Men Vs Women On Body Type: Why The Disconnect? | 50 comments (50 topical, 0 hidden)
according to feminist theory (none / 0)

women are as capable, as strong, as empowered, and as much in control of their own bodies and lives, as men are, except that the entire gender can be reduced to gorging themselves into becoming fat pigs or starving themselves into anorexic bulimics by men's unspoken desires for a certain body type.  i guess it is that old eurocentric, rationalistic, scientifically-minded, white-male patriarchy asserting itself.

 

the same feminists who condemn men for their perverse fascination with the "supermodel" body (flat chest, slender waist) also condemn men for their fascination with the "pornstar" body (siliconed chest, curvy waist). just can't keep that y-chromosome satisfied or consistent.

 

biologically determined standards of female beauty are all highly correlated with fecundity (predominantly, the waist-to-hip ratio http://en.wikipedia.org/wik i/Waist-hip_ratio); this has been confirmed by many studies across cultures and time periods.

 

culturally determined standards of female beauty are based, instead, on rarity of body type. in today's world, it is easy to find fat women; it is rare to find rail-thin, sharp-featured models. supply and demand, it is as simple as that.

in an earlier time, when food was scarce, corpulence had its own cultural charm (and was also correlated with fecundity). times have changed, and so do the cultural standards of desirable body types.

by neo on 02/14/2008 11:50:46 PM EST

Not so fast... (none / 0)

It's not that easy to find fat women...  They're hidden in their houses all day.  But seriously folks...

I see skinny women all the time, so the supply and demand thing doesn't really fly with me.  But other than that I agree with you.

by Spencer on 02/15/2008 12:14:44 AM EST

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Sure, there are cultural standards (none / 0)
And those standards can effect what we find attractive. But let's take that example of being overweight.

It's true there was a time when being overweight was viewed as a status symbol (if you had money you could binge all day).  But generally speaking, at the times and place in history where fatness was a good thing, the food was scarce and or the lifespan was much shorter than it is here in the present day.

So yes, the original purpose of storing all that fat was to have a savings account for calories to get you through a famine.  It makes perfect sense.  In a way, the obese people of today have great genes...or at least they would if our food supply was destroy for some reason and they had to survive for a month or their warped to an earlier time in history or another continent with food scarcity.

If people only lived to be in their 20's or 40's or *maybe* 50's, sure, but they often live into the 70's now, and with heart attacks, strokes, arthritis and so on, being overweight will likely cut into it or make it more complicated to say the least.

And again, the wast-hip ratio and symmetry both span just about every culture.  An interesting read (which now might be dated in some ways) is The Anatomy Of Love by Helen Fisher PhD. It talks about standards of beauty in different countries and also goes into how some things do transcend culture.  It also gets into a lot of other stuff about mate selection and reproduction and is an overall fascinating read.

by Tom Hanc on 02/15/2008 11:38:58 AM EST

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Men Vs Women On Body Type: Why The Disconnect? | 50 comments (50 topical, 0 hidden)