RE: Women and weightbcegdaNovember 12 2019, 18:03:52 UTC
you are functioning from an incomplete data set
I don't know who you were talking to but I grew up in South America and went to an international school so we had kids anywhere from Israel to New Zealand to Bolivia - and yes, a large percentage from the US. The bullying fat girls thing was alive and well
even outside the rarefied posh international school context, all the Chilean women ob-fucking-sessed about their weight, and that of everyone else's. The Argentine women made fun of the Chilean women because they were/are as a race more fat than them. It's like a trope. It's also a trope that many of the Brazilian and Venezuelan beauty pageant winners and models either live under the knife or starve themselves to death (of all anorexic supermodel deaths they come disproportionately from these 2 countries originally). You say 'sure, beauty queens' but those are just the canaries in the coal mine to the rest of the diseased state of things. The topic du jour of every female in a family circle -from sisters to aunts to grandparents to parents - was about who was now fat, who was not fat, etc. To this day i cannot put a photo on FB without someone from over there saying, 1st thing, beyond you look nice or happy or what have you, 'you look so thin!' I get that from the chicks there than I ever do from Americans. So I just would rather not bother because i don't want the greek chorus commenting on my weight, either to my face (if they like what they see) or behind my back (if they don't)
i spent a month in China and the Chinese shopkeepers (all women) would habitually comment about Western women's large size, and the Asian girls I saw at school (in America and Chile) were pretty obsessed about staying little - it was even more insane because they were already basically invisible
there was a book called French Women Don't Get Fat about a French lady who gained 30+ lb on a US study abroad trip and when going back to France she caught so much flak from everyone (family, doctors, etc) that she grew up to write a book about it. And at some pt I learned that in Europe women who find themselves unable to keep an 'elegant size' usually ostracize themselves and dissappear from view in shame - a reason why you never see a lot of different-sized people over there. I've only been to Europe twice 20+ years ago and sure enough, there were almost no overweight women
Aside from whoever I knew at Nido I can't speak much to the cultural reality of Africa, the Middle East, or Oceania, but pretty much everywhere else I have witnessed or received cattiness and obsession about body weight
RE: Women and weightbcegdaNovember 12 2019, 18:04:15 UTC
I grew up, as did a ginormous percentage (i would guess 88%) of the female global population mind raped by the fat/thin deal. Nobody abroad escaped it, sorry to say. In fact, I would say it has been more tolerable to me in America because at least ppl here are mostly huge and there's a whole fat acceptance movement. So ironically I find the opposite of your experience. I find that America is probably a place to be if you want to be free of moronic beauty ideals and fat/thin mindrape. There's just more diversity here. Over there (especially latin america) the female social roles are so ossified and inescapable that there exists no alternative. Sure, here you have Instacunts and celebrity garbage and pointless magazines and the 20 - 40% of actual women who seriously buy in (as opposed to tolerate it as so much noise) but there it pretty much is all there is. It is a place that last I checked if you are female applying for a job it is legit to post "35 and under only need apply" on a secretary/receptionist ad and where 'are you height weight proportionate' is a legit application question.
i also hear a lot of people over here obsess about their weight who are actually diseased, and concerned because they are going to die, as opposed to just the cosmetic thing. That to me is a different ballpark. I mean, sure, the litany gets old, but when some 400+ porker is anguished about their wheezing and their blood sugar and their knees that can't uphold their weight, that just carries more legitimacy.
anyway, I don't really have a point beyond I just could not let that disinfo go. People 'over there' had it as bad if not worse than here, and if your friends did not go into it it's because either you just didn'tknow them that well or the mindrape is so endemic and entrenched that it does not merit commenting/mention
RE: Women and weightbcegdaNovember 12 2019, 18:30:18 UTC
(oh wait - I forgot to talk about my Korean friend who was basically fat shamed all thru growing up because she couldn't ever get much less than a size 4 and she had the audacity to have Actual Boobs. Never mind she looked like anybody any American would aspire to look like - she did not fit the neotenous zero-body-fat Asian ideal, so that was that)
Re: Women and weightseasidebeeNovember 13 2019, 14:40:37 UTC
Interesting. And sad.
