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Wellness is not women’s friend. It’s a distraction from what really ails us

<div class="theconversation-article-body"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-seers-1131296">Kate Seers</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-hogg-321332">Rachel Hogg</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Wellness is mainly marketed to women. We’re encouraged to eat clean, take <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYqaatWPxvy/">personal responsibility</a> for our well-being, happiness and life. These are the hallmarks of a strong, independent woman in 2022. But on the eve of International Women’s Day, let’s look closer at this <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalism-colonised-feminism-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-94856">neoliberal feminist</a> notion of wellness and personal responsibility – the idea women’s health and well-being depends on our individual choices. We argue wellness is not concerned with actual well-being, whatever wellness “guru” and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow <a href="https://goop.com/wellness/">suggests</a>, or influencers say on Instagram. Wellness is an industry. It’s also a seductive distraction from what’s really impacting women’s lives. It glosses over the structural issues undermining women’s well-being. These issues cannot be fixed by drinking a turmeric latte or #livingyourbestlife. <h2>What is wellness?</h2> Wellness <a href="https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/statistics-and-facts/">is an</a> unregulated US$4.4 trillion global industry due to reach almost $7 trillion by 2025. It promotes self-help, self-care, fitness, nutrition and spiritual practice. It <a href="https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/what-is-wellness/">encourages</a> good choices, intentions and actions. Wellness is alluring because it feels empowering. Women are left with a sense of control over their lives. It is particularly alluring in times of great uncertainty and limited personal control. These might be during a relationship break up, when facing financial instability, workplace discrimination or a global pandemic. But wellness is not all it seems. <h2>Wellness blames women</h2> Wellness implies women are flawed and need to be fixed. It demands women resolve their psychological distress, improve their lives and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1360780418769673?journalCode=sroa">bounce back from adversity</a>, regardless of personal circumstances. Self-responsibility, self-empowerment and self-optimisation underpin how women are expected to think and behave. As such, wellness <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZs2iIxrSwb/">patronises women</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CT3bw_Yhsp6/">micro-manages their daily schedules</a> with journaling, skin care routines, 30-day challenges, meditations, burning candles, yoga and lemon water. Wellness encourages women to improve their appearance through diet and exercise, manage <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ7IO7qJHZ_/">their surroundings</a>, <a href="https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5489-female-leadership-advice.html">performance at work</a> and their capacity to <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/working-women-balance">juggle the elusive work-life balance</a> as well as <a href="https://medium.com/authority-magazine/having-a-positive-mental-attitude-and-thinking-process-is-a-successful-key-to-healthy-wellbeing-ae11e303969c">their emotional responses</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/planning-stress-and-worry-put-the-mental-load-on-mothers-will-2022-be-the-year-they-share-the-burden-172599">to these pressures</a>. They do this with support from costly life coaches, psychotherapists and self-help guides. Wellness demands women <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaFc2o7OHSf/">focus on their body</a>, with one’s body a measure of their commitment to the task of wellness. Yet this ignores how much these choices and actions cost. Newsreader and journalist Tracey Spicer <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDh28nBp4k/">says</a> she has spent more than A$100,000 over the past 35 years for her hair to “look acceptable” at work. Wellness keeps women <a href="https://www.hercampus.com/school/bu/the-male-gazes-effect-from-beauty-ideals-to-mental-health/">focused on their appearance</a> and keeps them spending. It’s also <a href="https://medium.com/artfullyautistic/the-dark-reality-of-wellness-culture-and-ableism-307307fcdafb">ableist</a>, <a