While I agree with you, I have to point out that autoimmune disorders are not part of "hating your body," as you term it. While they can be exacerbated by psychological problems such as depression and anxiety, just like most chronic diseases, most are not likely psychosomatic in origin, but rather a reaction to toxins (silicone breast implants, for example), genetics, or a combination of the two. If you have fibromyalgia or lupus, eating disorders, depression, etc. may cause flare ups or prevent you from managing your symptoms, but they did not cause the underlying disorder.

Bearcat - I think Jessica's statement still makes sense in light of your added knowledge here. Suggesting that toxins from breast implants can cause auto-immune disorders suggests there are a lot of indirect consequences to women for "hating your body." Arguably, women who are happy with themselves wouldn't want breast implants to begin with, and therefore wouldn't be exposed to the toxins you suggest cause the autoimmune disorders that Jessica points out are dangerously disproportionately affecting women.

me thinks.

hmmm... it seems that perhaps Courtney wrote this post and not Jessica, based on the reference to a book Jessica did not write!

The auto-immune disorders wasn't about hating your body but the overall stress women are under to be perfect on the inside and outside.

The underbelly is what we need to be talking about. Nine million girls and women in this country—of all different classes and cultural backgrounds—have diagnosable eating disorders and countless others obsess over food and fitness. Panic disorders are twice as likely for females. About 75% of autoimmune illnesses occur in women.

These are serious health concerns in large part caused by a society that systematically socializes women to take the weight of the world on their shoulders and try to look graceful while doing it.

This last line irks me a bit (and not only the typo!). Isn't the problem that we equate achievement with beauty, or that women are held to certain physical standards before they can achieve the real stuff, rather than that achievement itself is important?!?
I am wary of minimizing the importance of ambition (and, donna d., the striving for "inner perfection") in women. Yes, it is important to "love ourselves," and to not be paralysed by bogus social expectations for women. But we need to be ready to move beyond this conversation, to speak with empowerment about the things we want to do and be.

oops - "that achievement itself *isn't* important!?!?"

The war on women's bodies is a serious one. I went to an high pressure school where the popular girls very publicly only ate whipped cream for lunch to show their self-control. The New York Times' writers kids, and kids' friends, go to schools like this and they're obsessed with upper-crusty hyper-achievement to a fault.
But as someone who's also worked with low-income teens, I feel that those years are full of pitfalls for everyone, boys, girls, rich poor. Violence, dropping out, self-starvation, breakdowns, whatever. That's the nature of adolescence.
My concern is that the more we focus on the exploits and travails of teen girls in an exploitative way, the more we'll be likely to reinforce negative stereotypes. The more we hype the non-existent perfect girls, the more everyone focuses on their imperfections.
But we certainly can't turn to the NY times for leadership on any social issue.

*achievement* is a loaded term- the reason being, that (over)privileged people *achieve* more, obviously, because they have more resources to propel them.

Wellbeing is a luxury to most people in the world at this point. When it isn't a luxury, maybe then we can move beyond this conversation.

Women are suffering from twice the stress as men, because we let them wander from the kitchen. They joined the workforce, and it isn't something they are meant to handle. Ask any psychologist that has a basis in biology, women were never meant to leave the kitchen. Twice the stress as men is the price you pay for trying to assume too much.

You have a good point TurnKey.

Next thing you know they will want to vote.

Dear Turnkey-
How are they supposed to pee?
Love,
kpsisu

I'm in the kitchen right now, cooking up a REVOLUTION PIE.

I just need the flesh of one illiterate troll to finish it off...anyone seen any of those around here?

Auto immune disorders are also frequently missed and dismissed as "all in your head" or stress. People can go misdiagnosed for decades without proper treatment.

I have an aunt that was told she was crazy, a hypochondriac, put in a body cast and dismissed by mostly male doctors for decades. She found out in her 50's that she had ankylosing spondylitis among some other auto immune diseases. Her problems started as a teenager. So she lived for about 40 years in pain being told she was just a hysterical woman.

My name is Natali and i go to Newton North, the school in the New York Times article. After reading about some of my peers I felt under par as usual. It's often very hard to have so many girls in my school that are overly obsessive about AP classes and grades when I don't take any AP's and plan on going to a community college for a year. I just stopped by to acknowledge this article and say thanks for looking at it from a differnt viewpoint.

SM, I think the last line

It is about a nation of women buying in to the idea that their wellbeing is not as important as achievement and beauty.

means there's more pressure than ever for women to be successful in careers and in their personal lives. It's a hyped up version of the 70s' "Bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan but never forget your romance."

You're mistaken Turnkey. The superior verbal and relationship skills that women possess make the modern workplace more conducive to their full expression. Men, with their aggressive anti-social overly competitive instincts, coupled with their superior spatial analytical abilities, are far better off staying home where they can avoid conflict and perfect efficient toilet cleaning techniques.

