I think people are always gonna be their own harshest critic.
Thank you, thats the point I was trying to make. Superego attacks are something everyone has to deal with, and they are harsher than what other people direct at you.
Why, exactly, have you chosen to express this opinion here, in a thread started by a man for the sole purpose of berating women about their bodies?
Well, this thread wasn’t started by a woman criticizing herself for looking fat in yoga pants. It was started by a man who thought that the world needed to know that he thinks fat women look bad in yoga pants.
I agree with this sentiment to a point. On the one hand, I do feel like a person, any person, should feel free to dress as they please without being judged like a Four-H project. On the other hand, unfair as it is, our society as a whole does share the major character flaw of superficiality so questions like the OP are inevitable.
As an adolescent of the ‘80s, I can remember one *never *wanting to show their bellies, thighs, butts. We had leggings, but you always wore a long shirt, jacket, whatever. It’s been several years since I’ve noticed that this trend has seemingly been retired.I’m torn between marveling at womens’ “fuck off, I’ll wear what I want” attitude and being perplexed at the way some people dress in public. Are women just more confident or do they not have a clue at how unattractive they (some of them) look?
I was serious when I said upthread that these women that everyone are always talking shit about usually have a man. (Or at least had one, as evidenced by children).
So it’s not true they aren’t attractive. They aren’t attractive to you, but no offense, they ain’t concerned about you. They are more concerned about impressing the guys (or gals) who like seeing all that jigglin’ ass. And there’s a lot of those people.
The internet is rife with lonely, bitter men who lack for any positive female attention, and yet they seem real confident about the ability of “fat chicks in yoga pants” to grab a mate. Strangely, we hardly ever read similar sad-sack stories from sexually frustrated fat chicks in yoga pants. What this says to me is that 1) men in general aren’t nearly as picky about who they find attractive as certain know-it-all men seem to think, and 2)neither fatness or a penchant for tight clothing is a barrier to finding a man.
I’ve never seen a fat lady in yoga pants who looks like she’s lonely or especially socially isolated. I’ve seen plenty of skinny guys who do. Maybe the latter needs to start eating some sandwiches and wearing some yoga pants. Just sayin’. 
I’m remembering the bicycle shorts fad and all I have to say to this is, please, please, just don’t. Well maybe the sandwich.
Actually, most whales are fairly slender.
I certainly wouldn’t complain if they were wearing yoga pants.
Eep; I have done an extremely shite job of expressing myself here. By “unattractive” I mean in the conventional / media sense (if *that *makes sense). My judgement may be colored by where I spent those adolescent '80s years (SoCal)but my point is that I feel that there has been a definite shift in the mind set of women, as far as trying to hide their bodies / try to fit into the dreaded “mold”. I guess, in the context of the OP (if we’re assuming it’s an actual question as opposed to a veiled insult to larger women) I find myself wondering if the beauty standard has shifted (which would be great) or perhaps I just live in a place where the beauty standard is different from where I spent the first half of my life.
For the record, I’m a smallish, fairly in shape middle aged lady and to this day I still cover my butt, belly and thighs when I’m not at the beach or the gym. I realize this may be my personal baggage, but one only knows what one only knows:)
I highly doubt any of them give a shit what you find attractive.
A wise man (whose name I forget) once said: “Nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are.”
I *get *that they don’t give a shit what I (and by" I " I’m refering to the general “I”) think. My thoughts are more related to *if *not, *why *not?
And I don’t mean that in a judgemental way, like, “how dare they offend our sensibilites?” I’m wondering if they are lucky enough to have the confidence / positive self-image to wear what they like, or if they are oblivious that they present themselves in a way that much of society does not find attractive. I’m not saying that I automatically find a larger figure unattractive by any means. A sloppy person (of any size) with ill fitting clothes? Yep. But that’s not what I’m talking about.
The most parsimonious explanation is that the beauty standard has changed like it always does with each generation.
I don’t think we live in a society where “everything goes”. I think women are still largely conforming to what’s fashionable. Like, I don’t see a whole lot of girls wearing baggy jeans, because baggy jeans aren’t considered fashionable for females. But skinny jeans, like yoga pants and leggings, are.
I don’t know how fat girls feel about their bodies. But I imagine that you can still pretty lousy about the way you look and still desire to wear fashionable “cool” clothes.
I look at pictures of people from the 70s and can’t believe at how tight everyone’s bell bottoms were. Especially the nut-huggers the men would wear. So it seems to me we’re just circling back, except with plumper bodies.
Not to belabor the point (she said as she went on to belabor the point), but I guess your last sentence kind of approaches part of my question: are plumper bodies becoming more acceptable / the norm? I surely do hope so, 'cause I know it would personally take a helluva lot of pressure off of me 
I don’t think it’s so much that plumper bodies are the norm, as much as the ways that leggings are revealing are no longer considered revealing, and our minds just kind of gloss over it.
Think about a swimsuit. On the beach, you aren’t looking at all the women wearing swimsuits and wondering how they make sense of wearing something so revealing. You just see a bunch of people in swimsuits, and it pings in your head as perfectly normal. But of course, if someone wore a swimsuit to a dinner party, you’d think it was too revealing and would question what they were thinking.
Leggings used to be a swimsuit at a dinner party, but now they are a swimsuit on a beach. People just don’t process them mentally as “revealing.”
Wow, what a great, interesting take on it. I think what’s hanging me up is less so the “revealing” aspect, as the "let’s not look fat at any costs angle. Which brings me back to the "has the idea of what looks fat standard changed or are people, as a whole, changing their standards?
Well, there certainly are a lot more plumper bodies walking around than there used to be. It would make sense that with this would come more acceptance of curvy silhouettes. But I don’t know.
But they build on what you’ve been told.
Every time when I got my grades, my father would say “we need to talk”. This would generally be on a weekday.
Then on Saturday, we had The Talk. My mother sitting in her armchair, her lamp the only light in the room, spotlighting her knitting. My father in his armchair, dissecting all my failings as a student and rejecting beforehand any defenses I could come up with. And me in a creaky chair that for some reason never stayed glued, knowing that not only would any movement in my part result in a loud noise but it might lead the chair to come apart (again).
How do you think I felt about my grades? Never mind that my grades were good enough to get into any school and program I would have chosen, that’s irrelevant! Never mind “I got the highest grade in the class”, that’s irrelevant! Never mind “I improved clearly from last period”, that’s irrelevant!
Any time I’m around men who think of me as “one of the guys” or who don’t realize I’m a woman (hello internet) I hear women rated like show ponies. Those two natural-streaky-blonde twins? What bad dye jobs! That brunette? Cute but she’s got such short legs. Etc, etc, etc. Since I know any guy who looks at me is going to find even more defects than I do, I’m not going to bother change into “officewear” just to go get a box of milk.
Holy smokes, all this time I thought you were a big guy. Probably because my big guy brother’s nickname is Wookie. :smack:
I wondered how many people were reading my posts and thinking I’m a dude.
My name comes from an Eddie Murphy skit in SNL, not Chewbacca in a bar 
Buckwheat would have sown more confusion.
Mind blown! I always just made the Wookie connection, too, and did assume you were a man. Of the burly persuasion. The Eddie Murphy thing makes more sense now that you mention it!