Post #73: We are better than this

I'm blogging 30 posts in 30 days for National Health Blog Post Month with @wegohealth.

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I AM A DELICATE SPECIMEN OF WOMANHOOD WHO NEVER POOPS. Haha, just kidding.

 

Prompt: Why healthcare companies (or healthcare professionals) should use social media

 

First: the prompt. I think healthcare professionals can use social media in a positive way.

It's a fine line for a healthcare professional to walk, in terms of maintaining a professional distance and offering potentially useful information. I don't want to be friends with my doctor on Facebook (does the man who performs my colonoscopies really need to know any OTHER personal tidbits? He does not), but I do check in on another doctor's twitter feed because I think he offers interesting and pertinent information. I think social media, in terms of Crohn's patient/Crohn's professional, should be used in this model: short bursts of information on current drug trials; tweets from medical conventions; links to interesting articles. It's a way to get current information from a source who is well versed in the subject and exposed to current research and scholarly discussion. Should doctors be dispensing medical advice online? Probably not. A twitter feed will never replace a physical. But it can be a way to inform, empower, and educate patients.

 

What I really want to talk about is this article. It has me all hopped up and rant-y. The author is discussing pooping at work (zzzzz), but she includes a few choice quotes about discovering how "taboo" a topic poop is while working in her college's theatre department:

 

"Because to be a woman and to talk about poop -- about anyone’s, but especially your own -- that’s subversive. It’s weird. It’s immature. It’s inappropriate. Those same senior girls in the theatre shop taught me a lot about being a modern feminist, sometimes engaging in serious debates about what being female even means, and conversations about sex and sexuality were explicit, positive, and frank.

 

Yet it was talking about shitting that had people in the costume shop up in arms. “You guys stop -- that’s so gross,” said a male coworker."

 

And later:

 

"As human beings, there are facets of our humanity that link us. I think it’s important, living in an age like ours that preaches connectivity but breeds isolation, that we remember these links whenever we can. We all poop, male or female, and perpetuating the idea that women don’t is hurtful to us, not just as a gender but as a people. I think about it the workplace most of all, especially when I read articles on the glass ceiling.

 

Its existence is one of those pernicious realities that rears up and hits me in the face every time. When I sit there worrying about equality and about the sort of world I might one day be bringing daughters into, it’s something I worry about explaining. “You’ll never make as much money as your brother, and a lot of people will think it’s weird or gross if you have to poop at work.”

 

The point of the article is that yes, everybody poops, and yes, woman should feel free to poop in the workplace, and that as women we are still sometimes ashamed of our bodily functions, as if they make us vulnerable or weak.

 

WTF.

 

I agree with the point of the article; what infuriates me is the fact that someone felt the need to explicitly state the obvious-that women do, in fact, eliminate waste JUST LIKE MEN-in response to cultural stereotypes about women and bodily functions. Also annoying? The author seems to want commendation for her candor. Look, lady, I'm glad you're talking about poop, I really am. But I'm not going to give you a medal for writing about such a big scary TABOO subject when in doing so you are unintentionally reinforcing the same tired stereotypes you hope to dispel.

 

I can't believe this is a topic that is still worthy of discussion.

 

I feel like we can't be normal about poop. I'm not saying this as a Crohn's patient, just as a lady about town. Women are herded into two camps; we can either avoid the topic like the plague and get the vapors when it is discussed, or cheerfully discuss our bowel movements in explicit detail. There is no middle ground-we can't simply be normal about our poop. This binary divide, as presented in the article, posits that to avoid discussion is repression; to embrace it, feminism. I don't buy it.

 

Look, I'm probably not the best example of the middle ground: you are, after all, reading this rant on a blog where I talk frankly about my Crohn's disease, which by its very nature necessitates a lot of conversation about poop. But I don't think that I am a bad feminist, or a bad representative for this disease, if I don't loudly and proudly detail my bowel habits so other woman can feel less shame about their own bodies.

 

There are, as the article states, many things that connect us as human beings. But let's get real: talking about poop is not necessarily an indication of connectivity of gender equality. It's not the last frontier of conversational acceptability. Yes, we all poop, some of us more than others (hi!). But knowing that doesn't make me feel more equal, or connected to, the guy sitting next to me at the DMV. Talking about it doesn't make me brave. And focusing on it does not tear down the walls of shame; it only reinforces the idea that there is still a wall that needs toppling instead of looking beyond the wall for topics more worthy of discussion.