Published:
03/09/2011 01:11pm
The New Math
Math was my favorite subject in school. Numbers don’t lie. An answer is right or wrong. 4+4 =8, never 0, never 9. There is no subjectivity: right or wrong, black or white, yes or no, it is a binary response. Math is exact, there is no room for ambiguity or opinion. Interpretation is unnecessary. The beauty lies in its’ simplicity. You can trust numbers.
Time is based and calibrated with numbers. Like math, it is exact. It is either 8:01 AM or it is not. Precision.
Sports are based on numbers. Competitive sports like running, swimming, skiing, cycling, you want to achieve the lowest winning time, which is written in numbers. High numbers are bad, low numbers are good.
Team sports like basketball, baseball, soccer, football, you want the highest winning point totals. High numbers are good and low numbers are bad.
Therefore in sports you can want high numbers or low numbers depending on the game. This forces us to pay attention to the sport and the rules. What happens to the numbers without rules
Size like math, time and sports is all about numbers. Big is not aways better. You want the size large if you are referring to the size of your bank account and the size of your heart. You want a small size when discussing clothing or small sized amount of the LDL (bad) Cholesterol in your blood.
Men want to have large sized hands and feet. They brag about the size of their package and of being 6 feet tall. But they don’t want to have large sized bodies.
Women want a big breast size, and a small dress size. A 34C bra size is considered average but it is large in society circles and small in the entertainment industry.
My faith in numbers is getting shaky. Numbers are to be trusted, yet additional information is required to understand the numbers correctly in certain size situations.
Models are sized small. During Fashion Week the question was asked, “Is Size 4 Fat?” by the New York Daily News. A Size 4 model (now unemployed) was not permitted to walk the runway, because she was deemed fat. Size 4 is way below the size of the average American woman who wears a Size 14. Were the other models Size 0?
Curves seem to push the size number, thus super sizing it. Jessica Simpson proudly announces that she wears a “Size 4.” The media refers to her as a “Fat Size 4.” They question the number. The number 4 is the same, but the point of view differs. Jessica may be a super size 4, where the model was only an average size 4. Does the adverb qualify and redefine the size?
Frankly, I think any Size 4 is too small, but I am a Size 8.
Can we have a fat 110 lbs and a thin 110 lbs. Isn’t it the same number, but additional information as to frame size may qualify the point of view. Size again, maybe size numbers aren’t measured uniformly and dispassionately. The numbers in sizes aren’t telling the truth, because subjectivity is introduced.
Personally I find the idea of Size Zero perplexing. Why would women want to be a Size Zero?
Instead, these ladies who don’t lunch or munch, should continue to shop in the Girls Department where the sizes are 7 – 14. At the very least they can claim to have a size instead of being a 0. Realistically and metaphorically, who wants to be a 0?
Do men want a Size Zero woman to love? Zero fat? Zero curves? Zero shapeliness? People play games in the war between the sexes. How do they keep score? Is scoring having sex or is being the first one to admit love for the other person keeping score? Confusion, because in sports love means zero.
Written by a Size Eight in a Size Zero World