href="https://www.byrdie.com/wellness-industry-whitewashing-5074880">racist</a>, <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2020/07/16/tools-of-the-patriarchy-diet-culture-and-how-we-all-perpetuate-the-stigma/">sexist</a>, <a href="https://www.self.com/topic/anti-aging">ageist</a> and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/422517/the-pursuit-of-wellness-wellness-is-for-the-wealthy">classist</a>. It’s aimed at an ideal of young women, thin, white, middle-class and able-bodied. <h2>But we can’t live up to these ideals</h2> Wellness assumes women have equal access to time, energy and money to meet these ideals. If you don’t, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/08/the-self-help-cult-of-resilience-teaches-australians-nothing">you’re just not trying hard enough</a>”. Wellness also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1360780418769673?journalCode=sroa">implores women</a> to be “adaptable and positive”. If an individual’s #positivevibes and wellness are seen as <a href="https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-should-say-no-to-positivity-and-yes-to-our-negative-emotions/">morally good</a>, then it becomes morally necessary for women to engage in behaviours framed as “investments” or “self-care”. For those who do not achieve self-optimisation (hint: most of us) this is a personal, shameful failing. <h2>Wellness distracts us</h2> When women believe they are to blame for their circumstances, it hides structural and cultural inequities. Rather than questioning the culture that marginalises women and produces feelings of doubt and inadequacy, wellness provides solutions in the form of superficial empowerment, confidence and resilience. Women don’t need wellness. They are unsafe. <a href="https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/">Women are</a> <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/personal-safety-australia/latest-release">more likely</a> to be murdered by a current or former intimate partner, with reports of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-governments-can-do-about-the-increase-in-family-violence-due-to-coronavirus-135674">pandemic increasing</a> the risk and severity of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/01/the-worst-year-domestic-violence-soars-in-australia-during-covid-19">domestic violence</a>. Women are more likely to be employed in unstable <a href="https://lighthouse.mq.edu.au/article/april-2020/Pandemics-economic-blow-hits-women-hard">casualised labour, and experience economic hardship and poverty</a>. Women are also bearing the brunt <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/womens-work/">of the economic fallout from COVID</a>. Women are more likely to be juggling a career with <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1972">unpaid domestic duties</a> and more likely <a href="https://www.mercyfoundation.com.au/our-focus/ending-homelessness/older-women-and-homelessness/">to be homeless</a> as they near retirement age. In their book <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/confidence-culture#:%7E:text=They%20argue%20that%20while%20confidence,responsible%20for%20their%20own%20conditions.">Confidence Culture</a> UK scholars Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue hashtags such as #loveyourbody and #believeinyourself imply psychological blocks, rather than entrenched social injustices, are what hold women back. <h2>What we should be doing instead</h2> Wellness, with its self-help rhetoric, <a href="http://www.consultmcgregor.com/documents/research/neoliberalism_and_health_care.pdf">absolves the government</a> of responsibility to provide transformative and effectual action that ensures women are safe, delivered justice, and treated with respect and dignity. Structural inequity was not created by an individual, and it will not be solved by an individual. So this International Women’s Day, try to resist the neoliberal requirement to take personal responsibility for your wellness. Lobby governments to address structural inequities instead. <a href="https://www.mindful.org/why-women-should-embrace-their-anger/">Follow your anger</a>, not your bliss, call out injustices when you can. And in the words of sexual assault survivor and advocate Grace Tame, “make some noise”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kate-seers-1131296">Kate Seers</a>, PhD Candidate, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachel-hogg-321332">Rachel Hogg</a>, Lecturer in Psychology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/charles-sturt-university-849">Charles Sturt University</a> Image credits: Shutterstock This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/wellness-is-not-womens-friend-its-a-distraction-from-what-really-ails-us-177446">original article</a>. </div>