That wasn't my experience, in terms of what we discussed or that I became aware of as a result of knowing people. It's not surprising that it is not merely endemic or specific to American culture. I do wonder though, if that attitude, like Coca Cola, just ended up spreading from here like so much more "advertising".
RE: Re: Women and weightbcegdaNovember 14 2019, 01:46:41 UTC
I dunno. Beauty ideals are something that even monkeys and birds have. There has been a small variance in sizes over the centuries and in different locales but it is still a very narrow margin. Possibly in antiquity and definitely in pre industrial societies a really fat woman was ideal in some way
there are some tyrannies that have not been escaped, ever, like narrow waist, etc. SO they had corsets. And of course in China they had lotus feet and in Africa those weird rings that deformed your neck. So, always some bizarre and obnoxious imperative we're supposed to follow so as to 'rate'
i want to say the thin thing is a generalised western culture thing and actually begun in Europe with artists like Gustav Klimt and people like Coco Chanel. Is it not true that Twiggy was actually British and that before her the culture favoured a fuller figured person IE Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, etc? (not that that's helpful to 'normal women', hah)
i think, kind of like you say, people just need to grow up and ignore beauty standards as so much noise. It's something that seems to be endemic to all sentient beings because of the completely moronic and brainless breeding imperative and if anything as humans we have the good fortune of checking out mentally in some way. But it's pretty ingrained and there's always a small part of your brain that will feel impelled towards that, sad to say. It also, even sadder, pays off in the culture to acquiese to it, which is why I understand women who succumb
"My mother died of femininity. I told her that I would say this about her. She had said, “Will you write a book about me?” and I asked if she wanted me to. She said “Yes. I want you to say that I left the world a better place because I had you!” I said I thought that this was a bad idea: people would think it an excuse to write about me. She said, “Can you think of another topic?” I offered this phrase about femininity, and explained why. My brother-in-law thought that it would be better to say that my mother died from vanity rather than from femininity. I can see why he would prefer that story; it’s interesting to see how a label shifts the implication."
Re: Re: Women and weightseasidebeeNovember 14 2019, 14:08:24 UTC
You've reminded me of many things I learned in Women's Studies classes and then forgot over the last 20 years. LOL Wish I had your retention! Interesting article, thanks for the link.
My objective is to continue to support the young women in my life to be comfortable in their own skin, and not to buy in to prevailing cultural attitudes that inform them that they aren't enough, or that they must be other than who they are. This whole discussion, my current ire with it, began, (again), as a result of witnessing several young women seriously struggling with related issues, and feeling like I want to help in any way I can.
I don't know who you were talking to but I grew up in South America and went to an international school so we had kids anywhere from Israel to New Zealand to Bolivia - and yes, a large percentage from the US. The bullying fat girls thing was alive and well
even outside the rarefied posh international school context, all the Chilean women ob-fucking-sessed about their weight, and that of everyone else's. The Argentine women made fun of the Chilean women because they were/are as a race more fat than them. It's like a trope. It's also a trope that many of the Brazilian and Venezuelan beauty pageant winners and models either live under the knife or starve themselves to death (of all anorexic supermodel deaths they come disproportionately from these 2 countries originally). You say 'sure, beauty queens' but those are just the canaries in the coal mine to the rest of the diseased state of things. The topic du jour of every female in a family circle -from sisters to aunts to grandparents to parents - was about who was now fat, who was not fat, etc. To this day i cannot put a photo on FB without someone from over there saying, 1st thing, beyond you look nice or happy or what have you, 'you look so thin!' I get that from the chicks there than I ever do from Americans. So I just would rather not bother because i don't want the greek chorus commenting on my weight, either to my face (if they like what they see) or behind my back (if they don't)
i spent a month in China and the Chinese shopkeepers (all women) would habitually comment about Western women's large size, and the Asian girls I saw at school (in America and Chile) were pretty obsessed about staying little - it was even more insane because they were already basically invisible
there was a book called French Women Don't Get Fat about a French lady who gained 30+ lb on a US study abroad trip and when going back to France she caught so much flak from everyone (family, doctors, etc) that she grew up to write a book about it. And at some pt I learned that in Europe women who find themselves unable to keep an 'elegant size' usually ostracize themselves and dissappear from view in shame - a reason why you never see a lot of different-sized people over there. I've only been to Europe twice 20+ years ago and sure enough, there were almost no overweight women
