From the same novel:
Then she grabbed a Clif bar and a Diet Dr Pepper for breakfast.
The “she” in question is my age and in a high-pressure, high-earning profession. I’d already be dead three times over if I had such breakfasts as she routinely has.
Not that I would want anything this chemical in the morning.
Do you, folks, think it’s product placement? Normal people don’t eat like that, so why write it that way if not for a fee?
I beta-read a lot for author friends, and it’s pretty surprising how unrealistically women are written even by male authors who are well-meaning and who have actual real women in their lives. I have to conclude they simply don’t pay nearly as much attention to the women around them as they should, or at least as they should if they wanted to write realistic women.
For example, an author friend wrote a woman in her 30s who is supposed to hold a high-stress job and has some mild-to-moderate childhood-related dysfunction. She was written like a stereotypical gumshoe detective with an alcohol problem, or perhaps like a frat boy. Farting, burping, vomiting, diarrhea, just being all around disgusting. There is simply no way even a halfway functional woman is as disgusting as she was depicted to be on a regular Tuesday. The way dudes imagine someone letting themselves go is not how women let themselves go.
The woman in your book, if she’s a woman in her 40s in a high-profile job is doing her best to stay in shape because her fitness contributes to her career success. She’s having blood pressure and cholesterol issues because her estrogen is dropping in perimenopause, and she definitely watches what she eats both because of her looks and because a lot of foods start to bother you when you’re 40+. The Cliff bar plus Diet Coke is the breakfast of college students after a kegger, not a middle-aged professional woman.
Nothing is real. A Clif bar + Diet Coke would make me want to murder someone by noon, exercise routine or not. High profile high stress job or not. Where’s the protein or fiber?
It’s like those beautiful tiny rom-com leads who drown their sorrows in tissues and a pint of ice cream. I don’t know any real women who do that.
I’d write orthorexia into “woman in her 30s who is supposed to hold a high-stress job and has some mild-to-moderate childhood-related dysfunction” — some joyless meal prep. If they are alcoholic, they are functional alcoholics and they certainly don’t sound look or smell sloppy. No obvious bodily effluvia. Wicked insomnia. Curated for the ‘gram. Secret vaping. Their car smells like ozone air freshener.
And it’s not a one-time thing in this novel. The character eats like that all the time. Apparently, that’s how she remains thin because nobody is gaining weight on two Clif bars and a sea of Diet Dr Pepper a day as their only food. Until they develop a raging form of diabetes, of course.
Some people never develop diabetes no matter how badly they eat and some people develop diabetes anyways despite eating well and having good habits. Life isn’t fair.
I wouldn’t eat like this specifically because it would make me hangry and as a woman in a high pressure high stress job I don’t think I’d have room to get hangry dealing with other people. But I’m sure there are many people for who this has no effect on their mood and who do not understand Snickers commercials and who never get sugar spikes or crashes.
If she’s eating that way consciously and deliberately to avoid gaining weight that seems like a different era. Which era is this book set in?
Diet Coke is for amateurs, there just isn’t enough caffeine in that. But I’m obviously reading in to what I think this character should be without reading the novel.
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“Clif bar …. Not that I would want anything this chemical”
First: I’ll have you know I worked very hard on producing my bars and don’t appreciate that dismissive attitude.
Second: I have a very competent advertising department (made up of strong, independent girl bosses who don’t need a man to tell them what to do) searching for product placement opportunities and I have received no word (much less money) from being mentioned in a novel…
Third: Thank you for the heads up (minus the diss about my bars). Now I’m off to meet with my team of lawyers (a group of 40 year-old single moms who successfully balance the challenges of motherhood while navigating my many unreasonable demands in their professional lives).
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Hi Clarissa ya know yours, the almost the only blog I feel confident to express my Israeli perspective upon with the confidence that you want feel anger at my hutzpah. Would like to share with you my latest “tossed salad”.
What are the arguments for and against disbanding the United Nations?
Against disbanding the UN-Nations. Disbanding this vile corrupt piece of shit alas would force the community of nations to take responsibility to prevent and manage conflicts limited to their immediate border nations. Disbanding this utterly disgusting abomination would remove a public forum where international mobs could pervert diplomacy. Like as did the bureaucrats of England France and Germany who boycotted the Israeli PM’s speech before the full General Assembly.
Disbanding this stinky pile of shit UN-nations would force transnational problems, meaning the spread of economic, political, and cultural processes beyond national borders. As if nations cannot establish economic alliances with other nations?! Disbanding this voodoo UN-nations pretend World Government to regulate and manage living conditions, education, and gender equality worldwide LOL. As if nation states do not have the mandate of their own people to do these exact responsibilities?!
Disbanding the UN-nations abhorrent corruption in the Security Council where nations like France, who lost WWII, pretend that they qualify as a Great Power in World politics. Or the insane notion that nations states base their international strategic foreign policies upon what a plurality of folks whose nations do not even hold diplomatic relations with one another should determine the strategic foreign policies of nation states simply because the number of nations sitting in the Security Council has increased from 5 to 15 permanent Security Council seats!
Disbanding the UN-nations vomit puke of bureaucrapic inefficiency, political divisions, and the arrogant veto power wielded by permanent members of the Security Council who face down the screaming lynch mobs in the name of sacred “democracy”. The idea that Global Challenges collectively based upon emotional mob majority of international opinions – utterly absurd.
Issues like climate change, pandemics, and poverty have plagued Mankind long before Wilson’s post WWI League of Nations. Senator Long rightly opposed this notion that foreign nations should behave like dogs and sniff the butts of other nations. The government of a civilization, when confronted by an international problem, even crisis can agree to work together with other governments of foreign nations to manage these problems. The very idea that 193 nations can hold a consensus on how best to pick their noses – utterly absurd. Nation-States form economic and military alliances for the purpose to mutually address the need to establish a common consensus between themselves.
Disbanding the UN-nations Socialism whose political rhetoric propaganda labels as: collective efforts toward peace … essential to cut this bs and flush it down the toilet. Global cooperation has never existed in the whole of Human history. The stench of the pie in the sky lies that some UN-nations could accomplish the absurd by propaganda and political rhetoric – simply criminal behaviour.
The UN-nations poop in matters of Trade, development programs, or humanitarian aid – just a joke. The United States is the largest single provider of humanitarian assistance worldwide. The notion of global cooperation – just empty rhetoric propaganda on par with television evangelists who raise criminal amounts of money for themselves! The UN-nations does nothing for “global stability” and other such pie in the sky propaganda rhetoric.
That which is crooked can never be made straight. The idea of reforming the UN-nations compares to Male Masturbation for that man to make himself pregnant. The idea of efforts to improve transparency, accountability, and efficiency an utter contradiction in the face of totally unaccountable bureaucraps who only want to keep their cushy jobs. Why the UN-nations should not be immediately disbanded and treated as a used menstruating bloody rag? Simply have no reasonable answer.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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