Mind

Office worker sent home for “distracting” outfit

An office worker has claimed she was sent home from work for wearing a “distracting” dress. US woman Marie Dee wore a black figure-hugging dress with a high neckline to her office on a standard work day, but a human resources employee allegedly deemed her outfit inappropriate. The mother-of-two secretly filmed herself being confronted by the “HR girl” who dubbed her dress “way too revealing and distracting” for the office. “Guys it happened again, I’m getting sent home for my outfit,” Marie said in the viral TikTok video. “This is getting ridiculous.” The footage shows Marie walking over to the HR employee’s office to ask what was wrong with her outfit. “I’m sorry you still can’t wear that. It’s way too revealing and distracting,” the HR woman can be heard saying. Confused, Marie responded, “It’s distracting?” to which the HR staff member replied, “Very.” The video has been viewed more than 20 million times, with thousands of commenters jumping to Marie’s defence. “I’m an HR leader and I think your outfit is professional and polished,” one said. Another wrote, “You look very professional, I think the HR girl is a bit jealous that you are so beautiful.” One suggested, “I’m an HR manager and I would wear that myself!” Another added, “You look great and very professional... I don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Another person said, “HR seems to be overstepping here. I don’t think anything is wrong here.” Image credits: TikTok

Beauty & Style

Adorably distracted beagle steals hearts at Westminster Dog Show

In the world of sports, there’s nothing quite like the pressure of being on the field under the eyes of thousands of eager fans – even when you’re a dog, apparently! Mia the beagle has become the unexpected star of the Westminster Dog Show after her hilariously distracted performance in the agility competition. After a strong start, the sweet pup decided there were better things to do. See the delightful moment above and tell us in the comments, has your dog ever competed at a dog show? Video: Fox Sports 1 / Facebook Related links: <a href="/news/news/2017/02/students-raise-600-dollars-in-single-night-for-dogs-surgery/">Students raise $600 in a single night for dog’s surgery</a> <a href="/news/news/2017/02/millie-the-wombat-enjoys-much-needed-sprinkler-bath/">Millie the wombat enjoys much-needed sprinkler bath</a> <a href="/news/news/2017/02/smokey-the-wombat-devours-meal/">Smokey the wombat devours meal before it’s ready</a>

News

Why do we procrastinate?

