Mayim Bialik

[groovethang]

The thing I truly don't understand is why people give one minute of concern to what I do with my children. I don't care if you breastfeed or use formula. Your child. The person upthread who said its not about concern for children but more about feeling superior nailed it.

[Deleted]

Here are Mayim's statements on vaccines via her FB page:

i would like to dispel the rumors about my stance on vaccines. i am not anti-vaccine. my children are vaccinated. there has been so much hysteria and anger about this issue and i hope this clears things up as far as my part.

honestly, people. do your research. do what's right for you. let me live my life and you live yours. no one gets to know the timeline of my kids' medical appointments because they are not celebrities and they are not your property. put me on the altar if you have nothing better to do today, but just be happy with your decisions and leave my kids alone. my job is not in jeopardy. everything is fine, except in the clearly supportive and loving world of social media and gossip. have a fantastic day everyone.

I'm glad she finally came out pro-vaccine so that maybe some of her fans might follow her lead. It can't be easy for someone like Mayim, who prides herself on going against the grain, to swallow that pride and state her opinion has "evolved" so to speak and she is now in line with the mainstream. That really had to hurt. This is evident from her second statement, which I assume is addressing people who either called her a liar or questioned her kids' vaccine schedule. She's right to be angry about complete strangers questioning her honesty and the inner workings of her family, but there's also that blog of hers and her general habit of oversharing that kind of invites the intrusion. Back in 2009 she clearly stated that her kids wouldn't be vaccinated in this article.

We are a non-vaccinating family, but I make no claims about people’s individual decisions. We based ours on research and discussions with our pediatrician, and we’ve been happy with that decision, but obviously there’s a lot of controversy about it.

In 2012 she stated on her blog that she basically didn't want to discuss the matter and that it's an individual choice, but the implication was that she was anti-vaxx. Now in her last statement she seems to fall back on that individual choice attitude. She's probably in the process of deciding whether to wait it out and see if the issue just goes away or to post a detailed and contradictory Mayim-style blog post about this evolution in thinking. I think it would be best if she just left well enough alone.

[Ginger]

"Individual choice" doesn't cut it when it comes to herd immunity.

I don't know if her opinion evolved that much. She refuses to say what her kids are vaccinated for. I think they are vaccinated for a few things and not others. She still talks about the vaccine schedule having too many vaccines and that it's all about drug companies making money. The two books she said in 2012 she used for "research" when making her vaccination decisions are books apparently popular with the anti-vaccine crowd. (The Parents’ Concise Guide to Childhood Vaccinations: Practical Medical and Natural Ways to Protect Your Child, by Lauren Feder and The Vaccine Book: Making The Right Decision for Your Child, by Robert Sears.)

This reminds me of the answers Mel Gibson gave when people tried to pin him down on what he believed about the Holocaust. They'd ask him about jews being killed and he'd say, "Yes, a lot of people were killed! It was a brutal war."

Not that it really matters that much what Mayim thinks about vaccines. She's never been out there campaigning like Jenny McCarthy, but now that Jenny outright lies about what she said and did in the past, it rankles a little bit to see another parenting author being cagey and a bit hostile. You can't make a living writing multiple books about the parenting decisions you made with your kids and then suddenly tell people that your children's medical decisions are private and none of their business. That was annoying.

[mrspickles]

What frustrates me the most about anti-vaxxers is the argument that they have the right to choose not to vaccinate. Yes, you do, but with that right comes certain responsibilities. If you are truly exercising your right because you don't believe it is in the best interest of your child to vaccinate that's fine, but you need to keep your potential disease carrying child away from places where they might infect other innocents. Your right to make that choice does not supersede an infant's (or an immune-suppressed individual, elderly person or expectant mother) right to not be impacted by your choice. It feels like they want to have it both ways.

[butterfly]

Feb 6, 2015 17:14:25 GMT -4 Ginger said:

Feb 6, 2015 16:46:12 GMT -4 Wol said:

I also remember a lot of parents who were so embarrassed to admit that they co-slept with their kids in a family bed. Cause it's so frowned upon. Who gives a shit? If everyone gets a good night's sleep in the same bed, you are ahead of the game if you've got babies and toddlers. Winning!

