The Way We Were
Asymmetrical Information looks at old 9th grade yearbook photos. "By my count, at least half the girls would be dieting today. I've noticed the same thing looking at my mother's high school yearbook; my mother strenuously denies that those girls thought about their weight. Our standards for 'thin' and 'normal' have changed dramatically, which is adding to our perception that Americans are getting fatter." Click more to see the photo.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/16/2007 02:23:00 AM
2 Comments:
Yes, anorexia is a terrible thing. So is being an obese oinker. And that's what America's dietary habits are producing. Go Mediterranean; that's the climate even the coolest part of Mainland US will have shortly anyway!
;)
Wretchard, what drives the change?
The standard feminist critique is that "men" somehow make women do things they don't want to do: diet themselves into impossible standards of slenderness.
That critique like everything Feminists do or say is lacking in logic, reason, or even a nodding acquaintance with reality.
The noted feature of life among young women is the total competition for the limited supply of the Alpha Males, the A-Listers, the top status men. You can see it in the explosion of beauty and fashion, as a beauty-arms-race among women exists to compete for the limited supply of A-Listers. Or the study showing how women's sexual fantasies were about famous and powerful men: rock stars, actors, sports heroes, presidents, etc.
What changed from years past is that women would trade off the preferences for status/power for more "agreeable" characteristics such as loyalty, humor, decency, courage, etc. in the desire to have a life-long mate who would stick with her and her children even through difficult times.
Rising income, consumerism-status concerns, mass culture requiring status symbols to maintain individuality, and the welfare state throughout the globe have erased that old trade-off and led to an enormous competition among women for the A-Lister men.
Which is why they starve themselves to be thinner than the next girl. Spend all that money on makeup and clothes.
This to me explains the decline of marriage and family and religious feelings (related to decline of family). The materialism and status obsessions of modern consumerism lead women to select only for status, ignoring other factors, and thus most women lose out since there are only a few high status men by definition. There is also of course a huge pool of non-high status men who lose out, and as a result resent losing.
Similar to but largely hidden from view, to the Chinese "bare branches" i.e. men without wives/girl friends due to selective sex abortion in favor of men; India also; and the Muslim penchant for polygamy which deprives most men of wives. East Germany has lost 25% of women 18-34 as they flee to other places in Europe in search of high-status men. Those men without women end up joining Neo Nazi gangs as Der Spiegel reports.
We see Islam's problem with men who have no women, but don't see this in the West, disguised as it is by mass culture and consumerism.
But it's all related. And I don't see any changes, women will continue to starve themselves to attract the A-Listers into the foreseeable future.
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