PCOS Messages for May, 2001: Re: insensitive friend question (sort of long and involved!)

Re: insensitive friend question (sort of long and involved!)

From: jodi (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Thu, 31 May 2001 09:45:29 -0500 (CDT)

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Ooooh... I have had this happen so many times!!! I know this guy who thinks the perfect woman is anorexic and hairless. I mean, body-hair-less... It's very eay to set up your own bboard at my school and a friend of mine set up her own, and for some reason topics of weight and leg shaving come up a lot... More in a liberated woman sort of way than a PCOS way... And this guy would always say things like, Fat people just have no self control... and Any woman with facial hair shouldn't go out in public... stuff like that. I said to him, if fat people have no self control and they are fat JUST because they overeat, how do you explain people who no diet works for, but give them an insulin sensitizing agent, and presto, they lose weight? He had no answer.

Whenever I hear people critisizing women for facial hair or whatever, I say "You know, she didn't CHOOSE to be that way. Women with facial hair have serious underlying medical problems, and there's really not much they can do to address it from a cosmetic standpoint. A lot of things just make it worse."

As for those creams he mentioned... you should have said to him, "And do you know how much those cost? Maybe she can't afford them. It's not like insurance will poay for them, even though they will pay for medications to give a man a hard-on!" Or you might say, "You know, it's really embarrassing for a woman to have facial hair. Maybe she's too embarassed to seek help, and doesn't know that anything can be done about it."

I don't know if such things really help any, but that's usually my type of response. As for whether or not he was hinting at you... ehhhh, i can't say. If someone says something like this around me, I will sometimes say, "You know, a lot of women have facial hair to deal with. I have a few chin hairs that I need to pluck. Some women have more. No one choses to be that way, but what can you do? I'm sure you've got some flaws of your own." Most people don't even realize I have a facial hair problem. I keep up with plucking as best as I can, and the growth is mainly UNDER my chin so unless I am looking up, in broad sunlight, most people can't tell by looks, only by feel. Hell, even my boyfriend said when I brought it up, "I didn't realise you had an unusal amount of facial hair for a woman. You can't tell by look, just by touchl!"

What a charming boy. :-) Lucky me that I'm his first serious (ie, intimate) girlfriend, so he doesn't really have any serious hands-on experience with other girls to compare me to... I feel like I can get away with having more flaws than avergae!

- Jodi

At Thu, 31 May 2001, Alicia wrote: >
>This is more of a personal situation semi-related to PCOS, but I am
>looking for opinions on how to handle it.
>
>I have a male friend with whom I talk quite a bit. (He used to like me,
>but I decided we were better as friends.) He does not know about PCOS
>and I don't think he needs to know. He's just a friend after all. Well,
>the other day we were sitting and drinking coffee at Starbucks and he
>brings up this woman he saw with a full beard. He said he always sees
>her when he's leaving work and she looks at him with a crazy expression.
>He goes on and on about how there are creams and things to help with
>that. And that, definitively, women should not have beards. He almost
>sounded offended by her existence.
>
>My response was to smile and say, "Oh, really?"
>
>My own paranoia and experience has caused me to examine this
>conversation in several ways.
>
>One, was he telling me this to try and tell ME something, as in, "I
>notice something on your face, too. So what's up with that?" (It could
>be spiteful, seing as I turned him down as a romantic interest last
>year.)
>
>Or is he just a misinformed and insensitive man (who is far from a
>perfect specimen himself) voicing his opinion about women (as some men
>feel they are entitled to do)?
>
>And how should I have handled this? I could have launched in to a story
>about PCOS, and how it's a common and "legitimate" reason for a woman to
>have a beard. (But I didn't want him to start staring at my chin and
>asking me if I have it.)
>
>Any opinions? I am slightly annoyed by his comments and next time he
>says anything like that I want to be prepared. I guess I am offended
>that HE seemed so offended by this woman's face!

Next message: AdoptASAP: "Re: Ovulation day of temp spike?"
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In reply to: Alicia: "insensitive friend question (sort of long and involved!)"
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