Lori Alexander: Leaving the House is Bad For Your Health

[browngrl]

Why does Lori keep on harping about testosterone? For the record, testosterone has anabolic (e.g. increased muscle mass) and androgenic effects (e.g. male secondary sexual characteristics) but it is NOT a stress hormone. It will not help you cope with the stress of working outside the home (or working inside the home). Why doesn't Lori comment on the fact that men also have estrogen? Lori makes these grand sweeping generalizations based on little more than her opinion, Ken"the man"'s opinion and selected Biblical quotes. If I thought it would do any good I would challenge her to back up her statements with facts not opinions.

[snarkyjan]

Leaving the house is bad for my health only if I run into Lori.

[Hane]

According to my hubby-with-an-actual-medical-degree, staying home often increases your chances of death or disability. Staying mentally and physically active, socializing and having a sense of purpose are important to our well-being.

Way back in the '50s, when almost all the women in our social circle were housewives or SAHMs, one of the moms lost a child to leukemia and fell into a deep depression. Her doctor actually TOLD her to get a job, and it did eventually help her mental state.

Oh, Lori and your one-size-fits-all worldview.

OT silly thing: A friend gave me a giftcard and I used it to buy a dress I really like. So I did something I almost never do: I wore a dress to work. It was colorful and comfortable and lifted my spirits. And I thought, "Wow--if I were Lori, I'd be blogging about how EVERYBODY should wear dresses and a string of beads and ballet flats ALL the time, and that women who didn't cared nothing about their appearance and disrespected themselves and others and blah blah blah."

Heh--it all just meant that people got stuck having to look at my stumpy legs and cankles.

[ZTwist]

Listening to a memorial for Lily Pulitzer this morning, her whole business started when she opened an orange juice stand because her doctor told her to find something to do.

Same with my grandmother (born 1904); she was having a "nervous breakdown" and her doctor told her to get a job and get out of the house. She taught second grade for thirty years after that.

My kids are grown, and I know if I didn't volunteer several days a week, I'd be a basket case.

[Hane]

Same with my grandmother (born 1904); she was having a "nervous breakdown" and her doctor told her to get a job and get out of the house. She taught second grade for thirty years after that.

My kids are grown, and I know if I didn't volunteer several days a week, I'd be a basket case.

It's chilling to realize that Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is based on the crappy "medical" advice the author was given in real life: to alleviate "depression and hysteria," a woman is ordered to stop reading and writing. The main character in the story winds up going mad. I would, too.

[desertvixen]

HoneyBunny, I hear you on that one.

[snuggles911]

So what would her advice be for the women who get depressed because they are stuck at home with children?

She wouldn't have any advice; she's never experienced it and lacks the empathy to understand what other mothers might feel. I stayed home for two years when my oldest children were very young. I was not only depressed: I was a bitch. Plus, I was stressed out from constantly being broke. When I finally found some part-time work that would get me out of the house I would have done it for minimum wage. I'm much happier as a working mom.

[Minerva]

Because the middle-class trophy wives of the good ol' days totally weren't prone to depression. Here's another suggestion for women who feel that they have to work and do all the house work: have your husband do half. It's absolute horseshit that people with ovaries are biologically programmed to want to do housework, but we all know Lori's gullible as fuck, so I'm not surprised she believes that.

Predictably, I can't find any basis for her claim that people with higher testosterone levels are better at managing stress.

[mlady]

This woman is a tool.

I stayed home. I mean, I was a SAHM for many many years. By choice. I don't regret it but there was a difference between focusing on my family and not having a job and STAYING HOME ALL THE TIME. I didn't do that. Looking back I can see that being a SAHM is full of pros and cons and not every family is going to benefit from the same things. In fact, it's only now that my kids are grown and I'm on my own that I've taken much interest in things like decorating and gardening and cooking. I only did the bare minimum while being a SAHM, now I enjoy doing it. I also work again.

[DifferentGurl]

Great! I can now use this excuse to tell my therapist why I shouldn't be out that much, socializing! It'll be bad for my health! :cracking-up: :P

[RosyDaisy]

Reading Lori makes my blood pressure rise.

[AVENues]

That's why you need to stay in the kitchen Lori. And let us live.

[Trynn]

Wait, she orders us to get sun, then tells us not to leave the house?

[Dysfundamental]

I actually do have a malfunctioning adrenal system at the moment (and mammoth daily pills to prove it) and the stressor that most likely tipped it over the edge wasn't work, but caring for my father in his last illness. Which is the quintessence of the traditional "feminine" role, so bite me, Lori.

