About the Bitches

I thought Susan Sontag showed everyone that our personality defects don't cause our cancer. Now we have the lovely bestselling Skinny Bitches telling us the opposite, and I would bet that more people have heard of them than the late Sontag. The authors of Skinny Bitch: A no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous are counseling those savvy girls to go vegan and organic. Nothing wrong with that, except some of their science seems a bit loose. And then we get to page 189, where the Bitches praise, quote and paraphrase case studies from Dr. Carolyn Myss' book, Anatomy of the Spirit. To wit: "It is no coincidence that Julie was diagnosed with breast and ovarian cancer, reflecting her lack of self-love....'Joanna' was married to a man who had multiple affairs, which she knew about but tried to live with. Not surprisingly, she developed breast cancer." But then she confronted her husband, left the marriage--and recovered! Of course!

The authors do say that they're not saying that "everyone suffering from a disease has brought it upon him or herself." But that it's possible. Thank you so much, Skinny Bitches, for blaming us. You can keep your book and your damned soy beans and soy milk and tofu, which I don't eat any more because they act like weak estrogens.

I can't take this book back to the store because I didn't buy it. A co-worker of L's did. She had a lumpectomy and I guess is trying to clean up her act. We are all trying to. But the Skinny Bitches aren't the ones who should be directing us.