Women in the Media, South of the US border

Lately, I've been looking into how women are portrayed in the media after I came across the Miss Representation videos on Youtube. Now, being from the "most powerfull country in the world" (the USA) and living in a country that is often described as "developing" or "Third World" I often see women portrayed in a manner that would get a lot of backlash in the mainstream media in the US, or so I thought. Turns out that women in the US are just as acosted and marginalized in the media as they are in Mexico. Even the most powerful women in US politics can't seem to get the respect their male counterparts get from the media. How can this be? I thought the US was "developed" and "democratic". I don't see a lot of democratic representation of women in the US or Mexican governments.

Who is to blame? Could it be Mexico's nieghbor to the North? Should we point the finger at the US like President Felipe Calderon did in 2010 when speaking about violence in Mexico? 

 "The origin of our violence problem begins with the fact that Mexico is located next to the country that has the highest levels of drug consumption in the world. It is as if our neighbor were the biggest drug addict in the world." The Atlantic Wire

Personally, I don't think it is really so much an influence of US mainstream culture or media. Women being treated as objects has a lot to do with a well known element of Latin American culture, "machismo". As it turns out, women in Mexico are getting stereotyped in the media by their own government. *insert record scratch sound HERE* Yes! According to this video titled Diplomado en Género y Lenguaje Incluyente en los Medios de Comunicación SLP/México 2012,

On average, on any given day in any given (Mexican) printed media shows us to 3 sexist expresions that exclude, objectify, ridicule and discriminate women.  75% of public service anouncement campaigns funded by the Federal Public Administration include content that make women invisible, or assign them gender stereotypes like mother, housewife, shopper or adjectives such as weak and passive.

These are tough issues to deal with because they are so present in our daily lives that we don't seem to even notice them. We've become accostumed to them. We have become desensitized, or perhaps, for some reason(s), we haven't even realized that we are making half of the population into objects that can not control or have any say in how they are portrayed in the media. The equal rights movement still has a lot of work left to do if you ask me, not just in the US or in Mexico, but all over the world.

Lactose Intolerant? Corn tortillas should be your new best friend!

I'm so excited to be posting entry because it was written by my good friend and amazing artist, Cyndie Katz and because it will be the first official guest blogger post on my blog! I hope you will also check out Cyndie's blog, www.theveggiepost.blogspot.com where you can get great information on health, fitness and living la vida to the fullest!

As a lactose intolerant individual and the mother of a lactose intolerant child, I am so grateful for this precise explanation of why people are intolerant and what foods help to make up for the calcium that you can miss out on if you don't consume milk. I personally drink soy milk that has calcium added to it, but eating a lot of corn tortillas is a yummy (and easy way considering I live in Mexico) alternative too!

Greetings Health Lovers!

Have you ever wondered why some people are lactose intolerant and others aren’t? I have. So I was grateful to come across Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, the Science and Lore of the Kitchen with a great explanation. Here’s a slightly paraphrased excerpt:

People who drink milk after infancy are the exception within the human species (no other mammals drink milk as adults). The obstacle is the milk sugarlactose, which can’t be absorbed and used by the body as is; it must first be broken down by the digestive enzyme lactase in the small intestine. 

Lactase reaches its maximum level in the human body shortly after birth and then slowly declines to a minimum level at between two and five years of age -- probably because It’s a waste for the body to produce an enzyme when it’s no longer needed and, once weaned, most mammals never encounter lactose again. 

If your body doesn’t produce lactase and you consume a lot of lactose, the lactose will pass through the small intestine and reach the large intestine where bacteria will metabolize it and in the process produce carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane, causing a bloated feeling or diarrhea. 

Low lactase activity and its symptoms are called lactose intolerance.

Lactose intolerance is the rule for adults, not the exception. However, several thousand years ago, peoples in northern Europe and a few other regions underwent a genetic change that allowed them to produce the enzyme lactase throughout life, probably because milk was an exceptionally important resource in colder climates. 

About 98% of Scandinavians are lactose-tolerant, 90% of French and Germans, but only 50% of southern Europeans and North Africans, and 30% of Aftrican Americans. 

Fortunately, even lactase-less adults can consume about a cup of milk per day without severe symptoms, and even more of other dairy products. Cheese contains little or no lactose (most of it is drawn off in the whey, and what little remains in the curd is fermented by bacteria and molds), and the bacteria in yogurt generate lactose-digesting enzymes that remain active in the small intestine and work for us there. 

What about the milk-from-calcium-for-bone-health issue? McGee has an answer for that too.

Various aspects of modern eating increase calcium excretion. A high intake of salt is one, and another is a high intake of animal protein, the metabolism of which acidifies our urine and pulls calcium salts from bone. The best insurance against osteoporosis appears to be frequent exercise of the bones we want to keep strong and a diet moderate in salt and meat but rich in dried beans, nuts, corn tortillas (yay!) and tofu (both processed with calcium salts), and several greens -- kale, collards, mustard greens.

These days I’m exercising my bones  carrying my huge copy of On Food and Cooking around. It’s just too fascinating to put down!

Take care!

Cyndie

PS. You can find Harold McGee at www.curiouscook.com. 

Why my Mexican relatives hate me breastfeeding.

It used to be (and perhaps still is in certain parts of Mexico) that a breastfeeding woman was seen like any other woman. She had a baby, the baby like any other person, would get hungry, so the woman would pull out her breast to feed said baby and everyone went about their lives as usual. Today, at a typical middle class Mexican birthday party, somewhere after the giant stuffed walking animals danced and gave away cheap plastic “made in China” toys, and the princess piñata, I had to breastfeed my four month old baby.  My cousin started to squirm and look uncomfortable.  “He isn’t hungry!” he exclaimed as I put a blue blanket on my shoulder, to cover up my son’s little mid party snack.  I smiled and continued to position him so he could latch on.  My male cousins all stood up from the table with looks on their faces somewhere between disgust and distain and left me sitting alone at the table.  

In Mexico, like much of the industrialized world, breastfeeding took on a negative aspect. The norm became that the poor, uneducated women breastfed while affluent, educated mothers bought formula made in the United States. They mixed the powdered cow’s milk with “special” designer water and used plastic brand name bottles made in England.  Feeding offspring became a status symbol.  Much like the proliferation of c-sections for certain mid to upper middle class Mexican women who are too "posh to push" (or in my experience) too frightened by their ob/gyn to think they ACTUALLY could get a human being out through their birth canal without the need of a scalpel, breastfeeding is something that women from ranchos and shanty towns do.  

In 2012, breastfeeding seems to be making a comeback in Mexico, being promoted once again as the “best food for your baby”.  But society, at least middle class Mexican society, seems to be slower to catch on.  My own mother, a staunch supporter of breastfeeding, admonished me for breastfeeding my baby during my grandmother’s funeral mass. “The look on the priest’s face” my mother exclaimed, “when you took out your breast! You should have covered up!”  I sighed and wondered why a priest would be shocked to see a woman’s breast, could it be he wished he could see more?

The mommy wars that have been touted as of late in the US media saddens me.  See, I tend to idealize my home of origin.  There is so much about the USA that I miss and love.  But there is a lot that I wish would change too. Then again, at least the discussion is out there on the table, for everyone concerned to speak about.  Here, in modern day Mexico, the working precept “if you don’t talk about/see it, it doesn’t exist” apparently applies to all aspects of life, hungry babies and breasts included.

Alma M. Rinasz is a native New Yorker who has been living in Mexico for the past eleven years and blogs ocassionally about life in Mexico.