How much do men really have to do with female body image issues?

[JcWoman]

@Wesley_Clark

I wanted to get the book Bodies and Souls but the library doesn’t carry it. Are there others along the same genre?

For me one thing I’ve wondered about women is how do they react to the power of being a woman and a sexual creature? Once you hit puberty after age 13 or 14 or so, all of a sudden you have to realize you have the ability to manipulate men who are your fathers age or older (40+). I assume that has to be a mindfuck on a teenager, knowing they have that kind of power.

@Wesley_Clark

I guess I’m misinterpreting things then. As a teenage boy I had nothing grown women were interested in and as a result had no leverage. I know some teenage girls use their leverage against older men, but they are the exception.

There aren’t really any other books like that one. It’s actually an art project that ended up being a sociological statement, and a controversial one at that. If you read the FAQ on that site you’ll see that he’s been accused of being a pornographer and exploiting women. But the photos are nothing without the accompanying essays, many of which are heartbreaking. You should keep looking for it, or even spring for a copy from Amazon and then donate it when you’re done. When you read the essays from the teenagers about how they were sexually abused, you’ll change your thinking that pubescent girls have power.

Here is a paraphrase of one teen’s essay, imagine you are her:

“When I was 12 I started dating Bob. He always told me he loved me and that I was beautiful. After a few months he started pressuring me for sex. He told me I was sexy and beautiful and there was nobody else like me. When he raped me, he said those words over and over like a mantra. After that, I tried to get away from him, to stop dating him but any time I refused him or told him I was leaving, he’d call me a bitch and say I was the ugliest person in the world. The first few times I gave in, and he’d be all lovey dovey and call me beautiful again. But any time I did something he didn’t like, he’d call me slut and ugly.”

Pretty good mind-fuck yeah?

Instead, when a girl’s body develops, suddenly she is on the knife edge of being a victim. Almost overnight she transforms into a juicy piece of meat that all the starving dogs for ten miles can smell and come looking for a piece of. That might sound like power to you, I call it looking into the barrel of a loaded gun. Remember, before all those hormones kicked in we’re asexual creatures. With the hormones suddenly everything is extremely confusing. You simply don’t have the wisdom or experience to wield something like that as a power.

[Wesley_Clark]

@JcWoman

When you read the essays from the teenagers about how they were sexually abused, you’ll change your thinking that pubescent girls have power.

Here is a paraphrase of one teen’s essay, imagine you are her:

“When I was 12 I started dating Bob. He always told me he loved me and that I was beautiful. After a few months he started pressuring me for sex. He told me I was sexy and beautiful and there was nobody else like me. When he raped me, he said those words over and over like a mantra. After that, I tried to get away from him, to stop dating him but any time I refused him or told him I was leaving, he’d call me a bitch and say I was the ugliest person in the world. The first few times I gave in, and he’d be all lovey dovey and call me beautiful again. But any time I did something he didn’t like, he’d call me slut and ugly.”

Pretty good mind-fuck yeah?

Instead, when a girl’s body develops, suddenly she is on the knife edge of being a victim. Almost overnight she transforms into a juicy piece of meat that all the starving dogs for ten miles can smell and come looking for a piece of. That might sound like power to you, I call it looking into the barrel of a loaded gun. Remember, before all those hormones kicked in we’re asexual creatures. With the hormones suddenly everything is extremely confusing. You simply don’t have the wisdom or experience to wield something like that as a power.

Part of the problem is that as a man I’ve never had to deal with these problems, so I don’t really know much about them.

Example: when I was in college a female aquaintenace told me how she was terrified to walk to her car after classes got out at night. As a tall, athletic (at the time) male that never occurred to me as something to be afraid of. It would be like hearing someone say they were afraid to walk in the frozen foods section at the grocery store. So because I’ve never had to deal with these problems, they are something I don’t grasp that well.

I think (correct me if I"m wrong) what you and some of the other women are saying is that when a woman’s body develops, then all of a sudden men who have far more power, wealth, status and knowledge then her start wanting something from her and she is afraid they will use the power discrepancy that comes from their higher level of power/age/experience/wealth to take it by force or manipulation.

My point is that as a guy who has never had to deal with that, it didn’t automatically occur to me to be worried about it. I’ve never had to be afraid of women as a group.

[KarlGrenze]

@Wesley_Clark

I think (correct me if I"m wrong) what you and some of the other women are saying is that when a woman’s body develops, then all of a sudden men who have far more power, wealth, status and knowledge then her start wanting something from her and she is afraid they will use the power discrepancy that comes from their higher level of power/age/experience/wealth to take it by force or manipulation.

