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Always Apologize, Always Explain

That is the link to an excellent article on CNN.com today about the art of apologizing. The author, Martha Beck, has said everything I’ve been trying to express to my boyfriend for the last 5 years.

In my own, personal experience, it seems men have more difficulty apologizing than women. I’m not saying that women are great at apologizing, or that men who do genuinely apologize for their mistakes on a regular basis are fictional, just that it seems more difficult for them on a personal level. I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I would guess it has something to do with pride, with feeling like admitting to their mistakes makes them seem like a weaker, more fallible person, or just that it’s about maintaining their status and power in a relationship.

Regardless of the reason, this is one of the best articles I’ve read that outlines the situation (in a gender-neutral way) and gives a practical, straight-forward explanation as to why a genuine apology, however seemingly insignificant, is very important.

The introduction to the piece evaluates that stupid fucking line from Love Story - “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” - although Beck’s point was already made by Lisa Simpson several years ago.

I don’t care how much you love someone else. Somewhere down the line, you’re going to make a mistake, and you’re going to need to apologize for that mistake to maintain a healthy, functioning relationship. Beck makes an important point by saying that you shouldn’t be constantly apologizing; apologies should always reflect the idea that you (and you alone) are truly sorry for what you did or said.

Empty, useless apologies can often be more hurtful than not apologizing at all because it’s just showing the other person that you have no intention of listening to what they have to say and just want them to be quiet. I certainly find them much more frustrating, especially since it’s pretty easy to identify when someone is just jerking you around and isn’t actually repenting.

I have my own set of problems, but apologizing when I feel that I have done something wrong is not one of them. If you feel this is something you have difficulty with, or know someone who does, I encourage you to take a look.

You… won’t… be… come on, you know what’s coming….

SORRY!

Ha. I’m sure me and 9 million other people have made that original, hilarious joke.

P.S. - The wording in the article is not gender-neutral; the author writes the article with the goal of speaking to women who are apologizing to men. What I mean when I say this is that I feel the advice works well for both men and women.

If you hate doing it as much as I do, you’ve probably wondered the same thing yourself. It’s fucking stupid. I only do it when suckered into it or when feeling particularly insecure. The information below is interesting. Enjoy.

From The Straight Dope:

I knew if I procrastinated long enough on this often-asked question somebody would eventually do the legwork for me. Sure enough, Pete Cook of Chicago has sent me a 1982 article from the Journal of American Culture by Christine Hope bearing the grand title “Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture.”

The gist of the article is that U.S. women were browbeaten into shaving underarm hair by a sustained marketing assault that began in 1915. (Leg hair came later.)

The aim of what Hope calls the Great Underarm Campaign was to inform American womanhood of a problem that till then it didn’t know it had, namely unsightly underarm hair.

For the remainder of the piece, which I assure you is very interesting, click the link above.

… and here’s a fun site to browse, if the mood strikes you:

Beauty and Hygiene Advertisements from the 1920’s to the 1950’s

So I went sight-seeing in my own neighborhood today. Well, that’s a misstatement. I went sight-seeing in Manhattan today. It’s amazing how lazy people can be when they have something right at their fingertips. Most days I rarely venture out of my own little living section of the city. I have still yet to travel to Brooklyn.

Today I went to Chinatown for the first time, City Hall, the Court and Federal buildings, and the South Street Seaport. I was excited to go to Chinatown because I have wanted to go for a long time. Trying to get into the spirit of a day of exploration, I ate a slice of salted peach. I did not enjoy it. I bought some red bean rice cake, as well as a strawberry rice cake to have at a later time. I searched fruitlessly for a place to buy incense. One of the major disadvantages of being in Chinatown and not speaking Chinese is that the signs for the majority of the stores are in Chinese, so it’s hard to find anything specific unless you already know where it is.

Now the goal of my next day-tripping excursion will be to explore some of the West Side neighborhoods.

In closing, I’ve started drinking seltzer water to replace my constant reliance on and craving for soda. I am always desiring something sweet to drink. The seltzer water has pretty much nothing in it, other than carbonation and natural flavoring, so it’s much better for me and it tricks my body into thinking I’m drinking something other than water. I endorse the habit, and I recommend it to anyone else who knows they drink too much soda. Bon petites vacances.

