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My humble little blog has been getting a fair amount of traffic lately by people who are directed towards my anti-cosmetics rant after employing search terms like “cosmetic testing: the against argument” and “people against cosmetics” (just two recent examples). I wrote the anti-cosmetics post because it’s an issue I’ve been thinking about recently and I wanted a venue in which to develop and express my opinions. I didn’t think of it as categorically different than any of my other blog posts, but now I wonder if I didn’t produce an infinitely plagiarize-able piece of writing.
Could it be that freshman English students across the country who have been assigned one of those standard PRO/CON controversial social issue paper on, say, animal testing or cosmetics, are turning to my blog as an ideal source for “borrowing” from?
I know that my own students, who are plagiarizers of the first degree, will steal language from any source on the web, from published academic books and articles to “buy your own paper” sites to some random dude’s homepage. So, personal opinion blog posts are fair game — more fodder for the “I don’t have to think if I can find it on the web” generation.
Having spent many hours of my life googling my students’ papers over the past few years, I’ve often stumbled across web pages put up by other academics, clearly for the use and benefit of their own students, but employed for nefarious ends by my own. I’ve wondered whether these academics are aware of how their websites are being used and even considered contacting them to let them know.
Here’s a mock email I might send:
—
Dear XXX,
Recently I discovered that one of my students had plagiarized from your website on [major author / text / historical period]. My student copied [a great deal / a small amount / the entirety] of the information provided on your site. It appears that you created the website for the use of your own students, perhaps to share your notes, to provide helpful contextual information, to direct their reading or research, or even to summarize the insights they developed during class discussion. These are all laudable pedagogical uses of the web. However, your site is now being misused by my students and, while the responsibility clearly rests upon my students to comply with academic standards and upon me to teach them how to locate and cite appropriate sources, it might also be worthwhile for you to either take down the site, if it is no longer in use, or, at the very least, remove it from internet indexes so it cannot be found by students like mine who simply google [major author / text / historical period] and easily find your site.
Sincerely, The Bittersweet Girl
—
What do you think? Too hostile? The hostility is generated by my cheatin’ students but eventually it tends to spill over onto anyone associated with their plagiarism, even the unknowing, innocent source.
But, come on, all those website academics put up a few years ago when the web seem so new and fresh, and then walked away and forgot about … leaving them as fair game for cheaters … it does piss me off. We don’t need to make it any easier for them.
Which leads me back to my blog post on cosmetics. I like that post. I spent a lot of time on it. It reflects my thinking process, the slow crystallization of my opinions. But, I’m very tempted to “poof” it, in the fear that there is some professor out there who’s unknowingly grading my blog.
Damn lazy students. As if the world isn’t going to hell already.
Golden Boy and I threw our first big party this weekend. First ever. We’ve lived in our house for several years but, what with the “endless house repairs” and the “no decent furniture” excuses, we’ve managed to avoid having a mass of people over. That came to an end last night. The party was a success — everyone had a good time, there was plenty of food and drink, even enough places for people to sit (never underestimate the value of the folding chair). But, the whole thing was a massive time suck. I started cleaning/organizing on Thursday, then spent all of Friday and Saturday in frantic prep mode. Yes, that’s right, I spent two and a half days preparing for this party. Now, on Sunday, I am so exhausted that the idea of tackling any of my work is just a joke. I spent the morning cleaning up after the party but I think the rest of my day will be defined by absolute laziness. That 400 page novel I’m supposed to read? The stack of papers I need to grade? I don’t think so.
I know I am an over-preparer of the worst kind but, jeez, this party has seriously taken over my life. I don’t think I’ll be doing this again for a long, long time.
It’s only week four here at Mid-State U but my students are out-doing themselves with their stories of hardship and woe. A few outstanding entries in the Student Excuse category:
* Student X’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and s/he had to travel to hir family’s distant location to deal with medical care issues.
* Student X has family in the South and has to go there to help them evacuate.
* Student X is in the military and has to go to the South to help with the hurricane evacuation.
* Student X was the victim of a crime and has to go to court to deal with it but s/he’s got the crime report to show me to prove that it happened.
You’ll be thinking that I’m terribly callous to characterize any of these scenarios as fictions … but what if I told you that Student X was one individual? Suddenly seems like a perfect storm of bad luck, doesn’t it?