My point is that as a guy who has never had to deal with that, it didn’t automatically occur to me to be worried about it. I’ve never had to be afraid of women as a group.

Well now you know. Learning experience and all that.

You were correct in that it is a mindfuck, you’re incorrect as to the main reasons.

[monstro]

@puddleglum

An appropriate self esteem does not come from matching society’s version of perfect but valuing other things about yourself and accepting physical flaws instead of obsessing over them.
The whole “Society is making my feel bad about myself” is a way to externalize and blame others for your own mental health issues.

But our mental health is shaped by our particular milleu or context. Mental disorders can be culturally specific. Does anorexia nervosa exist in cultures where food is scarce and the obese female form is valued? I seriously doubt it.

Psychologically speaking, yes, we’d all be better off if we ignored the opinions of others. Just like we’d all be better if ate better diets and got more exercise and ignored all the cues and obstacles the environmental places in front of us. But the way I see it, we can either do the idealistic thing and expect individuals to be super-human and steel themselves against all peer/authority pressure. Or we can be more pragmatic and take reasonable measures to mitigate harmful societal effects.

Personally, because I’m growing more cynical in my older age, I think it is unrealistic to put a lot of hope in the more pragmatic option ever happening on a widespread basis. The horse has already left the barn on that. Ultimately, people have to work on on their own self-esteems, just like they have to work on their own physical health. However, I do think people, working as individuals, can help other individuals deal with baggage. I know that personally, I’ve really become more conscientious about using “big fat” as a qualifier. It doesn’t hurt me any to avoid saying it, so why not? And if I had a kid, I’d like to think I’d also take pains to be “body positive”, especially if I had reason to believe they were vulnerable to body shame.

Mental illness is often times due to injuries incurred through social assault. So in that way, yes we all have some responsibility in all of this. We are not islands existing in a vacuum.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@monstro

We are not islands existing in a vacuum.

Nice mixed metaphor!

[betterlifethroughchemistry]

@Velocity

Seems to me that the most vocal critics of a woman’s appearance and fatness are…other women. If anything, men are more prone to praise a woman’s appearance while she or other women may consider herself fat or ugly.

Amen…as a 50-something guy who has looked better in past days married to a 50-something lady who is always insecure in her looks, I have to agree with you…IMHO, men, as we get older, appreciate more about women and their appearance rather than criticize…I love Mrs. Chemistry, she still looks great to me…Have we gotten older and a little more squishy as the years gone on? Of course…but it doesn’t change anything, women are beautiful in many shapes and sizes according to us men…again, JMHO…

[JcWoman]

@Wesley_Clark

Part of the problem is that as a man I’ve never had to deal with these problems, so I don’t really know much about them.

Example: when I was in college a female aquaintenace told me how she was terrified to walk to her car after classes got out at night. As a tall, athletic (at the time) male that never occurred to me as something to be afraid of. It would be like hearing someone say they were afraid to walk in the frozen foods section at the grocery store. So because I’ve never had to deal with these problems, they are something I don’t grasp that well.

I think (correct me if I"m wrong) what you and some of the other women are saying is that when a woman’s body develops, then all of a sudden men who have far more power, wealth, status and knowledge then her start wanting something from her and she is afraid they will use the power discrepancy that comes from their higher level of power/age/experience/wealth to take it by force or manipulation.

My point is that as a guy who has never had to deal with that, it didn’t automatically occur to me to be worried about it. I’ve never had to be afraid of women as a group.

Yep, I understand. It’s very much one of those “you can’t understand without walking in my shoes” situations. I hope I didn’t give the impression from my previous post that I felt all women were victims and that we think men are all out to rape us, because that’s not what I think at all. I was just trying to explain eloquently the sudden change in perspective that puberty puts on girls. One day you’re just one of the kids, and the next day your friends and even strangers are staring at you like a piece of meat. That’s extremely jarring and takes a lot of time to come to terms with.

I think this difference in mindset is also why men in general don’t fully understand why women are so safety conscious. It takes quite a lot for me to feel afraid of walking out to my car at night, or to walk my dogs at night, so I can’t be called paranoid. But I am conscious of my surroundings by habit, if I hear someone walking behind me, I turn an look at them. If I get “bad vibes” from them, then I start making small adjustments to myself to make sure I don’t give off those subtle “I’m a victim” signals. I learned this over time, but it’s kind of popular for women to take self defense courses to learn this stuff also. (Although I think I take my cues more from the animal world than self defense people. For example I avoid looking like a victim by making myself look larger, and put a fierce, unfriendly look on my face. I try to project the idea that I’m the predator rather than the prey.) I think the root of it is simply the difference in physical sizes between men and women.

