I because I have no fucking reason to make this shit up.

And during that time, I kept hearing these horror stories from other women–primarily, middle-aged, middle-class white women–who went from doctor to doctor with mystery symptoms, and being dismissed as silly ninnies…or given a scrip for anti-depressants. I just shrugged it off. I didn’t have to worry, because the blood tests and, later, the unfakeable physical damage, provided incontrovertible proof that shit was real. In other words, it wasn’t my problem and sometimes I even secretly agreed with the doctors that maybe their symptoms were manifestations of their own stress or unhappiness. It makes me cringe to admit this, but it was far easier to believe that the dozen women or so I have known over the years were maybe just a tiny bit hypochondriacal than it was to believe that they were suffering from mysterious ailments that negligent doctors dismissed as “stress”.

Forgive me ladies, for I was blind.

It began with an ophthalmologist. My left eye decided that it hated me and everything I stood for. Consequently, Eyeball sole existence was to cause me searing pain. The fact that yet another body part had betrayed me wasn’t exactly a revelation; I am also required to see a neurologist, a gastroenterologist, a neuropsychologist, a rheumatologist and the occasional surgeon. I take it for granted that various factions of rebel innards will form nasty alliances; twenty years of sharing space with a progressive, degenerative, autoimmune disorder is going to take its toll. In other words, I’m a fucking veteran. So I know the drill: for any appointment, I go in, describe my symptoms to Dr. Specialist du jour, wait for him or her to prescribe prednisone (because it is always fucking prednisone), take my scrip and go. No more than 15-30 minutes, tops. The whole process is very neat, very methodical, friendly but no-nonsense.

Which is how it should go.

But this time, some asshole infant in a white coat didn’t even let me finish my concerns. In retrospect, this shouldn’t have surprised me, because I already dislike his face. He looks just like the rich, smug, repulsively handsome foil to the lovable slobs in all of those bad 80s movies. “Oh, that’s nothing to worry about; just a bit of inflammation. Probably a result of the autoimmune process.”

Just like this…except smarter and not as evil.

I was so stunned by the sheer obviousness of his “diagnosis” that all of those potential “No shit, you pompous ass” replies, stuck in my throat.

“Take these drops–they’re free samples,” he said (while also giving me a cursory, mildly contemptuous”your lot couldn’t possibly afford to buy your own” glance), “and if you’re still feeling a bit of irritation, call the receptionist and make another appointment”. Then he oozed out of the room, leaving a slime trail of hubris in his wake.

Apparently, he sent out a memo, because all of the other specialists I saw after treated me with the same good-humored, overly-patient civility that I have grown to despise…not only because it is insulting, but because I’m NOT BEING TREATED…even when there is concrete evidence of illness. Before, it was merely infuriating; now, the situation is becoming dire. Recently, after a seven fucking hour wait at the ER (God, I hate this Third World State refugee camp), where I was fucking writhing in the worst pain I’ve experienced since childbirth, in the fucking waiting room, no less…then finally into a damn room and into the requisite CT–which showed inflammation in two major organs and another vital tube of some sort–they sent me home with a prescription for a mild painkiller.

I told the resident toddler, Dr. Skippy, “Look, if you’re worried that I’m a junky, rest assured, I don’t need your drugs. I could get anything I wanted, including my own dilaudid if I wanted…and your dilaudid,incidentally, isn’t doing dick. It’s not going to help until you get the swelling down. Please, jesus god, I’m begging you: let me stay overnight and pump me full of a truckload of steroids. Do that and you’ll never see me again”. I mean, I fucking begged. If you asked anybody who knows me that I begged to be put in the hospital, they would drop everything and send a priest–nobody hates fucking hospitals more than I do. In fact, I am notorious for checking myself out and going home “against doctor’s advisement”.

In other words, I was fucking desperate.

But this didn’t register with Dr. Skippy. Instead, he launches into a deliberately slow explanation of why steroids are dangerous, all the while speaking in the exact tone you would address a particularly imbecilic child. For once, I cut the doctor off by saying, “You do realize that I’ve taken prednisone countless times, right?”

