The Pseudoscience and Faux Feminism of Sobriety Memoirs (w/ Jennifer Dines)

“It’s not that hard to let yourself be led by something that doesn’t match up with your morals, when you’re desperate.” — Jennifer Dines

Jennifer Dines is a Boston-based schoolteacher, poet, and essayist who has written an article for Current Affairs called "The Quit-Lit Pseudoscience and Faulty Feminism of Women’s Sobriety Memoirs," which critiques the bestselling books targeted at women recovering from alcoholism. In her piece, Dines shows how these books often try to sell women on expensive courses so they can "buy their way to health," disparaging free alternatives like Alcoholics Anonymous in favor of unrealistically expensive lifestyle changes (e.g. yoga retreats).

Dines also discusses how these books use the language of social justice to try to convince readers that their own self-care (and their purchase of the authors' products) advances broader feminist goals. In this conversation, we discuss how difficult it is to get accurate information and receive quality healthcare, and how hard it is for desperate people to tell quacks like Dr. Oz from those who truly have their best interests at heart.

"[T]op-selling books are not rigorously fact checked (a serious problem in the world of nonfiction books), and authors often mix discussions of legitimate science with quackery or unproven practices, which is outright dangerous for the non-discerning reader. Authors in this genre also tend to appropriate the language of social justice (rallying against capitalism, patriarchy, and so forth) to make readers think that tackling their alcohol problems (or doing self-care) equates to a larger project of social change. These writers cleverly create a trail of breadcrumbs that leads vulnerable readers to programs such as expensive online courses and coaching services and related products and services, many of which are offered by the authors themselves. Aspirational big-money lifestyles are highlighted while effective programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are trashed. Most dangerous of all, this consumptive approach to alcohol dependency treatment makes products a substitute for healthcare from a qualified mental health professional." — Jennifer Dines

The books Jennifer does recommend are The Recovering by Leslie Jamison and How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell. Lily refers to an article by Nathan about COVID-19, which can be found here. Lily’s own writing about bad healthcare is here.

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