In A Pandemic, Is ‘Wellness’ Just Being Well-Off?
The origins of the self-care movement are far more political than a quick perusal of Goop or mindbodygreen would have you believe. The term self-care actually began in the radical-feminist health clinics of the late ’60s, when a group of women in California stole some plastic speculi and set out on a school bus to educate women in their own anatomy (a small mirror was often distributed as well) and also to perform pelvic exams on each other at a moment when the gynecological profession was almost entirely dominated by men. It was also popularized in community health centers founded by the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, places established to help populations ignored by the medical Establishment. It had nothing to do with massages or manicures. It was about looking out for your community when no one else would do it for you. That notion is now, somehow, a bit twisted. The corona-celebrity Chris Cuomo is married to a wellness woman: Cristina Greeven Cuomo is the founder of The Purist, and her husband is one of the famously infected. Flushed and furious, he’s been broadcasting his CNN show from his Hamptons basement (you can see what appears to be a box of alcohol wipes on the stairs over his shoulder). Given what Greeven Cuomo has described as the difficulty of finding advice on how to treat this disease, she took matters into her own hands, consulting with alternative practitioners and therapists to come up with a protocol of her own. Read more at The Cut.