Actually, hautedonna, I've been making that argument (seriously) for a couple years now.

Anyway, I mentioned breast implants because it came to mind (my grandma has fibromyalgia because she got implants after a mastectomy). More common are environmental toxins that everyone is exposed to, such as pesticides and petroleum byproducts. While the insecurity (and marketing) that leads to breast implants might cause a slight increase in the ratio of women:men who have auto-immune disorders, it can't account for all of the discrepancy. I'm inclined to say (and I'm not really an expert, so this is just an educated guess) that it's related to having an immune system that is built to ignore a creature growing inside of you for nine months.

I know I'm baiting the troll, but, any psychologist with a basis in biology (including the bogeyman of feminist websites, Stephen Pinker) will tell you that women are different on average from men, and only in a very few ways. And anyone with any knowledge of prehistory will tell you that women were not confined to the kitchen until the agricultural revolution, long after our genes reached where they are today.

Natali, as long as what you're doing makes you happy, there's no reason to feel under par. Good to hear from one of the "other" girls from that high school.

THe Personal is Political: therefore, can we collectively STOP:

1) talking about how "bad" we are for eating something

2) being intolerant of other people (or ourselves) getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night?

3) discussing other people's or our own appearance? Like FOREVER?

It will be hard, but this has to start somewhere. \

It always helps when saying or doing a certain thing is seen as "Uncool". Perhaps the Hivemindâ„¢ should decree that the discussion of appearance in *uncool*, and that mentioning the word "fat" is *uncool*, whether you are talking about yourself or another person.

Plus, treating your body WELL is *COOL* (This would include eating healthfully and pleasurably, and sleeping, and feeling pleasure in myriad ways.)

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the stress women and girls experience not entirely due to socialization. Or at least, the solution is not to try to change "society," but rather that women learn to not sweat the small stuff.

I realize this is a huge generalization, but it's based on my observation of women I know who drive themselves *crazy* over unecessary and petty details of home and work life in a way that I've never seen a man do. You might blame this on the fact that women simply have more burdens thrust on them because they have to take on both child care AND work, but my observations are based on childless women & girls.

I don't believe that Courtney Martin is saying that women shouldn't be ambitious. What I think she's saying is that women and society are way to hard on them and expect no failures.
A segment of her book was in the recent "Bitch" Magazine and I used it as a catalyst for discussion with my women's issues group in the jail I work at. The women talked about the pressure they felt to be a great mom, plus keep the house normal, plus have a job that provides for everyone. Unfortunately today if a woman messes up it's not because she's over stressed or that, perhaps, she's human. It's that she's a mad mother or obviously there's no place for single mothers in the business world, or that she's just running away from her responsibilities. It's just blaming the victim again, unfortunately women have bought into this belief and no longer expect weakness of any kind from themself.

THe Personal is Political: therefore, can we collectively STOP:

1) talking about how "bad" we are for eating something

I actually had an experience with that just the other weekend. I was doing some volunteer work, and someone (a man) had brought in doughnuts for the volunteers. I watched as six young women each opened the box, sighed, and soliloquized for a few minutes on how bad she were being and how her (insert activity here) coach was going to yell at her and how she'd have to run for hours that evening to work it off and how she really didn't need any more weight on her hips, before taking and eating a doughnut.

When I pointed out the unfairness of it, that women are expected to express appropriate self-hatred and recognition of our multitudinous flaws before we allow ourselves to enjoy something, I became, of course, The Bitch.

About 75% of autoimmune illnesses occur in women.

These are serious health concerns in large part caused by a society that systematically socializes women to take the weight of the world on their shoulders and try to look graceful while doing it.

I don't get the point of implying that autoimmune diseases being caused in women by the pressure they are put under.

Yes, autoimmune diseases disproportionately affect women vs. men. But, for some autoimmune diseases a genetic component is a major factor (immediately, spondylarthropathies like Psoriatic Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis which are specifically are linked to a genetic variation of HLA-B27 come to mind).

Stress and trying to live up to expectation can worsen an autoimmune disease, but they do not cause the disease. If that were true, the many young girls who have the varying types of Juvenile Arthritis (an autoimmune disease) would have been stressed out and trying to meet ridiculous expectations when they were babies.

Your statement about autoimmune diseases being caused by this stress implies that women like me, who have autoimmune diseases, are responsible for their illness because they gave in to such stresses. I fail to see how the reference to autoimmune diseases in your post brings anything to the argument.

The thing I found (even in this article) that these young women seemed to draw strength from was the denial of the perfection plan. They bought into it, tried to keep up, and then decided for themselves that it wasn't worth maintaining.
Accepted, non-guilt associated prioritization is a 'liberating' thing for accomplished women...it is an assumption for accomplished men. I think that once women everywhere learn and teach that there are no cosmic bonuses to shortchanging yourself for impressing others we'll be a significant step closer to parity.