But here’s the real winner:
Student Y has to miss class because hir sister is giving birth … and feels necessary to add that Student Y’s Sister had gone through a traumatic birth last year in which she gave birth to multiple babies but none survived. To prove that Student Y is not making up this terrible story, s/he provides a link to a website about the death of the babies but warns me that it includes graphic pictures.
WTF? Is Student Y really purchasing an excused absence with pictures of hir deceased nieces/nephews? Am I really supposed to have such a prurient curiosity that I would click on the link and scroll around in someone else’s misery?
These students need to chill with the excuses.
I hate to admit it to myself but I think I have to buy a rolling laptop/book bag. You know, the kind that looks like luggage. With wheels. And one of those extendable handles.
I really hate those bags. They are firmly associated in my mind with Education teachers: frumpy, uncool, always with lots of “activities” planned for their classes that require lots of “supplies” (hence the need for the rolling bag). I see a middle-aged white woman in a long floral skirt and cardigan sweater walking across campus and pulling a rolling book bag behind her and I think: Education. And yes, if you are gathering that I have a general disrespect for the discipline of Education, well, I gotta admit that too.
Still, I think those ladies are onto something. In the past year I switched to a single laptop rather than two desktops (one at home, one in the office) so I’ve been schlepping my laptop to campus every day and it’s killing my back. The other day, as I laboriously made my way from my car to my office, I realized that I was carrying on one shoulder: my laptop, one massive anthology, two regular sized books, an umbrella, my lunch, a full water bottle, several fat file folders, and my purse. No wonder that, by the time I got home that day, I had strained my back.
So, I’m looking for suggestions: Anyone have a rolling laptop/book bag they love?
Bear in mind that I am a) totally unfashionable and b) cheap. I don’t want something super fancy or eye-catching — although I would certainly pay more for a bag made from natural or organic materials, or whatever green options there might be.
And you can also let me have it for bad-mouthing Education, if you want.
When I was a graduate student at Fancy Pants University, I was a devout groupie of the Young Cutting Edge Famous Profs in the department. Like most of my fellow grad students, I saw the YCEFPs as something to aspire to and a reasonable expectation for my own career path (how wrong I was!). I was also so star-struck by the YCEFPs that I joined my cohort in scorning all the other members of the department — the ancient geezers who seemed completely out of touch, the older Feminists, Marxists, or New Historicists who just didn’t get it, the mommy profs who were never around, the profs who just refused to play the fame game … I didn’t see the value or relevance of any of these other forms of professordom.
There was a prof in my field who was one of those that I disrespected. I took a course with her and her approach just seemed so tame and old-fashioned to me — that is to say, it wasn’t laden with theory. She was a very ordinary person, personality-wise, unlike the sexy, dramatic, intimidating identities of the YCEFPs. I was a lazy student in her class, blew off her advice, and didn’t ask her to serve on my dissertation committee, despite her expertise.
Needless to say, she’s now become a Very Important Person in my field. She’s taken on a high-profile position at a major institution and has become both well-known and well-respected. Luckily for me, she’s also incredibly forgiving and generous. She’s sought me out at conferences, asked me to take on a key role at the institution, and generally treated me like a valued colleague. Meanwhile, I haven’t spoken to any members of my dissertation committee in years, none of the YCEFPs have ever made any effort to include me in their projects or schemes, or really given a damn about the progress of my career.
Moral of the story: you just never know who’s going to turn out to play a role in your academic life, so you best not misbehave.
I’ve blogged before about a disastrous graduate class I had a few years ago, in which a cabal of disgruntled graduate students terrorized their classmates and treated me with open contempt. It was an incredibly upsetting experience for me and made me doubt myself at a grad teacher. It also made me really, really angry at these students for being so disrespectful and arrogant.
I’ve been invited to give a talk next month at another institution and, guess what? One of the cabal members is now in the PhD program there and will be attending my presentation. He sent me an email about how excited he was that I was coming, how interested he was in my talk, and other ass-kissing platitudes. I’m sure he did a double-take when he discovered that I am considered to be a legitimate scholar by his new profs.
After indulging in a brief but delightful sense of retribution, I have vowed to follow the model of my own prof/colleague and be magnanimous towards the little bastard. Because, you never know …
To the individual who navigated to my blog by typing the following query, “is being a professor stressful?” …
Um, yes.
