Females propagating impossible beauty standards too?
On my way to visit a professor on the campus of my college, Florida State University, I walked past a girl who caught my eye. She was about 5'4" and couldn't have weighed more than 90 pounds. In fact I could clearly see her hipbones jutting out above the waist of her pants. She was dressed in spandex leggings and a cropped tank top, emblazoned with the phrase "Do I make you feel fat?"
My eyes grew wide and I could feel my mouth open in shock as I read those words. I don't know what to characterize my response as, other than a mix of confusion, awkwardness, and surprise. Some part of me is angry as well.
I walked away thinking I'd seen yet proof of an argument I'd once heard: That women do not make themselves look a certain way to please men, that they do it to compete with each other. Is this what I saw? And, on a side note, can anyone tell me whether studies have been done to validate this argument at all?
It just irked me seeing that message on the girl's shirt. It made me realize that it's not only a patriarchal society that forces these harmful thoughts on women [that we must be dangerously thin, live up to an unreachable standard of beauty, etc], there are women out there promoting those same standards.
Did I interpret the girl and her shirt incorrectly? Did my assumptions reach too far? Any other thoughts on this?
My eyes grew wide and I could feel my mouth open in shock as I read those words. I don't know what to characterize my response as, other than a mix of confusion, awkwardness, and surprise. Some part of me is angry as well.
I walked away thinking I'd seen yet proof of an argument I'd once heard: That women do not make themselves look a certain way to please men, that they do it to compete with each other. Is this what I saw? And, on a side note, can anyone tell me whether studies have been done to validate this argument at all?
It just irked me seeing that message on the girl's shirt. It made me realize that it's not only a patriarchal society that forces these harmful thoughts on women [that we must be dangerously thin, live up to an unreachable standard of beauty, etc], there are women out there promoting those same standards.
Did I interpret the girl and her shirt incorrectly? Did my assumptions reach too far? Any other thoughts on this?