Funny, because in some circles these days there's enormous pressure on parents to co-sleep, and a lot of parents are doing it even if it wrecks their own sleep or wrecks their privacy/sex life.

I must admit to having accidentally co-slept myself (fell asleep during breast feeding or the like), but in my area of work (I am a lawyer who works on a lot of inquests into accidental / unexplained / suspicious deaths), co-sleeping is one of the biggest No Nos there is. The storys and photos are absolutely heartbreaking.

Having said that, the risk increases exponentially if you are a smoker or a drinker.

[Ninja Bunny]

I share the same skepticism as this blogger:

Has Mayim Bialik Changed Her Stance on Vaccines?

So did she really change her mind and her stance? If so, why? Or is she just jumping on the “I’m not anti-vaccine” bandwagon like Jenny McCarthy and others who claim not to be anti-vaccine, but at the same time spew vaccine fear and misinformation? Are her kids fully vaccinated, or did they only have the ones she mentioned previously (such as polio for international travel)? Is she walking back statements that are basically anti-vaccine talking points, and removing her support of anti-vaccine doctors like Bob Sears and Lauren Feder (or her own pediatrician, Jay Gordon)?

I really hope so. But I won’t hold my breath, and take her statements that she’s “not anti-vaccine” with a big grain of salt. After all, that statement, itself, is often an anti-vaccine talking point.

She's right to be angry about complete strangers questioning her honesty and the inner workings of her family,

When she makes public statements about the inner workings of her family with the passive-aggressive suggestions that others should do what she does, and has a pattern of claiming she didn't say something when it's clearly documented that she did, and making duplicitous statements using weasel words and squirrelly language (and probably abusing other rodentia in the process), her honesty should be scrutinized and questioned. She invited it.

She's just like a person who asks, "Does this dress make me look fat?" and gets angry when someone says, "Yes."

[tortuga]

Flashes Piers Morgan out of feminist solidarity with Susan Sarandon? Even though she's extremely religious and dresses modestly? No judgment and just think it was an interesting occurrence and thing to try and reconcile in my mind. I hope she's not having a midlife crisis or something.

[Mutagen]

Bumping her thread because she wrote a really smug, unpleasant "not like all those OTHER girls" editorial prompted by the Harvey Weinstein situation.

I grew up constantly being teased about my appearance, even from members of my family; my nose and chin were the main objects of discussion. As a teenager I started obsessing over the possibility of a nose job so that I would look more like Danica McKellar, with a chin job to balance things out. Soon I wondered if I should get breast implants to look more like Christina Applegate, who got so much attention for her curves. I consistently felt like a troll compared to many of my contemporaries.

....

And yet I have also experienced the upside of not being a “perfect ten.” As a proud feminist with little desire to diet, get plastic surgery or hire a personal trainer, I have almost no personal experience with men asking me to meetings in their hotel rooms. Those of us in Hollywood who don’t represent an impossible standard of beauty have the “luxury” of being overlooked and, in many cases, ignored by men in power unless we can make them money.

I still make choices every day as a 41-year-old actress that I think of as self-protecting and wise. I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with. I dress modestly. I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.

Martha Plimpton rightfully roasted her alive on Twitter (link goes to ONTD). It's hard to get into all that's wrong here, but in particular, the notion that sexual harassment only happens to "pretty" women is so fucking damaging, not to mention ANTI FEMINIST.

I also find it sort of ugly that she brought up Christina Applegate's breasts given that Applegate had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer a few years ago. Maybe that genuinely slipped Mayim's mind, I truly hope that is the case, but I kind of sucked in a breath when I read that part.

[magazinewhore]

Dog bless Martha Plimpton! Way to blame the victim, Blossom.

[Ginger]

This tweet by Martha sums it up for me:

Martha Plimpton ✔@marthaplimpton
I've been a feminist in show business for 30 plus years. I have never felt so insecure that I'd think beautiful actresses were the problem.
11:57 AM - Oct 14, 2017

The Harvey Weinstein scandal is not about Mayim Bialik's body image, or how she fits into Hollywood's beauty standards, and it is definitely not about congratulating herself for being "self-protective and wise" by not flirting with men.