Very.
Thanks for your concern.
As the Bittersweet Girl, I have been known to use this blog to make sweeping pronouncements. That’s one of the things I enjoy about blogging – you can make claims, generalizations, and suppositions without having to provide any supporting evidence, acknowledge counter-arguments, or give a damn what anyone else thinks.
One of my pronouncements is that COSMETICS ARE EVIL. A recent search term leading to my blog was “bitter sweet cosmetics evil,” so apparently I am known by at least one reader for this bold statement.
I thought that, maybe just this once, I would make an attempt to support my argument, if not with actual evidence, than a more elaborate statement of my opinion.
Let’s review the case against cosmetics.
The accused, “the cosmetics industry,” encompasses all varieties of makeup, including lotions, creams, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, hair styling products, and every other unguent we are encouraged to spread on our bodies in the interest of preserving our youth, achieving our optimal health, and looking “beautiful.” And, yes, it includes hair dye, one of the worst offenders.
The sins of cosmetics industry are the following:
1. The use of natural and artificial resources that could more properly be used for socially necessary or beneficial ends. This includes the energy resources that cosmetics companies use to produce, package, and ship their products, as well as to create in laboratories the various hyphenated chemical compounds that constitute most cosmetics. Also, the plastics and other materials that go into the packaging, most of which are not recyclable.
2. The inclusion of many chemicals that are harmful to the health and well being of cosmetics users, and to the environment overall. Since the FDA is a weak federal regulatory organization and deep in the pockets of corporate America, the cosmetics industry continues to use chemicals that are dangerous to our health, including parabens and phthalates. Not only do these chemicals threaten to harm individuals’ health when they repeatedly spread cosmetics on their skin, but they also threaten to further damage the environment when such products are washed into the water system (as when your hairdresser washes your hair dye down the drain) or are deposited in landfills (after you throw that half-empty bottle of nail polish in the garbage).
3. The use of animal testing. While it is necessary for cosmetics industry to verify that the latest brand of fashionable eye liner won’t cause a suburban housewife to break out in hives, it is insupportable that the means of doing so is the confinement, suffering, and death of animals.
4. The complicity of the cosmetics industry with the fashion and beauty industries overall in promoting the idea that women should be judged primarily by their appearance rather than their intellect, character, or abilities. Moreover, fostering the idea that women should be dissatisfied with they way they appear naturally – and must rely upon external applications or adornments to look “better” or even to look “right.” I hardly need to review the feminist condemnation of the beauty industry for the ways it has entrenched the idea that there is a single standard for beauty, or the consequences for women’s self-esteem – do I?
To elaborate:
I simply don’t see how anyone can argue against the first point. Could anyone rationally claim that the energy, materials, and technological resources that are employed by the multi-million-dollar-a-year cosmetics industry are better spent making eye shadow and anti-wrinkle creams than in feeding the hungry or improving the environment?
But, it’s not just the cosmetics industry that has its balance sheet out of whack. Every time that we spend our money on makeup, we perpetuate a culture of consumption that places the individual superficiality over substance – and affirm that we’d rather make ourselves look nice than to use our individual resources to do something meaningful like, say, give to a charity, or buy slightly more expensive organic produce or grass-fed free-range beef, or even to save our money and stay out of debt!
Sure, it is true that not every kind of cosmetics employs dangerous chemical components. It has become popular lately for cosmetics to trumpet themselves as “all natural,” “100% organic,” etc. We all know that most of these claims are unregulated by the FDA and essentially meaningless. However, there are cosmetics companies that are known for being more environmentally and health conscious than others.
Treehugger recommends Avalon Organics, Dr. Bronners, and The Organic Pharmacy, among a host of others. I used to be a big fan of Bert’s Bees until I learned it was owned by Clorox and I have had serious skin reactions to Aveda products – so I have a hard time endorsing either of those eco-organo-cosmetic powerhouses. But, the point is, that careful shoppers can identify cosmetics that don’t sin in their contents.
There are also companies that refuse to use animal testing. PETA’s Caring Consumer site provides a list of anti-animal testing cosmetics companies. If you join PETA you’ll get a wallet-sized card identifying animal-friendly companies for convenient reference. There is also a handy “leaping bunny” logo identifying the companies that comply with the Humane Cosmetics Standard that you can find on the products themselves.