[puddleglum]

@JcWoman

Instead, when a girl’s body develops, suddenly she is on the knife edge of being a victim. Almost overnight she transforms into a juicy piece of meat that all the starving dogs for ten miles can smell and come looking for a piece of. That might sound like power to you, I call it looking into the barrel of a loaded gun. Remember, before all those hormones kicked in we’re asexual creatures. With the hormones suddenly everything is extremely confusing. You simply don’t have the wisdom or experience to wield something like that as a power.

You are both right, having something that other people value gives you power in that you can use it to get what you want but it also makes you vulnerable to those who want to take it from you. Those of us who are meek and would rather fade into the background are more likely to experience it as an awful imposition but that is because of our perspective and not a universal truth.

[ZPG_Zealot]

@Wesley_Clark

Part of the problem is that as a man I’ve never had to deal with these problems, so I don’t really know much about them.

Example: when I was in college a female aquaintenace told me how she was terrified to walk to her car after classes got out at night. As a tall, athletic (at the time) male that never occurred to me as something to be afraid of. It would be like hearing someone say they were afraid to walk in the frozen foods section at the grocery store. So because I’ve never had to deal with these problems, they are something I don’t grasp that well.

I think (correct me if I"m wrong) what you and some of the other women are saying is that when a woman’s body develops, then all of a sudden men who have far more power, wealth, status and knowledge then her start wanting something from her and she is afraid they will use the power discrepancy that comes from their higher level of power/age/experience/wealth to take it by force or manipulation.

My point is that as a guy who has never had to deal with that, it didn’t automatically occur to me to be worried about it. I’ve never had to be afraid of women as a group.

The best way I can describe it is, imagine walking into a prison shower for the first time ever and noticing a dozen guys twice your muscular capacity leering at you and starting to sport erections? That’s life for a lot of teenage girls. It isn’t fun by any means.

[puddleglum]

@monstro

But our mental health is shaped by our particular milleu or context. Mental disorders can be culturally specific. Does anorexia nervosa exist in cultures where food is scarce and the obese female form is valued? I seriously doubt it.

Psychologically speaking, yes, we’d all be better off if we ignored the opinions of others. Just like we’d all be better if ate better diets and got more exercise and ignored all the cues and obstacles the environmental places in front of us. But the way I see it, we can either do the idealistic thing and expect individuals to be super-human and steel themselves against all peer/authority pressure. Or we can be more pragmatic and take reasonable measures to mitigate harmful societal effects.

Personally, because I’m growing more cynical in my older age, I think it is unrealistic to put a lot of hope in the more pragmatic option ever happening on a widespread basis. The horse has already left the barn on that. Ultimately, people have to work on on their own self-esteems, just like they have to work on their own physical health. However, I do think people, working as individuals, can help other individuals deal with baggage. I know that personally, I’ve really become more conscientious about using “big fat” as a qualifier. It doesn’t hurt me any to avoid saying it, so why not? And if I had a kid, I’d like to think I’d also take pains to be “body positive”, especially if I had reason to believe they were vulnerable to body shame.

Mental illness is often times due to injuries incurred through social assault. So in that way, yes we all have some responsibility in all of this. We are not islands existing in a vacuum.

I think that expecting people to take responsibility for their own mental health and expecting society to change to walk on eggshells around people with body issues are both equally unrealistic. On the margin, however the first is much preferred since it would actually improve the situation. For one thing it is an empowering message to tell people to take responsibility for their own mental health means that they have hope of things getting better, while blaming people’s mental health condition on some mythical patriarchy is in fact telling them that there is hope of them getting better.
In monitoring our language we just create a faster euphemism treadmill, if we succeeded in banning the word fat whatever replaced it would turn into an epithet in about two hours.

[Aangelica]

@Wesley_Clark

For me one thing I’ve wondered about women is how do they react to the power of being a woman and a sexual creature? Once you hit puberty after age 13 or 14 or so, all of a sudden you have to realize you have the ability to manipulate men who are your fathers age or older (40+). I assume that has to be a mindfuck on a teenager, knowing they have that kind of power.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that it’s only actually “power” if you’re doing it on purpose - if it is a thing you sought and have some conscious control over. If, instead, it’s just a thing that randomly happens to you one day, it’s not power - it’s terrifying.

For example, during the summer between 6th and 7th grade, I sprouted fairly sizeable breasts. (Seriously, in the span of three months, I went from nothing at all to mid-C cup breasts.) I mean, I was sort of vaguely anticipating boobs at some point, but I literally went on a family vacation and came back shaped like an adult woman instead of a little girl. I’ve actually gone back and looked at pictures of that vacation - it’s creepy as hell. In the pictures in May, I was still very physically a little girl - all straight lines and sort of vaguely androgynous like kids are. In the pictures in September, I was equally clearly physically at least a woman - there were boobs and hips all over the damn place. I don’t recall feeling any different, though.