With this awkward, phony-ass sincere expression in his”See? I am establishing em-pa-thy with you” eyes–I swear to God, I had this vision of him practicing Professional Concern before a mirror–he leaned forward, and said in this hushed, checkmate voice: “All the more reason not to take more.”

And patted me on the shoulder.

I literally jerked away from him. Simultaneously, he recoiled and took one large step back, both indignant and wide-eyed, outraged and perplexed, as to why his white man, white coat privilege failed to grant him some sort of magical, anti-hypochondriac force field. He was gloriously, satisfyingly speechless. Which was a good thing, because I had shit to say.

“Listen to me–I don’t need you to tell me about the dangers of prednisone; I am on intimate terms with prednisone and I have lived through so many side effects I could write my own medical journal. You can not even begin to know the horrors–stop nodding, you don’t–and the utter misery it can cause. But…it…WORKS. And when things get dire–and things are goddamn dire, doctor–it is the only thing that works. It’s miracle poison and it’s damn well worth the side-effects if it will keep me from experience unbearable pain and, you know–DYING.”

By now, he had regained consciousness and was struggling to regain his smug-ass composure. He replied in haughty Assholese that he was far more qualified…blah blah, smug, smug, smug, blah blah, blah…than I could possibly be.”

I let him go on for a moment, but I just didn’t have the patience. Pain can turn even the most devoted puppy into a snarling, vicious animal…and I was fucking done with being cornered by taunting white coats who didn’t even pretend to respect me.

“Stop. No…stop. You listen to me. I don’t care how many goddamn letters you have trailing your name.I don’t care if you were first in your class at Smart Doctor school. I don’t care if you are the Mackdaddy of every expert in your field…you are not the expert of my body. So don’t you dare presume that you know it better than me.”

Drop mic. Chastened doctor. Newfound respect…and much needed treatment. Ha. Of course not.

He stormed out, practically throwing my prescriptions at me (which I left behind…take that hydrocodone and jam it straight up your ass, Skippy) and I limped out as quickly as possible before security taught me about real pain.

In other words, my little speech didn’t do shit. I’m still in the same pain, I’m growing more apprehensive about the possible outcomes…and I have no where to go to get help.

But that slapped-face shocked expression, though.

I am certain that–during my final moments, when my sorry life is passing before my eyes–I will get to see that face again. And when I do, I will die laughing.

I’m not done with this shit; Part II to follow shortly…FR

 

 

 

Gender Traitor: Dani Mathers

Because I am willing to be the lightning rod for uncomfortable truths about the failings of modern feminism, here is the most uncomfortable truth of all: it is our fault that we have not achieved equality.

Think about it: we represent 51% of the population; the fact that we are termed a “minority” is a sad irony, because we are the fucking majority. Trust me–the only reason we have not achieved equality is because of this bizarre, lemming-like tendency we have to self-balkanize our own sex. Superior upper strength be damned; if we actually stopped projecting our own self-loathing onto other women, men could not stop us from achieving equality. Singleminded solidarity can move mountains; it can almost certainly change laws and social mores.

So why the hell are we attacking our sister Bitches? And for the most trivial, bullshit reasons, too…usually having to do with some sort of superficial shaming: slut-shaming, fat-shaming, mother-shaming, not-being-a-mother shaming. And we all do it, too, ripping each other apart like a bunch of bloodthirsty biddies rushing in to destroy the lame hen in this perpetual pecking party.

Think back for a moment–the last time you trashed another woman, was it because she lacked integrity? Did she behave in a way that caused another human actual harm? Was she being blatantly dishonest? Stealing? Did she make a bigoted comment, use her religion as a weapon, abuse her partner or child? Was she being hypocritical or unprincipled? Probably not. More than like, you made some offhand catty remark about a woman’s body, that tacky short skirt she does not need to be wearing, that her kids are brats, maybe referred to her as nasty, a ho, a THOT or, worst of all, lapse into using the term bitch as an insult?

Welcome to Vichy, sister Bitches–colluding with the enemy is a way of life.

