He's just big: she's fat - sexual differences on body and self image

Vibrant Life, Jan-Feb, 1994 by Judith Stone

"One interesting theory," says Bolin, "is that during periods of liberation, like the 1920s, when women had just gotten the vote, and the 1960s, when the Pill became available, the ideal shape for women deemphasized their reproductive characteristics--the nourishing breasts, the wide, childbearing hips."

But the skinny ideal has also been interpreted as a form of subjugation. The Pill gave women more control over their sex lives, and changes in the workplace have given them more control over their economic lives. With power over reproduction and production slipping away, the reasoning goes, men are keeping the upper hand by controlling consumption--insisting that women aren't thin enough.

"But is this really an issue of men dominating women?" says Mark Nichter, a University of Arizona anthropologist involved in the Teen Lifestyle Project, a long-term study of teenage girls, including their attitudes toward weight. "Or are women, by adopting the desire for thinness, actually taking control of their own bodies?" If it is male domination, Nichter asks, "which men are we talking about: what race, class, income? Is it men at large, or the fashion and advertising industries? Where's the data that shows this is what men actually want?"

Anne Bolin's study of body image has left her with questions too. "Is dieting a denial or an embrace of our passions? Does getting in shape defy the patriarchy or play into its hands? When women get out and exercise, they may be striving for slender bodies--a form of tyranny---but they are in fact experiencing a liberation. No longer denied access to a full range of movement, they feel strong, not helpless."

Please men or please ourselves? (Or does that have to be an or?) Defy or deny? Choice or coercion? Regular or decaf? Window or aisle?

Lately men, too, have been bombarded with media ideals, and they're actually starting to notice. "Lots of data suggest men increasingly worry about their bodies," says Judith Rodin. "They're targets for diet soft drink and light beer ads in a way we didn't see 15 years ago. The pressure is on both sexes, because the state of the body has become not merely a measure of fitness, but a metaphor for competence and a symbol of how willing we are to engage in self-corrective behavior." Physical flab is moral flab. Unfit means out of control.

I think it would be nice if we accepted that most of us aren't going to pose for the Victoria's Secret catalog unless Victoria's secret is that she ate a three-cylinder bag of Double Stuf Oreos.

I think it would be nice if we considered beautiful a range of women' s body types.

I think it would be nice if hating the way you look weren't so good for the economy. We all know that advertising is designed to make us feel dissatisfied with ourselves so that we'll buy more stuff (like the weightloss products on which Americans spend $30 billion a year). We know, too, that women in ads, knockouts to start with, are artificially perfected beyond human emulation. We know, but we forget. I think it would be nice if the next time you took a look at one of these ads and asked yourself What's she got that I haven't got? you answered yourself: an airbrush.