Even adults I had a previously-established relationship with were reacting to me differently. I was never in any danger from the adults in my life (or, realistically, from the other teenagers, either), but it is unbelievably disorienting and terrifying to all of a sudden be treated as a sexual being. There is quite often a certain amount of lag time between the physical development portion of puberty and the actual mental switchover to a point where a person is actually mentally prepared to be a sexual being (or, yanno, even particularly interested in being a sexual being).

I could tell that the older boys (and some of the adult men) around me clearly wanted something from me, but it took me quite some time to figure out what precisely it was. And even longer before it occurred to me that their wanting something from me was a form of leverage.

Think of it like that - a lot of children are pretty eager to please the adults in their lives, to give the adults what they want from the child. When a girl hits puberty, all of a sudden at least some of the adults in her life want* things that often girls both simultaneously don’t really understand and still knows aren’t precisely kosher. Even if the adults would never actually do or say anything inappropriate, it still causes some upheaval for the girl. I think guys have a really less troublesome time with this at least partially because boy children hit the “development of secondary sexual characteristics” stage of puberty at a rather older age on average, and it’s also often more gradual on the physical changes for guys than it is for girls. By the time boys start looking like adult men, they tend to be 16 - 18 or even older. Girls often start looking pretty much like adult women at 12 - 14 - and the actual changes are more dramatic.
*Note: A man’s awareness of a female’s attractiveness often feels, to the female, like “want” even when it’s not something the man would ever act on, express, or even admit to having. So, say, a teacher’s sudden awareness that one of his students sprouted a really nice rack over the summer break - even if the teacher wouldn’t in a billion years behave inappropriately - is pretty damn discombobulating to the student if she’s perceptive about that kind of thing.

[WhyNot]

@Wesley_Clark

I wanted to get the book Bodies and Souls but the library doesn’t carry it. Are there others along the same genre?

For me one thing I’ve wondered about women is how do they react to the power of being a woman and a sexual creature? Once you hit puberty after age 13 or 14 or so, all of a sudden you have to realize you have the ability to manipulate men who are your fathers age or older (40+). I assume that has to be a mindfuck on a teenager, knowing they have that kind of power.

I think your speculation is not entirely incorrect (for a subset of women), but your timeline is off. The “power” stage is concurrent with the terror, but it begins later. Mostly. So you’re 10-12 and you suddenly get bumpy and that’s when the feeling like a piece of meat on display yucky feelings usually start. Somewhere around 13-15 is when you start realizing that you can drive boys crazy a little bit, and that’s when the notion that you might have some “power” starts…but then they stare a little bit too long, or the wrong guy stares, or someone grabs your ass, and it’s terrifying again. You only *thought *you had the power. Yes, it’s a total mindfuck. They act like you have the power (those 40+ year old men) but you actually don’t.

The real power of female sexuality doesn’t hit most of us until our 20s (in our current culture). That’s when we get the emotional strength and life experience to learn how to defend ourselves, physically and emotionally, and when we learn to turn on or off our sexual signals with a little more precision. That’s when we get a bit of actual power in the sexual arms race. But, y’know, again…only mostly, and only a bit. We continue to have those terrifying moments when we realize that if That Dude wanted to hurt us, he totally could, because he’s bigger and stronger and doesn’t give a shit. The ratio of “moments of feeling powerful” and “moments of feeling terrified” varies a whole lot between women.

Different women, of course, have different experiences, and different timelines, but that seems to be pretty typical in my own experience and those that other women have shared with me, and that I’ve observed in my daughter and goddaughters.

[Allthegood]

@astro

Yes fat people are discriminated against in modern society where physical fitness is a desired trait, but that discrimination is against both men and women and perpetrated by both men and women.

I disagree. I have seen plenty of fat men in management positions, elected to public office, respected and listened to … fat women, not so much. Fat women are laughed at, shunned, ignored when it comes to promotions, and are supposed to act all grateful when a guy deigns to go out with them. Fat men, not so much.

[astro]

@Allthegood

I disagree. I have seen plenty of fat men in management positions, elected to public office, respected and listened to … fat women, not so much. Fat women are laughed at, shunned, ignored when it comes to promotions, and are supposed to act all grateful when a guy deigns to go out with them. Fat men, not so much.

I’m not sure what part of the country you’re living in, but anytime I see local news accounts of different people who’ve been promoted, or awards being given out or just general corporate information announcements with pictures of the entire staff and identification as to who’s who, heavier women are certainly not under represented as managers or bosses.