Aside from whoever I knew at Nido I can't speak much to the cultural reality of Africa, the Middle East, or Oceania, but pretty much everywhere else I have witnessed or received cattiness and obsession about body weight
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I grew up, as did a ginormous percentage (i would guess 88%) of the female global population mind raped by the fat/thin deal. Nobody abroad escaped it, sorry to say. In fact, I would say it has been more tolerable to me in America because at least ppl here are mostly huge and there's a whole fat acceptance movement. So ironically I find the opposite of your experience. I find that America is probably a place to be if you want to be free of moronic beauty ideals and fat/thin mindrape. There's just more diversity here. Over there (especially latin america) the female social roles are so ossified and inescapable that there exists no alternative. Sure, here you have Instacunts and celebrity garbage and pointless magazines and the 20 - 40% of actual women who seriously buy in (as opposed to tolerate it as so much noise) but there it pretty much is all there is. It is a place that last I checked if you are female applying for a job it is legit to post "35 and under only need apply" on a secretary/receptionist ad and where 'are you height weight proportionate' is a legit application question.
i also hear a lot of people over here obsess about their weight who are actually diseased, and concerned because they are going to die, as opposed to just the cosmetic thing. That to me is a different ballpark. I mean, sure, the litany gets old, but when some 400+ porker is anguished about their wheezing and their blood sugar and their knees that can't uphold their weight, that just carries more legitimacy.
anyway, I don't really have a point beyond I just could not let that disinfo go. People 'over there' had it as bad if not worse than here, and if your friends did not go into it it's because either you just didn'tknow them that well or the mindrape is so endemic and entrenched that it does not merit commenting/mention
Reply
Reply
That wasn't my experience, in terms of what we discussed or that I became aware of as a result of knowing people. It's not surprising that it is not merely endemic or specific to American culture. I do wonder though, if that attitude, like Coca Cola, just ended up spreading from here like so much more "advertising".
Reply
there are some tyrannies that have not been escaped, ever, like narrow waist, etc. SO they had corsets. And of course in China they had lotus feet and in Africa those weird rings that deformed your neck. So, always some bizarre and obnoxious imperative we're supposed to follow so as to 'rate'
i want to say the thin thing is a generalised western culture thing and actually begun in Europe with artists like Gustav Klimt and people like Coco Chanel. Is it not true that Twiggy was actually British and that before her the culture favoured a fuller figured person IE Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe, etc? (not that that's helpful to 'normal women', hah)
i think, kind of like you say, people just need to grow up and ignore beauty standards as so much noise. It's something that seems to be endemic to all sentient beings because of the completely moronic and brainless breeding imperative and if anything as humans we have the good fortune of checking out mentally in some way. But it's pretty ingrained and there's always a small part of your brain that will feel impelled towards that, sad to say. It also, even sadder, pays off in the culture to acquiese to it, which is why I understand women who succumb
this is a thinker whom I absolutely LOVE. https://supervalentthought.com/2012/05/16/for-example/
"My mother died of femininity. I told her that I would say this about her. She had said, “Will you write a book about me?” and I asked if she wanted me to. She said “Yes. I want you to say that I left the world a better place because I had you!” I said I thought that this was a bad idea: people would think it an excuse to write about me. She said, “Can you think of another topic?” I offered this phrase about femininity, and explained why. My brother-in-law thought that it would be better to say that my mother died from vanity rather than from femininity. I can see why he would prefer that story; it’s interesting to see how a label shifts the implication."
highly recommend the rest
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Reply
My objective is to continue to support the young women in my life to be comfortable in their own skin, and not to buy in to prevailing cultural attitudes that inform them that they aren't enough, or that they must be other than who they are. This whole discussion, my current ire with it, began, (again), as a result of witnessing several young women seriously struggling with related issues, and feeling like I want to help in any way I can.
Thanks for your input.
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