Kicking. Squealing.
Rod Dreher on the depiction of smoking in Argo:
Watching Argo last night brought to mind the headaches I had all the time, growing up in a smoking household. Don’t get me wrong — many, many households were like this. Moms and dads smoked, and smoked inside. My parents, who still smoke, have been doing it outside of their own house for 20 years now, since their first grandchild was born. But it wasn’t like this in the ’70s and ’80s. So, so much better now.
The smoking in Argo was the one thing I actually thought was cool about the movie. Everyone smoked, and they smoked everywhere – including on the airplane. It’s funny flying nowadays seeing those backlit “No Smoking” symbols. They tell you that you’re not on a brand new plane, and they remind me of cars from the ’80s that have “55″ emboldened and outlined on the speedometer.
The death of C. Everett Koop is an occasion to discuss the transition from a smoke-friendly society to the one we have today. Koop was instrumental in rounding up the mounting research suggesting that smoking was bad for the fetus and basically pushing the idea into legislation which culminated in putting pregnancy warnings on cigarette packs in 1985. The funny thing about Koop is that he was hated by many on the Right for going against the Reagan administration and the smoke lobby and also hated by the left for being a strong opponent of abortion. I wish my co-workers had the same consistency.
YOLO
At work, there’s quite a bit of hostility towards one of the new servers. The woman is a train wreck – several kids already that she doesn’t take care of and another one on the way. She also smokes, and this has really, really pissed off all of my female co-workers. Most of the guys, including me, don’t really care. I mean, I think it’s shitty, and I wouldn’t let the woman carrying my child do it, but I just don’t really care at all about this woman or her child. I also laugh at the many female co-workers of mine who are agitated about this woman’s smoking yet are either raising children without fathers or are loathe to judge other women for it. I can’t definitively say which one is worse out of the two though there is a lot of overlap on that Venn Diagram. Throw on top of this that most seem to be pro-choice. Pregnant Smoker Server Chick tests their consistency on the issue.
Anyway, it’s clear that attitudes towards smoking in general and smoking while pregnant have changed dramatically. Seinfeld had an episode where George and Elaine visit a pregnant psychic who was smoking while she was doing a reading of George. George didn’t seem to care about the smoking, but Elaine sat there for a while before finally saying something and then pissing off the psychic to the point that she left George hanging on a piece of bad news. The feeling I had from seeing that episode for the first time so long ago was that the topic was really only then becoming a cultural flashpoint like many health issues in the early 1990s. It all moved quickly from there.
It’s quite different from the episode of Breaking Bad where the pregnant Skyler White sparks up in her car and faces the judgmental grimace of a woman in the next car over. Seinfeld had a long scene in which Elaine kind of asks the woman if it was a good idea to be smoking; Breaking Bad had a snippet which didn’t require any dialogue to let us know the prevailing attitude of the late 2000s.
My general sense is that the 1960s were a decade of activism on macro issues; the 1970s had some activism going on, but it was largely a hibernation period after the previous decade; the 1980s involved a lot of behind-the-scenes policy action; and the 1990s were an era where SWPL/Bobo lifestyles were meeting with a bit of the activist spirit along with the academic research teaching people how best to live their lives. A lot of that pent up liberal energy bust out into popular culture in the early 1990s in the form of an enlightened hedonism.
French women who serve as model parents for the most SWPL of American mothers, still smoke pretty heavily during pregnancy. What seems to be the case here in the U.S. is that smoking in general has become a status/class issue, and this has compounded especially heavily on pregnant women. That would fit my co-worker who I dislike for reasons other than her smoking. Besides the aforementioned squadron of children (of whom she does not have custody), the father of her the child in her stomach was picked up and thrown in jail for something (this fact also tells us something about her). She’s also strongly suspected of having stolen from a co-worker. She has a tattoo of a flower on the top of her hand. Lumping it on the pregnant smoker is a way to safely judge the woman for all the other indicators of her lack of fitness to be a mother.
(I really wanted to title this post “Smoking in the Boys Womb”, but that didn’t make any sense.)
My parents both smoked. It was difficult. My brother did, too; but the moment he had children he gave it up.
I never did. An ex-gf smoked, but I was unable to date her for long. It was just too disgusting.
What was interesting was what my father said to me once. He complained that the world had changed, and not for the better. Except for hostility to smoking. He thought that shaming people for it was a major improvement in social mores.
He’d say this while addicted himself.
Smoking reduction programs were successful in dropping the adult smokign rate from roughly 50% to 20% of all American adults. It involved legal changes and public shaming. I do think it has gone overboard. Imagine if that legal and cultural firepower was directed at the other problem mentioned in the post: single motherhood. 40% to 10% in no time.
A lack of fitness to be a mother? Not so fast GLPiggy.
Lack of fitness to be a wife, not a mother. Most women can be mothers, but some are wives, others are mistresses, some are girlfriends and others are servants.
The upper class is wife central.
The middle class is mini wife/best mistress central.
The lower class is slave, servant and mini concubine central.
Besides the aforementioned squadron of children (of whom she does not have custody),
She doesn’t have custody? Interesting.