Newt in a Tea Cup has posted a survey about body image that she wants others to take and answer on their blogs. I have done so. If you’re interested, you should do so as well. It’s positively educational - both for them, and for you.

Name: gingermiss

Age:mid-20’s

Height: 5′6

Weight: You know, I’m just not brazen enough to do it.

Do you consider yourself attractive? I do. I know I’m slightly overweight, and it bothers me, but I still feel pretty quite a lot.

Do others consider you attractive? There certainly seems to be some contingent who does.

What is your biggest insecurity and why? Relating to body image? It would probably be my excess tummy chub, but it changes.

Have you/Would you consider using plastic surgery? Why or why not? Not usually, no, because I do love myself and would be panicked by the idea of changing anything about me and never being able to get it back. I’m still young though and I’m not sure how I might feel when I become older.

What is your relationship with make-up? Sometimes it’s on, sometimes it’s off.

How much money do you/think is reasonable to spend on your appearance? It depends. When I was a teenager, I had acne problems, which were definitely a source of insecurity for me, and it was one of the few appearance things that I spent money on. It differs from person to person, and it seems like each individual person assigns a different importance to it.

What is your experience of dieting? I’ve hardly ever tried to do it. I love bread too much, and most diets are highly anti-bread.

Have you/ anyone you know tried any specific diet programs i.e. Lighter Life? How did that affect your health? your moods? your relationships? I have not.

Do you have any experiences of eating disorders i.e. either yourself or someone you know? I think there are very few women and girls, in America at least, who do not know someone with an eating disorder. If I had an eating disorder, it would definitely be overeating when I’m emotionally unstable or just bored. There are periods when it gets better and worse. Having a dog is wonderful because it encourages constant exercise, my stomach shrinks, and I eat a lot less.

How did other people react to this; what was the fallout? You know, it almost becomes common place. It’s like a point of gossip amongst other women. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure _____’s anorexic.” There was a girl in my aerobics class who I was 99% sure was anorexic. She was thinner than a rail and manic about exercising. She always tried to keep up with our instructor rather than the rest of the class, which in itself isn’t bad but she looked sick. She was skeletal. It made me sad, but I didn’t really see a way of approaching it. I told some people about it. She was just one of many possibly anorexic girls on our college campus.

Have you had negative experiences relating to your appearance and people’s reactions to it? Definitely. I’ve been called ugly and God knows what else. I’ve also been ‘complimented’ by men, and women, openly evaluated by my appearance which I was apparently supposed to feel flattered by. I think most women have experiences of both.

What about positive reactions to your body? Definitely, but it’s more difficult to sort out those messages because something that seems positive may not be. General groups of guys drooling over how pretty you are, your date/significant other praising your body… I’ve definitely had positive praise of my body, but I’ve also had disconcerting praise.

How has your body image and attitude changed over the years? I always felt beautiful, but puberty was extremely difficult on me. I was a skinny, tomboyish girl who turned into a buxom hippy girl seemingly overnight. I wore a lot of oversized t-shirts. I put little effort into looking ‘attractive’ for a long time.

What do you love about your body? I love my eyes, my face, my breasts, my hair, my lower legs. When I see a beautiful picture of myself I’m proud to be me. I’ve been described as “classically beautiful”, which resonated with me. I feel that I’m uniquely beautiful.

What is your opinion on the media portrayal of women’s bodies? Negative for the most part. What bothers me the most is how the media has embraced and promoted the image of adultifying little girls, a la “Bratz” dolls.

What would you change about the way you/ your friends/ your family/ general people see their bodies? You may not be conventionally physically attractive, but the spectrum of beauty operates beyond much more than that one narrow line. Confidence is attractive. Finding yourself beautiful is paramount; not easy, and not always possible in my experience, but paramount to feeling beautiful.

What makes you feel beautiful? Oh God, lots of things.

and just for fun… Do you shave legs/pits/upper lip moustache? More commonly than not, no, but sometimes I break under the constant whining of my family and significant other. I hate shaving. It’s a complete pain in the ass.

US SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS FEDERAL ABORTION BAN

The attention the Virginia Tech story is getting is causing a lot of things to slip under the radar, like the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the Federal Abortion ban. There’s a mention of it with some good commentary highlights at a bird and a bottle.

