Melissa Vickers wrote a wonderfully eloquent post about being a zealot.  I
wanted to comment on one thing she said:

>And how about the breast implants? The anger there is directed where it should
>be, not at the folks who brought up the concerns in the first place.


I don't really think the anger has yet been directed at the ultimate source,
which is a society that tells women that their worth depends on their
physical attractiveness, which in turn depends in part on the size of their
breasts.  If parents in Dallas/Fort Worth give their daughters breast
augmentation surgery as high school graduation presents, and those implants
end up causing problems -- should the girl be angry at Dow Corning or at her
parents/society in general?

I read somewhere recently that a doctor was saying the evidence is still not
conclusive whether breast implants cause health problems and that he
wouldn't know how to advise his own mother if she "needed" implants.  I
wanted to jump up and down and scream NOBODY EVER EVER EVER NEEDS
IMPLANTS!!!!!!  People may want them, and women who've had mastectomies may
want implants instead of a prosthesis, but nobody needs them for medical
(physical health) reasons.  EVER!  And if some people have been so affected
by our cultural beliefs that they suffer mental anguish because they have
small breasts or because of a mastectomy, then they need help and support
and counselling.  Women need to get angry about a world that judges them
solely or primarily on their physical appearance.

End of rant.  Sorry folks . . . .

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
e-mail to [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
Specialist in infant feeding and growth