No moral high ground here; in fact, I’ve been going through a sort of moral crisis about my own disloyalty and I’ve come to the conclusion that trashing my sister Bitches for trifling shit is the same as spreading enemy propaganda. And I’m done sabotaging my lady comrades.

Still, while none of us are without sin, there are those truly egregious cases of women who are so enthusiastically masochistic that they actually aid and abet those who long for the days of chattel, who seem driven to dick-lick the opinions of men, as if in the constant throes of an unrequited daddy hang-up (clue: destroying other women will not make your daddy love you…nor will it impress any other real man).

Please do not misunderstand me–I’m no troll like Camille Paglia (speaking of pandering dick-lickers…); I am a feminist. I am an ardent feminist. In fact, it is because I am a feminist that I can no longer tolerate women who are hellbound on attacking other women for such cruel, pointless reasons, while apparently oblivious to the fact that they take themselves down in the attempt.

And every time you undermine a woman in this way, you are committing the worst kind of treachery: you are a gender traitor.

Get this straight: every time you make some bullshit catty remark about another woman, when you fight a woman over a man, when you say some pandering shit like, “I just don’t like women; I get along better with men”, when you condemn a woman for her sexual expression, for her clothing preferences, for personal domestic decisions or any other reason which is neither important to whom they are as a person and/or none of your goddamn business, you are betraying every woman out there. It’s treason, pure and simple.

Henceforth, I have made it my personal mission to weed these Judas Iscariot assholes out, starting…now.

My first choice for gender traitor may seem trivial, but she is so indicative of the sort of unconscious, endemic self-loathing which keeps all of us down that I decided to go ahead and make a case out of Playboy model Dani Mathers. No…not because of that. I don’t give a shit what she does with her body; it’s her body to use as she sees fit. A woman’s body is her own; you don’t get to pick and choose what other women do with it just because you don’t approve. So no judgment over the fact that she poses nude for men. Objectification occurs when women don’t have control over their bodies. That is not her treachery.

Her treachery is that she judged another woman for her body and in the nastiest, cruelest, hopefully illegal way. From the locker of L.A. Fitness, she took a Snapchat photo of a nude woman taking a shower…ostensibly, because she was fat (relax: fat is not a judgment; it is a description…it is only when fat is considered an insult does it become a judgment) and, in Mather’s pinched laboring brain, that made her worthy of ridicule.

If you must, you can look up the photo that is blowing up the internet, but I wish you wouldn’t because it contributes to this woman’s victimization. I can’t imagine how traumatic it must be for your body to be exposed for fucking millions of people to see. Understand, she was in the women’s locker room, taking a shower. There is more than a reasonable expectation for privacy; that shit should be sacrosanct. So, instead of adding to this woman’s trauma, I have edited the photo to show only this giddy asshole’s mean girl yuck-chuckling face.

Behold, the yuck-chuckling, giddy little asshole, Dani Mathers.

If ever there was a woman in need of gang Bitch-slapping…Exhibit A.

Now here’s the good news: this self-loathing asshole is being fucking eviscerated; the bad news is that many of the people who are condemning her–not just the guys–are doing the same goddamn thing to her that she did to the lady in the shower: physically shaming her…like the comments from the screen shot below.

I know there will be those who see that as karma, irony, O. Henry style justice; they’re wrong. In her cruel, vacuous attempts to body shame another woman, she gave woman-hating trolls the excuse to attack her for her physical appearance, which accomplishes dick (pun unintended).

And while it is true that most of the negative comments I’ve read have been about her cruelty and how that sort of cruelty leads to a culture awash in crap self-images, eating disorders and being victimized for truly stupid reasons, she is also being slammed for having a large mouth (there were multiple Steven Tyler references), needing a nose job, obvious breast augmentation (note: again–women have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies, including cosmetic surgery…another crap reason to attack a woman) and virtually all the other below-the-lady belt insults are being needlessly lobbed…which she inadvertently encouraged as soon as she documented her own viciousness.

And these were the polite comments.

