Is AOC A Big Sellout For Saying We Need Better Sunscreen Or Are People Just Sexist AF?

AOC is right — Americans deserve better sunscreen.

Last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought up an issue that is has long been close to my own heart — and that is the fact that we are woefully behind the rest of the world when it comes to sunscreen technology. The FDA hasn’t approved a single new ingredient since the 1990s, and there have been a few advances since then.

Ocasio-Cortez is pushing Congress to do something to improve and speed up the FDA’s approval process for new sunscreen ingredients so that we can have the same protection from UVA and UVB rays that people in Europe and Asia enjoy. It’s an entirely reasonable thing to want and push for, but of course, like practically everything she does, including asking someone to pass her the salt … there was a backlash.

Why? Because a bunch of people (mostly men) were very angry that she was focused on something as terribly frivolous and “soccer mom” as sunscreen when there are far more pressing issues at hand.

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Sure, there are a lot of big issues at the moment, but what’s wrong with doing a small thing effectively while still fighting for those big causes?

Via The Guardian:

On Monday, the Rhode Island chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America torched Ocasio-Cortez, the DSA’s most famous member, over the sunscreen video. “A true tribune of the working class,” the chapter wrote sarcastically on X, formerly known as Twitter.

When the United Farm Workers union replied in a comment that “protection from the sun is absolutely a working-class issue”, the Rhode Island DSA shot back: “Even if this is a workplace safety issue, her analysis is not socialist, but soccer-mom consumerism, complete with her ‘brand owner’ partner.” The DSA chapter also reposted a meme by the leftwing podcast Due Dissidence that said anyone who wasn’t “triggered” by AOC’s sunscreen videowas “not a leftist”.

Neal Turnquist, a co-chair of DSA’s Santa Fe chapter, was also on Team Sunscreen, tweeting “With our high altitude and sun exposure, access to quality protective sunscreen is essential for New Mexican workers.”

Weird how the people who actually have to work outside understand why this is, in fact, a serious issue that is worth seriously addressing.

What if it’s possible to do both?!?

The fact is, part of the reason why this is seen as “unserious” is because many people hear sunscreen and think “that is something for vain ladies who don’t want to get wrinkles” instead of “this is something that prevents cancer and everyone should be using it.”

We have a very big problem in this country when it comes to angrily deriding anything coded as feminine as innately “unserious.” We do this with books, with music, with television, with activities, with what we classify as “high art” and “low art,” and with the ways in which we take care of ourselves. It’s not just men who do it, either. Women who want to be seen as serious and intellectual also tend to delight in dragging these things. I know, because I’ve done it myself and have been in a long process of self-correction and exorcising that bullshit from my life and psyche.

Part of the reason the Barbie movie was such a breath of fresh air for so many of us was that it played directly on that tendency in such an incredibly smart way. But I’m not telling you anything you didn’t learn in your college gender studies class (unless you are currently going to school in Florida).

I’d like to say it’s terribly surprising that sunscreen has fallen into this category for a lot of people, but it’s really not. Lotion is coded as “feminine” for some to begin with, “pale” is a term frequently deployed against the insufficiently manly, and when you throw in an element of risk avoidance and doing what is recommended by health experts, that clearly just becomes too much for some fellas.

70 percent of men don’t wear sunscreen, which is maybe not the best idea given that skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the US. Men are more than twice as likely to get skin cancer than are women, and there has been a recent surge in melanoma in men ages 15-35. Why? Because they are more likely to work outside and far less likely to use sunscreen.

I consider that to be a lot more shallow and vain than wanting effective sunscreen that actually protects you from skin cancer, but maybe that’s just me.

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Here’s Why It’s Not So “Unserious”

As mentioned, there are SPF ingredients that have been used for decades overseas that the FDA has not gotten around to approving yet. These ingredients are better at protecting against harmful UVA rays than are the ingredients available in US products.

At the same time, the FDA is also very lax in allowing products to claim to offer broad spectrum protection even when they don’t. A 2017 study found that while US products were largely effective at protecting from UVB rays, only 11 of 20 US products met the EU criteria for UVA protection.

This all probably sounds like gibberish so let me put it this way — UVB rays are the ones that cause burning, UVA rays are the ones that cause tanning (which is also a form of burning and is not good for you), wrinkles … and also skin cancer. So the sunscreen we have keeps us from burning but largely does not do much to prevent skin cancer, which is why a lot of people who, like me, don’t burn easily, assume they “don’t need” sunscreen. I promise you — if you have skin, you need sunscreen.

Another reason it’s been hard to get these ingredients approved is that the FDA wants sunscreen manufacturers to do the research for them, and there is no real financial benefit for those manufacturers to do so when so few people even know that our sunscreens are no good.

It’s especially bad considering climate change, considering the serious heat waves that have been attacking the Southern US, considering that it is largely the poor who have to work outside all day and considering how freaking expensive health care is in this country. The least we can do is have some freaking sunscreen that actually works.

For Those Who Want Good Sunscreen NOW

AOC and I both use the imported stuff — Biore Watery Essence Sunscreen — on our faces. She says she uses Beauty of Joseon during the winter, which I have not used but will definitely check out. Last winter I used the COSRX Vitamin E sunscreen and liked it a lot.

Did I just say winter? Yes, I said winter. You should be using an SPF (at least on your face) throughout the year, because the sun doesn’t go away just because it’s cold out and burning is not the only bad thing that UV rays will do to you.

I don’t know what she uses for body, but I use either European Eucerin (fancy, I know) or the La Roche-Posay Anthelios spray. It is possible to get sunscreen that works, and it’s not that much more expensive (still cheaper than Coola or Supergoop) but not everyone is aware that our sunscreen doesn’t work well or is going to go out of their way to order it online when they can just grab it at Walgreens.

It’s not entirely inaccessible (and people should be supplementing it by covering up around the sun, with wide-brimmed hats and what have you), but the fact is, people should be able to just go down to Walgreens or CVS and get something that they can trust is actually, really, going to protect them from the sun and prevent skin cancer and it’s not okay that they can’t.

OPEN THREAD! (Sorry I forgot to put OPEN THREAD!)