Regardless of how you feel about the subject, it’s easy to identify the process of elimination being put into play here.

If you would like to know more about the decision, here is a Planned Parenthood news brief with an outline of the situation.

The ban, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2003, criminalizes abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy that doctors say are safe and the best to protect women’s health.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent, (the entire text of which you can read at the Cornell Law School Archive) summarized the motives behind the decision pretty succinctly:

…the Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.

More from the Opinion:
Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of course, is now the only woman on the US Supreme Court.

Having a demented nutjob for a president, in addition to destroying the American world reputation, is going to have an unsettling impact on domestic issues for a long time to come.

Since I don’t really care about what Avril Lavigne thinks of Britney Spears, the article I’ve linked to below caught my attention.

Drug-proof TB Strain poses ethical bind from MSN.com:

Robert Daniels has been locked up indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life, since last July. But he has not been charged with a crime. Instead, he suffers from an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. It is considered virtually untreatable.

The article, of course, reveals more of the details surrounding the situation. Daniels, who is a Russian immigrant, “ignored” orders that were given by the doctors treating him. One of these orders was to wear a face mask while in public. He claims that he didn’t understand what the doctors meant or the importance of what they told him. His disregard for following their orders prompted the medical staff to place him under quarantine.

Tuberculosis (TB), however eradicated it’s become here in the U.S., is highly contagious. The disease is spread through coughing, sneezing, spitting, kissing - all the classic modes of transportation. As HIV infection rates have risen all over the world, tuberculosis has been making a comeback, preying on the compromised immune systems of the already seriously ill.

As the possibilities of a drug and treatment resistant outbreak loom, the dilemma exemplified in this man’s case is of growing concern to scientists and ethicists. Daniels has now been made an indefinite prisoner, having consciously committed no crime and facing little hope for recovery. To prevent an epidemic outbreak of drug resistent tuberculosis which, as you can probably guess, would be disastrous, he’s been put away with no concrete possibility for parole.

Is it acceptable and morally conscionable for this man’s rights to be repealed in an effort to ensure the public’s safety?

My gut reaction, and my logical reaction, are both to say yes. Medical isolation is the only available and viable option to prevent a spread of the infection. Yet, when I say this to myself, I know that it’s wildly unfair and that, if I were in the same situation, I would not want to be written off and shuttered away under lock and key because of something that was forced on me without my even knowing. “Too bad,” is the response I can see coming from many people. “It’s tragic. It’s sad. But it doesn’t change the fact that there’s billions of other people out there in the world who would want this man kept far away from their functioning tuberculosis-free lungs.”

Once we start sacrificing certain rights, however, the whole power structure is undermined. In the scenario of a worldwide infectious disease outbreak, where are we going to draw the line? Where will we say no? Once a family member becomes ill, are we going to stand by idly while they’re dragged away to the holding pen where all the diseased untouchables may end up living until they die? History and reality have shown us that when the issue at hand is the general welfare, the rights that every citizen previously thought they had are expendable.

Originally the county was not going to keep him in isolation, which was why he was instructed to wear a face mask. He didn’t wear it, they revoked his rights. (This is possibly a misstatement - the county in question won’t go into detail about why he was placed in quarantine.) Should he be freed because he didn’t understand what he was doing, or does that even matter? Whether or not he understood the consequences of his behavior, he was violating the safety precautions. He was putting the public at risk. Is the discussion even relevant if the consequences of his behavior are the same?

In the event that we, as a society, did accept and establish the necessity for a lifelong period of quarantine, what are a person’s rights then? Should euthanasia be a legal option for those who aren’t necessarily dying but may never be allowed into society again? Should they receive some sort of financial compensation? Where will they be allowed to live? What will they be allowed to have? In Daniels’ case, he hasn’t been allowed to shower and has had his phone, computer, television, and radio taken away from him. Prisoners at least get something to keep themselves from going mad.

In the United States, isolation and quarantine procedures are sanctioned for various diseases in order to facilitate targeted treatment to the ill and protect the general populace. There’s more information about it here at the Centers for Disease Control.

A scenario like this one poses a lot of questions. Unfortunately, for everyone, it does not seem to point to any answers.