[lilwriter85]

Why does Lori keep on harping about testosterone? For the record, testosterone has anabolic (e.g. increased muscle mass) and androgenic effects (e.g. male secondary sexual characteristics) but it is NOT a stress hormone. It will not help you cope with the stress of working outside the home (or working inside the home). Why doesn't Lori comment on the fact that men also have estrogen? Lori makes these grand sweeping generalizations based on little more than her opinion, Ken"the man"'s opinion and selected Biblical quotes. If I thought it would do any good I would challenge her to back up her statements with facts not opinions.

First off ,I will admit that I'm not huge expert on biology and some of the topics Lori has covered. I have learned a lot from other FJers that know science well. I do wonder why Lori keeps harping on the same topics regarding testosterone and estrogen. She does make sweeping generalizations about the bodies of men and women. She annoyed me in a posting several months back where she talked about the differences between men and women's bodies. We can all agree, that men and women do have different bodies. But Lori made a dumbass comment about men could play football and women couldn't. That was one of the stupidest things I had ever heard. Not all able bodied men can play football. Men can have different body types and abilities. Football coaches, trainers, and others will straight up say that not all men can play football. There are some men that are stronger than other men, some women are stronger than other women, and some women are stronger than men.

Lori's Biblical dominionist attitude is annoying as fuck for several reasons. I know many Christians who are devout, but they don't believe in shoving their beliefs down other people's throats like Lori does and they know that the Bible can't rule over everything on Earth. Lori forgets the key fact that other religions existed before Christianity and she ignores the contradictions in the Bible.

[Dysfundamental]

Who would you pick for your football team, Venus Williams or Danny DeVito? So shut up, Lori.

[jenny_islander]

I don't know about her grandmother, but mine worked. And my great grandmother worked their farm. We don't have any fading violets in my family.

Has there ever in Christendom been a time when most women did unpaid scrubbing, cooking, etc., inside the four walls of their houses? Has she ever seen pictures of Ye Olde Bucolicke Farme Lyfe? The women are out there working just as hard as the men.

June, as shown in a rich man's prayer book. Women working barefoot outdoors, raking together piles of hay that the men have cut: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 5_F6_V.jpg

July, hauling heavy sheaves as the men cut down the standing wheat, and also taking a break right next to the men instead of sweating in the kitchen: http://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/articles/i ... _large.jpg

Googling "medieval women shopkeepers," "medieval women craftspeople," or just "medieval women art" will turn up images of women milking cows, running pubs, hunting deer with hounds (not a man in sight--the entire party is women, hunt assistants and all), and even on horseback fighting with swords (not in an allegorical way: they are actually fighting to defend their city). The "medieval" paintings and engravings showing dainty ladies weakly embracing the necks of valiant knights are all Victorian products!

Going back to those farm women, they all wanted more money because money meant security. They grabbed at any chance they could get to make money. Cottage industries were conducted mostly by farm or fishing women who spun, wove, made lace, etc., whenever they had a spare moment. When these cottage industries moved into factories, so did the women. While Victorian artists were making money painting their fantasies of manly medieval men and passive medieval women, actual women were working with heavy machinery.

They knew that their place was wherever they could find the means to keep their families fed. Their hard labor supported the class that could afford to pontificate about women's place being in the home . . . with an army of servants to make sure that she never, ever had to have a hair out of place.

[alba]

They knew that their place was wherever they could find the means to keep their families fed. Their hard labor supported the class that could afford to pontificate about women's place being in the home . . . with an army of servants to make sure that she never, ever had to have a hair out of place.

This. And in 19th-century cities they were often working harder than the men, not because the men were lazy but because factory owners could pay women (and children) less than men, so guess who they employed? People like Phyllis Schlafly who think women should get paid less to encourage them to stay at home with children really need to learn some history.

[LostSamurai]

I can't stay home....even when I'm off work, as I am this week.

I get too antsy and hyper and as stated already, most doctors will tell you that walking and fresh air and mental stimulation are good for the soul.

So fuck off Lori.

[Confused_by_religion]

:cracking-up: :cracking-up:

Actually, if in at least one picture in the Tres Riches Heurs du Duc de Berry you can see men and women warming themselves in front of the fire and you can see their lady bits (and men bits, of course, which look quite...shrunken, to be honest) - so not only did they work, they weren't too modest, either - HA! TAKE THIS, defenderes of Ye Olde Buckolicke Lyfestyle!!!