Men prefer women who are roughly their natural shape
Men prefer women who are comfortable in however they are
Men prefer women who are more interested in enjoying themselves than conforming
Apparently. I mean, I’d have no idea.
You’re my friend, but I’m not letting you off…
Never let me off lightly.
But, you do identify wanting your body to appeal to someone as one reason why you have disordered eating. It’s definitely one reason in the media driven obsession with thinness. I used to think it wasn’t a reason behind more serious eating disorders (the whole anorexia is about control thing), but the emphasis in pro-ana sites makes me think it’s even one reason people suffer from anorexia.
I completely agree with body autonomy, when a genuinely free and informed decision can be made. Generally, Anorexia Nervosa’s a type of BDD, where the person is unable to make an accurate assessment of their body. Thus, they can’t make a free and informed choice about their body, until some external agency helps to remove the thing that stops them being free.
In the same way, someone’s who’s been overly influenced by the media message that you have to be thin to be attractive is unable to make a free and informed choice about their body. They’ve been convinced of the falsehood that you have to be thin to be attractive, and they need an external agency to help them stop thinking that falsehood.
Obviously, it’s not the only thing that needs to be done to solve issues of disordered eating, but it’s one step. Which then turns to the issues around it being heteronormative, anti-body-change, etc.
Yep, it is. I rewrote the original statement to remove the anti-skinny-people bit, but, to be honest, it made the statement less punchy. That is generally what happens when you attempt to ensure that no-one could be offended by your statement. I’ve been hugely hugely offended by Gay rights campaigns that have: ignored bisexuals; made Gays out to be “just like straights”, thus ignoring the queers; distanced from non-monogamy; distanced from kink; etc. But I also accept that, if we’d gone for everything in the first place, we’d never have gotten anywhere.
Now’s the right time to fight for bi/poly/queer/kink/etc visibility, as so much of the mainstream Gay rights issues are, if not won, then going pretty well.
But solving issues around disordered eating still needs to focus on the 90% majority of people suffering those issues. And, unfortunately, that 90% is straight women who think that they should be starving themselves to look good for men.
I still don’t think that’s the case. I agree it might be one of the reasons, but it’s really not the whole story even with heterosexual women. It many ways it’s not even *about* being skinny, as strange as that sounds. Despite the surface language at it’s heart it’s more often than not a reaction; a coping method; a control thing. Anoretics are usually over-achieving perfectionists - statistically common in teenaged girls from wealthy, educated backgrounds (where there is a pressure to be the best and have it all). It’s not the quite the same thing as ‘normal’ bad body image. Shares some triggers and… stuff (for lack of a better word right now), but isn’t the same level.
And also there is a difference between the reasons behind something and how you fix it. Just because it is one of the reasons, changing to goalposts of the reasons changes nothing (I wanted to be curvy once. I was still obsessed… with a different goal. I felt no better about myself.). The fact it is a reason doesn’t make it right. For men: encourage women to feel better about themselves, just not phrased in a way that makes it about you is what I’m getting at. Which is why I don’t think ‘men prefer’ is a good precursor, point blank. I wouldn’t know a recommended best way to phrase that - I’ll leave that to people better than me - I can just spot a really bad way.
I think you’re right: clinical eating disorders aren’t about being skinny. There’s a surface similarity between eating disorders and people attempting to fit themselves into an image defined by society, but in actual fact they’re completely different things.
The “Men prefer curves” thing is only looking at the second. It’s not attempting to deal with eating disorders, just with women who want to be attractive (a perfectly good aim) and have a false sense that the people they want to be attracted to them (men, in most cases) want them to look like those girls in the magazines.
Given that the message that’s out there is “Men prefer skinny girls”, and taking that message on board is what causes the problem, you’re always going to be talking about men’s preferences. A better message to put out there might be “Men don’t necessarily prefer skinny girls” (which is my take).
On the other hand, putting the message out there that “People who you want to find you attractive don’t necessarily find any particular body-type attractive”, at least in the short term, isn’t as good. It won’t fit on a banner.
Attractive for yourself? IDK. That’s the more like the message that should be sent out. I just think it would be a false victory to keep the subject on men’s desires. Bad body image doesn’t come from ‘men like thin, long hair, big breasts’ so much as ‘men like x, y and z’ , so ‘men like a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h…’ is little improvement as a message from a feminist perspective. Some people want to look good for men, but like you mentioned before is there really freedom a choice going on here when the whole damn world tells women they must dress to look good for men and not for themselves (or not at all). I’m speaking even if we focus on purely heterosexual women here. I don’t think we should accept to continue talking about men’s desires. It’s more important to break down the pressure on women to dress for men than it is to focus on the desires on men like the patriarchal (oooh feminist rant drinking game word!) world has done since for fucking ever. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with dressing for men if you want, I’m really not. But it’s not the top priority to talk about that in my opinion; it’s had plenty of airtime even since way way before thin was in. It’s not too overwhelming a point to push I don’t think.
It’s a hugely overwhelming point! To break down the pressure on women to dress, etc, for men you’ve either got to make massive changes on the whole patriarchal structure of society (Why is it so important for a woman to get a man? Why does the man get to be the “chooser”? Why is male opinion privileged over female opinion? Etc etc etc).
This is why revolutions fail. You work your arse off to change so many variables at the same time, and then so much has changed that nothing has the chance to embed itself before some external agency changes it (the Free State of Fiume’s a particular favourite example of mine). That’s what’d happen here.
But changing one thing at a time might work. It’s possible to imagine a world in which, although women were still focussed on being attractive to men, they didn’t think that all men wanted a skinny girl, and it’s possible to imagine how to get there.
So let’s get there, and then, when we’re there, we can work out how to get to the point where it’s not about men’s desires at all. It’s basic triage: stop the immediate problem (women making them unhealthy, and focussing on pointless dieting, etc), and then fix the underlying problem.
I see your point, but I think the truth is we already kind of have bits of that out there in women’s magazines and tv right now (eg Gok Wan, Dove Campaign) for quite a few years. But it’s fucking SNAILS PACE. It needs a goddamn SHOVE. We don’t have to break it down all at once, I know that. Just it’s time to start grabbing the angle from men and turning around, even if it’s done painfully slowly and creaking on the floor like a piece of furniture that doesn’t want to move.
I’d argue that one problem with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty / Gok Wan / etc thing is that they don’t make any reference to men. Just focussing on how women view women ignores 50% of the problem (the reverse the usual Feminist Buzzword Bingo).
And, even then, if there was a better overall message on this, we’d still be pushing a big piece of furniture across the floor. But that’s better than the alternative: pushing 4 or 5 big pieces of furniture across the floor at the same time. And, in that case, if you give the whole pile a shove, you either end up breaking some of the furniture, or breaking your shoulder.