French women smoke? Oh wait. French women are more of the mistress type. Anglo women are more of the Puritan-Victorian SWPL wife.
Maybe the risks rich white liberal women see about alcohol, smoking and sexual assault/rape is all in their heads?
I always thought that these dangerous stuff would decrease likehood of pregnancy and increase likehood of miscarriages. Except I have seen a couple of women who have drank alcohol, and have been raped (not legitimately though), and their pregnancies went fine, plus the birth went okay too.
Or maybe it’s a build up for natural tolerance? Think of German babies. Germans have tolerance for alcohol right?
And this chick you wrote in this post? How many multiple babies has she had? 4 babies? 8 babies? 12 babies?
I give the SWPLs much justified grief for their rank hypocrisy and moral sneering, but their world is a far better lifestyle than this dreary lumpenprole shit. The anti-smoking campaign and concomitant social shaming is a great rebuke to those dummies who think fatsos can’t be shamed away from the table full of sugary carbs. They can and, lucifer willing, they will be. An anti-fat moral crusade has as much legitimacy as the anti-smoking one. Fatness is as obviously bad for one’s health as is smoking. The latest evidence shows that pregnant sows who smoke are hardening the arteries of their unborn sprogling. So go ahed and make disgusted looks at them. The fatty you deeply wound could be the infant child you save today.
Easy to say “not my problem” but remember we all have to pay for her life choices.
Obsidian, you are very emotional about this subject. And don’t bullshit that you are not, I am an excellent reader of people and you’re an open book.
It makes no sense for you to be so invested in this subject because black men have a lock on their women, and are attracted to them. Furthermore, you personally prefer to date black women. So why the long pleas? And yes, what you are posting IS pleading, even if wrapped in belligerent postures and phoney amusement.
The answer is that like many black males you crave white men’s approval. Ask yourself, what is the difference between you and David Alexander, besides testosterone levels?
Are you a man or are you David Alexander, in other words “boy,” like racists used to call your kind?
Oops sorry CR, I meant to post this on the correct thread.
Well, it’s hard to eliminate all dangers.
We eliminated smoking. Wonderful. Now we introduce BPA in canned food and drinks, so everyone gets a dose of estrogen at every meal. We introduce GMO food. MSG. Bovine growth hormone. The list goes on.
@CH:
Socalled moral outrage and hypocrisy-calling-on-the-carpet works best when the one doing the calling isn’t himself a huge and documented hypocrite himself. Otherwise, he only makes himself out to look like both a fool and an idiot.
I’m just sayin’.
O.
Women need to judge each other. Men judge men, but more silently and rarely to their face.
Raising a child without a father is much worse than smoking during pregnancy. Smoking and drinking during pregnancy is probably not good but short of heavy drinking probably not going to do a lot of damage.
Chuck, I’m surprised your employer would hire a server with a tattoo on the hand. That’s very visible and intrusive to the diner. I’m not Lawrence Auster but that would be unappetizing to me and I’m not sure I would come back.
The manager who did the interview says he didn’t see the tatt. I don’t understand how. I saw the chick while she was sitting down being interviewed and got the bead on her immediately even without seeing her tattoo and even though she got a little fixed up. She has that mangy meth look to her.
Thrasy,
To your other point, it is interesting that also in this case it is only the women who are judging her. The guys, including myself, don’t think too highly and we’ve (I’ve) made comments, but the chicks at work are the most outspokenly hateful towards her. Goes to show you that women have always and will always slap each other down harder than any ol’ patriarchy can ever muster.
“Goes to show you that women have always and will always slap each other down harder than any ol’ patriarchy can ever muster.”
That’s right. Fembot bitching about the “patriarchy” is just psychological projection. Women are projecting their own intolerance and competitive subterfuge against other women onto an invisible testicle-god in the ether. It’s one way to keep up appearances that they are the fairer sex. It’s also a great way to dupe goofball white knights into redistributing resources from men to women.
Lately, I’ve noticed that “goofy” / “goofball” are emerging as words that may soon rival “beta” in their ability to strike fear/shame into our hearts.
We need a post that truly defines these terms and how to avoid them – remember there is a NATURE aspect as well – elongated face, perhaps long neck, difficulty keeping a poker face, etc.
Why Do So Many Pregnant White Women Smoke Cigarettes?
We have no idea why pregnant White women are so bad – Ashley Lutz
Ashley not holding back on the moral judgments.
Don’t know the details on educational levels, class, religion, marital status.
“Fatness is as obviously bad for one’s health as is smoking.”
Please. This is just stupid.
“The woman is a train wreck – several kids already that she doesn’t take care of and another one on the way. She also smokes, and this has really, really pissed off all of my female co-workers…”
They aren’t really pissed. They’re happy they have someone to look down on. One of the basic female needs.
‘They’re happy they have someone to look down on. One of the basic female needs.’
I’m a woman, and I gotta say, you’re right. Since I’ve awakened to political reality by going online and throwng the MSM in the toilet, I’ve been reassessing my fellow white people (Southern California). So many of them are self-destructive and clueless about what goes on out there.