And that is why being a gender traitor isn’t just vile, it’s stupid: when you stoke the fires of misogyny, you invariably roast yourself in the process. You’re not “one of the guys”–at best, you are a mascot; at worst, you are a stooge. A sell-out.  An Auntie Thomasina. A contemptible, asshole apostate who should be shunned by every other glorious Bitch in womankind.

And I am on a personal crusade to rout your lot out.

 

Black Women’s Lives Matter, Too

Black Women’s Lives Matter, too…so why aren’t we hearing about them?

So why are they going unmentioned?

Heads up: if you’re still dumbassed privileged enough to be spouting that All lives matter shit, just go away. You’re in the wrong place. By now, after all that has happened, I just don’t have the patience anymore. All lives matter…yeah. And once cops start mowing down white people for trivial bullshit, then I’ll sign on for, Okay all lives matter, because apparently, cops just want to have fun killing everybody…but that’s not what is going on and you by god know it. So if you can’t even admit that to yourself, then you are basically saying, All Lives Matter…but some matter less and I’m okay with that. I just don’t have time to address every willfully ignorant dumbass out there. Go get Hooked on Phonics or find some Racist’s Cliff Notes if you still need that sort of education.

Hang on…okay. I think they’re gone now.

Continuing now under the assumption that the readers remaining truly do believe that black lives matter…and if so, I have no doubt that you are aware of at least a handful of names of some of the black lives which were snuffed by over-militarized cops who murdered for the most trivial reasons and fucking well got away with it. Names like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, 12-year old Tamir Rice, Philandro Castile–despite the inherent racism in the media (don’t even get me started on this new bullshit trend of interviewers asking family members of murdered men if they will “forgive” their executioners…new low, assholes)–have become a part of the public consciousness…and even then, they are but a fraction of black men whose lives damn well didn’t matter to the rogue cops who killed them.

But what about these names: Shelly Frey. Shereese Francis. Yvette Smith. Tanisha Anderson. Alesia Thomas, who was murdered by a despicable woman cop, Mary O’Callaghan,  who kicked Alesia in the groin seven fucking times…which makes her too low even for Gender Traitor Award. I’m not sure what she deserves, but I know that Alesia sure as hell didn’t deserve what O’Callaghan gave her.

Sure, the murders of some of these women have been protested…but those protests tend to be specific to their locale. For example, eleven bare-breasted women from the San Francisco Black Lives Matter protested the police-involved murders of Meagan Hockaday, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd and others…not for salacious attention, but because they were the tradition of West Africa women who bear their chest to say “enough is enough”…and, let’s face the ugly truth: that may have been the only reason national media even bothered reporting about to these murdered civilian women who seem to disappear from the news as quickly as they are reported…if they are even reported at all.

In fact, that protest itself proves my point about the lack of attention that murdered black women are receiving: eleven members participated in the protest.

Why are the lives of these murdered black women being ignored?

Did some of these women have records? Sure, a few of them…not that it makes a shit. Know why? Because with only a few exceptions, they had been busted–and sometimes those charges had been dropped completely–for non-violent offenses…and were not in any way threatening the lives of these cops. For the three I found who were behaving aggressively, all three were mentally ill–and the cops knew ahead of time that they were mentally ill…but instead of approaching them in a calm, compassionate manner, they savaged them.

Most of these women were killed for the most trivial reasons, or because the cops themselves fucked up–by God, those no-knock warrants need to fucking stop, because they are almost always based on some snitch’s word–hardly the most reliable sources–and these badged thugs go in, guns blazing. In three of these cases, a 92 year old Kathryn Johnson was murdered, 7 year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was murdered, and Tarika Williams and her 14-month old son, Sincere–whom Tarika was holding at the time–were both shot. Thankfully, Sincere survived…but Tarika did not.

Of all the aforementioned women, I did not find one case in which any of these women acted in a way which could possibly cause a cop to legitimately fear for their lives. Not…one.

So why did I have to fucking look up their names? Why aren’t they front page national news? Why aren’t their names as recognizable as Alton Sterling or Eric Garner? Their lives mattered. Black Lives Matter. ALL Black Lives Matter.

Or do they?