Jim Selman, a 70-something-year-old guy, is determined not to let the cultural conversation of what it means to grow older and what is and isn’t possible as we age define the rest of his life. Why do we procrastinate? As with many of my less agreeable habits, I decided to do a workshop on the subject for a European client late last year. The overarching question of why we procrastinate was framed a bit more specifically as “Why don’t we do the things we KNOW we need to do to accomplish what we SAY we want to accomplish?” The correlation to this question is if we don’t know what to do, why do we put off some action to learn or be coached to move forward to achieve whatever we say we want? One of the first things that became obvious is that everyone has a conversation about procrastination. No one has ever said, “I always do what I need to do when I need to do it”. Furthermore, it is generally a negative self-assessment. I also haven’t heard anyone say “I am just fine and happy not doing what I know I need to do.” There always seems to be some explanation or justification and most of us know that whatever our story, it is a pretty thin excuse. The excuse I hear most often is a variation of “it’s just the way I am”, which somehow seems to stop the conversation and kill any possibility of changing one’s practices. I am sure there must be some super-disciplined people who do manage themselves and their schedules so that everything they do is a conscious choice, but I think they are rare and the exceptions that prove the rule. As we delved into our own experience as procrastinators we could see that the overriding belief that justifies most procrastination is a misconception about the nature of time. Most of us believe that there is a future — in the future. That is, we say that we’ll get to it tomorrow as if tomorrow exists independent of today. As a consequence, shifting or delaying a task to another day is as easy as moving the furniture in your office. If we think about it, tomorrow doesn’t exist yet, and when we wake up it will be today again. Tomorrow never arrives and is always a concept in our mind today. It is a pure abstraction that we believe is ‘real’. Moreover, we generally think about tomorrow as an extension of the past. This is the basis for the famous French aphorism: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” One of my favourite formulations for this idea is that “Yesterday is just a memory, tomorrow is just a dream and today is always just a conversation — usually about yesterday and tomorrow”. But action can only happen in the present. Action can never happen in the future. A second rationale that contributes to the persistence of the habit of procrastinating is that whatever the ‘it’ is that we’re putting off doesn’t matter, or it doesn’t matter if it gets done. This is reinforced sometimes as a choice about priority, although most of us know that the priority justification usually follows the moment we decide or begin to procrastinate, and that it is not uncommon to then procrastinate about doing whatever we thought was a higher priority. There always seems to be another ‘something’ to displace whatever it is that we’re putting off. This leads to the question of whether procrastination is a choice at all. In fact, we can easily observe it as a pattern that is omnipresent and over which we generally have no control. I say ‘generally’ because it is also true that from time to time we grit our ‘teeth’ and ‘just do it’. I am thinking of when I finally resolve to clean the garage today and force myself into action regardless of the nagging desire to do almost anything else instead. Like most strong habits, patterns or even addictions — the issue is more the persistence of the undesired behaviour as much as whatever the behaviour may be. There is certainly nothing ‘wrong’ with putting off something or choosing to do something else. The problem is always the self-judgment and meaning we give to the practice afterwards. A variation of “darn, why don’t I have more will power” or “I should have done it, or should do it now or should be more motivated or whatever ever else I think I should be or do to get it done”. The final insight we learned about ourselves followed some reflection about what is going on when we DON’T procrastinate. What we saw was that when we are genuinely committed, we either get it done or are pulled into some other action and do not ‘feel bad’ about not getting it done. In other words, when we are committed and in action, there is no procrastination, even if we aren’t doing everything on our ‘to do’ list. This suggests that procrastination doesn’t really exist, other than as some set of judgments about what we are doing or not doing. Moreover, procrastination is a conversation that is more of a cover-up than an excuse. It blinds us to the fact that we’re always choosing, and allows us to conceal or deny our responsibility for our choices. When I beat myself up for putting off something I think I SHOULD BE DOING, or feel bad when I don’t do what I know I should do, then I am blaming procrastination for my actions and even for my experience. I am giving my power to the pattern or the habit, and eventually becoming resigned that I have no choice about whether I procrastinate or not. At the end of the day, we realised as I realise now, that procrastination is not a problem it is a choice. When we remember that we are the chooser we can disconnect from our story about the way we are or the way it is and become present to what is calling to us to be done. We can learn to ‘listen’ for what really needs doing, as opposed to what is merely important or desirable. The more we learn to be present, the less time we spend in yesterday and tomorrow, and the more fully we can experience and participate in life as it is happening each and every moment of today. I am now learning to uses my procrastination habit as a reminder and a way of learning to live in the present, free of guilt and negative judgments about what I am not doing and becoming more fully alive and appreciative of what I am doing. To read more from Jim’s blog, visit his website <a href="http://www.sereneambition.com/" target="_blank">Serene Ambition here.</a> If you have an opinion to share please get in touch at <a href="mailto:melody@oversixty.com.au">melody@oversixty.com.au</a>. Related links: <a href="/health/mind/2016/06/5-steps-to-help-you-speak-your-mind/">5 steps to help you speak your mind</a> <a href="/health/mind/2016/05/how-to-beat-self-doubt/">How self-doubt holds you back</a> <a href="/health/mind/2016/05/self-care-essentials-to-enrich-your-life/">Self care essentials to enrich your life</a>

Mind

It’s bad to distract kids with iPads and phones

It’s all too easy these days to distract kids with smartphones or iPads, especially when they’re in the midst of a tantrum, but you may want to stop in light of this new research. According to a 2016 study published in the journal Pediatrics, children who are regularly given electronic devices to distract or calm them could have developmental issues later in life. Furthermore, when playing with devices replace hands-on activities it could impede children’s motor development. Researchers also warn using a smartphone or tablet as a pacifier could have repercussions when children have to learn how to control their impulses. "It has been well-studied that increased television time decreases a child's development of language and social skills. Mobile media use similarly replaces the amount of time spent engaging in direct human-human interaction," said Jenny Radesky, lead author and clinical instructor in Developmental-Behavioural Paediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. However don’t berate yourself just yet. Radesky does highlight the fact it’s a new area of research. "The impact these mobile devices are having on the development and behaviour of children is still relatively unknown," she says. While a lot more research needs to be done, Radesky recommends parents and guardians interact with children while using the technological devices and to not pass them off as a quick fix when a meltdown starts. She also reminds everyone to unplug and do non-technological activities from time to time. Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/15-things-kids-of-today-are-missing-out-on/">15 things kids of today are missing out on</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/grandparents-make-grandchildren-happy-study/">Why the grandparent grandchild relationship is important for happiness</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/easy-recipes-for-children/">30 cheap – or free – holiday activities to do with grandkids</a>

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