Last weekend I went to a local ‘World of Women’ exposition with some friends, and while I am not a woman, I thought it wouldn’t be too far out of line for a guy like me to crash a party that’s ostensibly there to ‘celebrate womanhood’. What I saw at this trade show/exposition shocked me, and actually disheartened me a little. While the show had the usual barrage of aroma-laden candles, furs, weight-loss booths, jewelry and cookware, there was a shocking amount of ‘woo’ based salespeople selling everything from aromatherapy and chiropractic to magnet therapy and whole-body detoxification.
As I walked through the aisles of the show I had to ask myself the question: “Why are the booths at a so-called ‘woman’s’ exhibition so heavily steeped in pseudoscience and woo?” I would hate to think that women are naturally more prone to woo than men, but I have to admit that this experience got me thinking about whether women are more prone to certain kinds of woo than men.
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| My eye picture for the Iridologist. |
Some research on the old Internet showed that there is quite a bit of data on this subject and it appears that perhaps women have a tendency toward more woo-ish beliefs than men, but I’m not here to argue that one way or another because I see it as pointless. We’re all human and we’re all fully capable of logical thought and critical thinking and our gender is meaningless.
I think it’s more accurate to say that ‘World of Women’ expositions are more likely to attract folks that like paranormal beliefs than to say that all women are more prone to such belief systems. Someone in our group did come up with the idea of perhaps getting a booth at next year’s exposition that debunks a lot of the stuff being peddled in other booths, but I’m not sure that would go over too well. I’m going to take a look at three of the booths that annoyed me the most, but if you want a different angle on the subject might I suggest Ramblings of an Armchair Skeptic for a female’s take on the same exposition.
Chiropractic
There were many chiropractic booths at the expo and these all focused heavily on ‘free assessments’ and helping people decreasing ‘nerve interference’ caused by ‘subluxations’. The lady with me at the time has a shoulder blade that crunches when she moves it a particular way, and when the chiropractor saw/felt this he immediately started talking about how her shoulder was crepitus (a standard medical term meaning that there is crunching sounds when a joint moves) and then he proceeded to list the Latin names for the muscles that are around the shoulder blade. To a layperson, it all sounds very impressive. He then went straight into talking about how her shoulder problem is caused entirely by nerve interference and how he can fix it with a regular regime of his ‘treatments’.
As a former registered nurse, I was waiting for him to do one key thing (actually ask one key question) before he diagnosed her. Nope, all he did was spew the technical lingo and tell her he could fix her. He didn’t even look that closely at her shoulder blade to see if movement was hindered etc. What question is the one question a real professional should have asked in this situation? How about “Have you ever injured that shoulder before?” I mean, come on folks, that is probably the most obvious and key question to ask someone with a joint that crunches when articulated. I guess chiropractors don’t need to ask obvious questions because all problems are caused by nerve interference, not actual trauma.
Magnetic Therapy/Gemological Therapy
This booth sold magnets of all sorts to heal the body, and the salesperson kept touting some specific rare-earth magnets that ostensibly came from a special mine in China and they are ‘three times stronger’ than the other magnets and therefore much better. Having worked in Beijing during 2006 and 2007 I instantly recognized the magnetic jewelry for sale (many of which are sold on the streets in China for pennies each), but it wasn’t the magnets that shocked me the most, it was the gem stones for sale that could cure everything from arthritis to aids just by rubbing the stones on or near the affected area.
Iridology
This was my introduction to the ‘World of Women’ since this booth was right by the entrance to the expo. As we walked by we had a nice gentleman come up to us and take close-up pictures of our eyes, then show us those pictures zoomed in specifically on our irises. He then proceeded to tell us what kinds of problems we had. The women all had ‘anemia’; wow, someone who loses blood every month through normal menses and who is fairly thin might be anemic, good guess. One of us even had a mystery ailment that was (according to the iridologist diagnostician) ‘alimentary my dear Watson’. I don’t know about you but standing in a crowd of people and having an iridologist say: “You have a problem with your rectum.” Can be a little off-putting.
In the end (no pun intended) the entire experience was a tad unsettling. Sorry to mix metaphors but most of the folks at the World of Women seemed to be lapping up the woo hook, line and sinker. It’s a real shame (or maybe a real sham) that nearly half of the booths at this exposition were extolling the virtues of one form of woo or another. I know the women who were familiar with this expo were noticeably upset by the amount of pseudoscience put forth by the exhibitors.