[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
That’s a ridiculously oversimplified view of well over half a century of labor battles.
And labor did not win those battles to form the society we have now until the Supreme Court lost its older, conservative members during the Roosevelt administration in the 1930s. It was the effects and aftermath of the Depression that changed society to put a Democratic administration into power who could appoint more labor-friendly judges. It was a major cultural change in American society. The workers, hard as they fought for so many years, did not get their changes into effect by themselves. It took sympathetic government intervention, first from the Progressives and the Republicans who adopted their ideas and then from the Democrats who took over that legacy when the Republicans became conservative again. Much is made of Roosevelt having three Republicans in his cabinet, but they were ex-progressives and far more liberals than southern Democrats were in those days. That’s how it happened.
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Look, my view may be a bit oversimplified, but you’re committing the exact same crime.
You’re telling me that if laborers hadn’t complained these labor laws STILL would have come into being? That they were spontaneous acts of compassion to an uncomplaining populace? The “sympathetic government intervention” had to have some position to be sympathetic with, obviously.
Just the fact that you called it labor battles shows that you agree with me, but you just didn’t understand what I said for some reason. It doesn’t matter how long they battled or the political situation in which they battled. What matters is that they protested their treatment and insisted on something better. This caught the hearts and eyes of politicians, judges, the public, etc.
Show me the equivalent plight of the fashion models. Show me something to get my heart and head behind. You can’t, because there’s no such cause. Is that because the fashion industry is self-selective? I can accept that, they are adults, after all, and they work in the advertising/entertainment industry. They don’t work in coal mines. They work in an industry that is almost impossible to regulate meaningfully.
And, on that point, what exactly is the regulation you folks are talking about anyway? BMI quotas? Calorie intake quotas? What? A ban of skinny models?
On second thought, as I delve into this issue deeper and deeper, I actually like this idea of BMI regulation. On the same principle, we ought to expand it to further serve the public good. Parents should be required to meet certain BMI expectations to have children. Children should meet certain BMI standards to receive public education and scholarships. For the role model aspect, anyone who appears on television, movies, newspapers or magazines also needs to meet stiff requirements. Etc.
OK, I’ll admit that the last part is a little over the top, but it’s really already happening in our society.
My final point is that until you can prove that the fashion industry forces eating disorders upon its workers, you have a case that’s only as strong as “Well, computer programmers tend to be overweight/underweight, so we should regulate the computer programming industry to ensure that they aren’t putting undue pressure on programmers to be overweight/underweight.” There may be a strong correlation, but that isn’t proving it. As said before, the fashion industry might just attract the naturally skinny or naturally prone to eating disorders.
But the thing that this twists on is that there still has to be a model who needs to take legal action against her modeling agency for pressuring her to specifically develop an eating disorder. After that, I guess it would be up for judges and society to decide. Note that it can’t just be an accusation that the industry prefers thinness. A lot of people, and I don’t necessarily include myself when I talk about this position, would say that if they are not willing to be healthily thin then they should quit. Or if they don’t have the natural capacity to do so, they shouldn’t work in an industry that likes thinness.
[QUOTE=Tastes of Chocolate]
I haven’t seen any groups of restaurant workers marching to outlaw smoking in restaurants, but that’s what more and more states are doing. At least in Minnesota, the claim is that it is to preserve the health of the staff.
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First, the fact that a smoking ban in bars/restaurants isn’t comparable at all to a law governing the models in the fashion industry. The argument you seem to be making is that because “A industry” can be shown to be under a certain regulation “B industry” should surrender under the same reasoning. Do I need to explain how restaurants and bars (walk-in establishments for entertainment, eating and drinking) differ from fashion models?
And besides that, what exactly does it matter that Minnesota created a law for that peculiar industry? What bearing does that have on any other law independent of it? The only connection, and tenuous it is, is that both laws concern the public health. Ah, but that’s almost every law. Your point is sort of moot. Nevermind the fact that smoking has a huge, demonstrable impact on public health.
Finally, if we’re going to ban skinny models, how do we determine who is naturally skinny and who has an eating disorder? How is this going to be enforced? For years, I’ve had a natural BMI that was well underweight for my age and height. That was on a 2.5k-3k Calories a day diet! You’re saying that if I was a model, I could face losing contracts or not being hired at all because of this? That I might have to subject myself to measurement by the government in order to proceed with wearing clothes and having pictures taken of myself?
Better notify Hollywood. But I insist that if we’re going to take off unhealthy thin people, then we also omit obesity from the public eye. Fat acceptance, after all, can hardly be said to be for the public good. Right?
