Can I Get an Amen!

Just got done watching KWBU’s “The Ghost in Your Genes” (blew my mind and gave me goose-bumps…so sue me, I’m a nerd), and am watching KWBU’s “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” and it is blowin’ my mind as we speak.  Allow me to explain…

I work with people  who are homeless, have mental illnesses and/or substance addictions and have, generally speaking, had majorly stressful lives (in the physically/sexually/emotionally-abused-by-numerous-people-over-time- sort-of-way).  In a very intimate way, they have taught me that chronic stress is one of the most dangerous threats to a human’s health and happiness.  Although I am a strong argumentative writer, I know what words I could write about what I have just seen could not have the same mind-blowing power as those I have posted below (from the PBS website):

“In this revelatory film, discoveries occur in an extraordinary range of places, from baboon troops on the plains of East Africa to the office cubes of government bureaucrats in London to neuroscience labs at the nation’s leading research universities. Groundbreaking research reveals surprising facts about the impact of stress on our bodies: how it can shrink our brains, add fat to our bellies and even unravel our chromosomes. Understanding how stress works can help us figure out ways to combat it and mitigate negative impacts on our health.”

I think I liked the film so much because it put into concise terms what I think about the ill effects of living in a society that admires and even encourages people who do 2, 3, 4, or 5 things at once, which only contributes to the perpetual stress that is clogging our arteries, creating fat that suffocates our visceral organs, and descimates vital neural connections that are important to our ability to remember and concentrate.

The work of Robert Sapolsky is an extraordinary connection between our environment and our internal biological processes.  It has the potential to dramatically change the way we conceptualize mental illness, generational poverty, and chronic homelessness.  I have posted the direct link to the film’s website:

http://killerstress.stanford.edu/.    Enjoy!

My suggestion…wear the under-shirt

I’ve never been one to really support old, out-of-date ways of thinking, but I think our grandmas knew something many women have apparently forgotten when they went the modesty route. Whatever happened to feeling sexy in a t-shirt and jeans? In a way, what is meant by modesty nowadays is really ‘appropriateness.’ Appropriateness of attire in a business setting, especially for a young woman with a graduate education is, in my opinion, VERY sexy.

I used to be offended when people would talk to me about the fact that it is important to ‘dress for the occassion.’ I thought that it was just another load of crap because people used attire as a way to delineate social class and thereby ‘keep the man down’. I think that there is still some truth to this, but I also think that there is something to not having your boobs hang out of your shirt for every occasion.

I am not so much irritated at immodesty so much as I am irritated at women who want respect from men in a ‘man’s world,’ but then dress like they would like to have sex in exchange for money, which has never earned anyone respect. Sorry honey, you don’t earn respect by showing off all of God’s creation…you are simply objectifying yourself. At that point, men don’t respect you…they want to have sex with you.

I am thinking in particular of one woman who I know who is trying to build herself into what most people’s definition of a successful businesswoman might be…making lots of money, looking good doing it, and running successful businesses. This woman often complains that she does not get respect from her fellow male counterparts, yet it has never occurred to her that wearing low-cut, skin-tight leopard-print dresses to case competitions might not be the most ‘respected’ idea.  This from the same person that also wears white button-ups without undershirts, exposing her bosoms to the world; I know this because said exposure was captured for all posterity in a photo hanging in the Baylor Business School Graduate Student Lounge.

It seems to me the best thing she could do for herself is work on being a little more honest with herself about what it is she is really after, and make her actions match her words.  It might still mean that her boobs take center stage, but at least she won’t be wondering why no one ‘respects’ her.  Or, she could just wear the under-shirt