In honesty, I skimmed your OP and missed your last paragraph at first, so when I read this, my reaction was, “so which is which?” I thought they were both considered shallow. And both, to an extent, socially acceptable.
Hollywood is an exaggeration and a microcosm of society’s values. Sure, the outcries against too-scrawny actresses are everywhere, but there hasn’t exactly been an influx of Sarah Rues or Camryn Manheims in response, because in reality people do prefer thinner women. Short actors are more common, but in movies they’re often filmed carefully so that they appear taller than their female costars, and their heights are either conspicuously not mentioned or exaggerated in teen mag profiles. When a short actor’s true height is a matter of public knowledge, he’s mocked for it. (See Tom Cruise, even before he went nuts.) Because people prefer taller men.
Though you purposely left it out of the discussion at first, I think the difference in outrage may be due to the fact that one is (perceived to be) changeable and the other is not. As everyone knows, it is theoretically possible to lose weight. Therefore, the (sometimes unconscious) perception is, any heavy woman could lose weight and be thinner and more attractive, if she really really tried, so if she doesn’t, it must be because she’s lazy, so that’s not just a physical flaw, it’s a character flaw as well.* Everyone knows a short guy can’t get taller, so it’s “not really his fault” and he doesn’t get an automatic minus in the character column. The extra outrage against the “no fat chicks!” ideal is a reaction to the perception that being overweight indicates a character flaw, less than the dislike of heavy women itself. That’s oversimplifying it, but it’s the general idea.
*Pleeeeze note that I in no way subscribe to this line of thinking.
Thanks for your input, EleventyOne. Let me see if I can summarize your theory correctly. I think you’re saying that society views this issue as follows:
“Women can, to some extent, control their own waistlines. Therefore, if men perceive fat women as unattractive, they must be thinking these women have some character flaw. Men are such pigs for thinking that way!”
and
“Men can’t change their own height. They can’t make themselves taller, even if they tried. Ergo, if a woman rejects a short man, she’s rejecting him based on a purely physical shortcoming. That’s socially acceptable.”
Boy. If that theory is correct, then there’s that’s some pretty backwards thinking going on.
Mind you, I’m not trying to mock your viewpoint, EleventyOne. In fact, I think there may be some merit to it. Human beings are not entirely rational, after all.
I think Aniston and Cox’s weight loss coincided with the peak of their celebrity, they’d already been on a hit show for a few years but it was the height of the show’s popularity. Cox went and had a baby and announced her semi-retirement but Aniston has been working steadily, so I don’t think we can hang the famous for being married tag on her yet. Neither got (more) famous just for losing weight, but they got a lot of mostly negative press for it at the time.
I don’t think I actually believe this, but I wonder if it might be acceptable to snub shorter men because they’re perceived as less manly? He’s small, even child-like and therefore less powerfull and so less manly. How could you be upset with a woman who doesn’t want an unmanly man? If she’s straight she *should * want a manly, adult partner, wanting a shorter partner would be deviant.
Men wanting a slender partner is less acceptable because to a certain degree, excess weight doesn’t make a woman less of a woman. In some cases it actually emphasizes her womanliness by adding cup size and rounder hips. There’s a wider range of acceptable weight, so demanding only slender women is unnecessarily picky. Don’t know if I believe that either, but I’ll throw it out anyway.
Speaking only for myself, I figured out a few years ago why I seem to choose taller men. First, I’ve had a good number of shorter men ignore me or even get hostile because I’m tall for a woman (and lucky me, I grew up where both men and women are shorter than average and have very traditional ideas of gender roles, too). This gets old after a while, to say the least. Add to the mix that all the men on both sides of my family are quite tall and I dearly love every single one of these great guys. When we get together I have fun, I feel safe and loved, so with me, tall men will have an edge over shorter men because I associate tall with nice. After one or two very tiresome bad boys I’ve come to conclude that nice is most important, because if he’s not nice, nothing else really matters.
Well if that rationale works for you, then you should have no problem with men in my camp (thin geeky, and therefore “unmanly” guys) or men who are short, deciding that they don’t want any fat chicks. :rolleyes:
That’s the point the OP is trying to make. Women can’t just say “oh, I could never date him, he’s so unmanly” and then have the audacity to get offended when a man rejects them if they are overweight.
Why thank you Soapbox Monkey, I was having trouble putting words in my mouth until you came along and did it for me. Try re-reading my post and this time notice where I wrote “I don’t think I actually believe this” See it now? The first sentence I wrote. I was trying to get at why some people might have the views outlined by the OP-- I didn’t say that was my rationale and I didn’t comment upon whether the views were reasonable or fair.
For the record though, I do believe you have every right to go ahead and cross ‘fat chicks’ off your list of desireable traits in a mate. It’s a free country, fuck whomever you’d like. Me, I’ll be over here with my tall boyfriends, thinking people with double standards for appearance are twits, just like you seem to, and keep trying to puzzle out why one is more accepted than the other. I may be misunderstanding the OP, but it appears that is what he’s after, not debate about whether the double standard is fair and whom should be allowed to be offended.
No more acceptable than snubbing a man who talks a lot instead of being the strong silent type, or who plays the cello instead of running triathlons. (That is, “acceptable” on a social level.)
You’re very close to touching on something real here: The Shortie Complex. Some – hello? I said some – men of smaller stature tend to overcompensate by being cocky, loud and abrasive. These are the guys who insist on a taller female companion purely for public image (“hey guys, look what a stud I am”).
Then again, at least the obnoxious-pipsqueak approach works with certain women. Nothing helps when you’re 5’11" and trying to impress a lady who’s 5’10".
Whoa there Doug. I want to make sure you know I wasn’t referring to anybody in this thread being abrasive due to compensation for anything or implying that all short men do this. I’ve known plenty of shorter men who demonstrated no such complex, but it’s the ones who do, and hurt your feelings, a person tends to remember more vividly.
You’re right, ‘obnoxious pipsqueak’ done properly, with humor, can be charming. One of my former co-workers was a champ at that-- now you’ve made me miss arguing with him, poop.
And any woman 5’10" (or whatever, really) who thinks a guy 5’11" (or whatever) is a pipsqueak and needs to impress her, is a tool to be avoided. You can have a preference and still have an open mind and treat people nicely, regardless.
Yes, yes, yes. For the record, I prefer shorter men. The tallest guy I ever dated was 6’ and I hated having to bend my neck up to kiss him. I met him while I was wearing high heels and was quite dismayed at the distance between us when I stood next to him barefoot. I prefer men who are 5’7 or under. There are certain individuals who have a complex because of their short height and these people feel that they must be overly cocky and aggressive or else they won’t get any respect. This is about 1/10th of all the short men I’ve dated, maybe less, but I know these men blame their lack of success on their short height.