Again, however, it depends upon the consumer to shop carefully and responsibly to regulate the cosmetics industry – to regulate with your dollars where they won’t regulate themselves – and that takes time and effort that many aren’t willing to sacrifice. The search for the Holy Grail of cosmetics that unites all the good characteristics – organic, chemical-free, non-animal-tested, minimally packaged in recyclable materials, and still effective – is a challenging one, not to mention that that such products tend to cost far more. In a million little ways, corporate America conspires to make it easier for us to just buy what’s at hand and to willfully ignore the consequences.
I know that many will argue that wearing makeup, using hairspray, painting ones toenails, getting highlights, spending money on anti-wrinkle medications and treatments, and so forth does not necessarily mean that a woman is demeaned. “Fun feminists” would say that they do it for themselves, that it makes them feel better about themselves – more empowered, more in control, more secure. I find this argument specious to the extreme. The whole “I’m doing it for myself” claim assumes that you live in a vacuum or never leave your house – that you’ve somehow magically slipped the bonds of patriarchy.
In a recent screed against burlesque sexuality, the brilliant Twisty Faster condensed the problems with the “I do it for myself” argument: Quote: “The idea that women’s public sexuality can so precisely mirror traditional male fantasy while simultaneously existing in a kind of pro-woman, I-do-it-for-myself alternate universe is the cornerstone of funfeminist ‘thought.’ The flaw in this reasoning is that all women must participate in patriarchy regardless of what they say motivates their participation; patriarchy is the dominant culture, and there is no opting out. Which means there is no opting in, either. Do it for me, do it for you, whatever; the primary beneficiaries of women’s participation — willing or unwilling, ironic or sincere — in patriarchy, are men.”
To paraphrase Twisty: The idea that you can wear makeup or style your hair in a way that meets dominant ideals of women’s beauty but somehow simultaneously escape from the patriarchal constructs of the beauty industry is, well, a nice fantasy, but that’s about it.
I wish I could say that I have successfully escaped the grip of the evil cosmetics industry but, of course, I still use many cosmetic products. In my efforts to become a more ethical and environmental consumer, I have come to the conclusion that the easiest answer for me to the cosmetics conundrum is to eliminate all unnecessary products. What I have concluded as unnecessary (for me) includes makeup, hair dye, nail polish, etc. These items seem to be designed purely to make me fit into some externally and artificially derived concept of “beauty.” But, I still consider necessary items like shampoo/condition, hair gel, lotion, etc. that seem (to me) to be more about cleanliness or neatness than about being “beautiful.” It’s a daily struggle but I am working on redefining beauty for myself as centered around spirit, good works, love, and compassion – and not physical appearance.
While I am discussing consumer products that are marketed to and used almost exclusively (or, in this case, entirely) by women, that present health hazards to their users, as well as environmental hazards through their disposability, I think it’s fair to say that FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS ARE EVIL. May I delicately point you in the direction of the Diva Cup?
Want to know more? TreeHugger has an amazing resource page on How to Green Your Personal Care.
I didn’t think I could be more outraged by the RNC than I have been ever since they unveiled their VP choice and began trumpeting her biography, with the centerpiece that she nobly, heroically, and ethically elected to not abort her Down Syndrome child. New Kid has already written with eloquent fury about the offensive nature of this whole story.
But now … with the seventeen-year-old daughter’s pregnancy and the inflated rhetoric about her noble, heroic, and ethical choice to marry her impregnater and not abort the fetus … I just can’t take it! I’m so angry I can’t see straight.
Can we please stop congratuating the women of the Palin family for not having abortions?
I went to a concert this weekend — a very uncharacteristically cool and young activity for the likes of me, but it was great fun. I was sitting on the aisle so I kept being stepped on or over by people as they made their way to the bar or out for a smoke. At one point, a drunk guy with an enormous beer-belly paused in his efforts to squeeze past me long enough to say, “Hey. Great glasses. Beautiful.”
I’ve been feeling insecure about my new glasses ever since I got them, so I was quite flattered that the guy took the time to compliment them.
Drunk? Absolutely.
Sarcastic? Possibly.
Will I take it? You betcha.
