Because it's all about what men look at and what men see and what men think of what men look at and see. A woman's clothes are never about her, what she wants to see when she looks in the mirror, or even about her friends. When we look in the mirror, we're taught to see ourselves as men see us. When we talk to our friends, we're taught to evaluate ourselves and one another on how well our outfits will attract or deter the attention of men. When a woman is feeling low about how she looks, one of the most common comments is "Well, guys still think you're hot!" (or, from male friends, "Well, I still think you're hot!") like that's all that matters. Like we have no standards for ourselves, no internal standards, only externally imposed notions of how much or little we deviate from some impossible ideal.
I'll go further: shoes. And I'll go there without qualms because I'm a man who thinks that high-heeled shoes are not only ridiculous but dangerous. They foreshorten the calf muscle and cause all sorts of balance problems because they shift a woman's center of gravity off-center and probably wreak havoc on her spine. But hey, they thrust something out (bust? hips? I really neither know nor care), and thus men insist that women wear the wretched things.
It has not escaped my attention that in general everyday life, men do not wear the type of attire that they insist women wear. That goes both for comfort and for amount of skin exposed. This is wrong. (Understatement much?)
Its always a little weird when my dad would say something like, I know how guys think, and you can't wear that.
Yes, because you are imagining it. What I don't know.
As far as the self image thing, it is useful, the "well people still think I'm hot thing." Its validating. Cause I look at myself and go, hmm, I have a belly. And then I remember that it doesn't matter, because no one I care about thinks about it, except me. And then I feel pretty, because its true even if I don't match the magazines.
Our internal standards often try to match the impossible ideal unless we are getting the reality check from others that they think we are pretty inspite of our non conformity.
Reply
I'll go further: shoes. And I'll go there without qualms because I'm a man who thinks that high-heeled shoes are not only ridiculous but dangerous. They foreshorten the calf muscle and cause all sorts of balance problems because they shift a woman's center of gravity off-center and probably wreak havoc on her spine. But hey, they thrust something out (bust? hips? I really neither know nor care), and thus men insist that women wear the wretched things.
It has not escaped my attention that in general everyday life, men do not wear the type of attire that they insist women wear. That goes both for comfort and for amount of skin exposed. This is wrong. (Understatement much?)
(Edited to fix a word omission)
Reply
Yes, because you are imagining it. What I don't know.
As far as the self image thing, it is useful, the "well people still think I'm hot thing." Its validating. Cause I look at myself and go, hmm, I have a belly. And then I remember that it doesn't matter, because no one I care about thinks about it, except me. And then I feel pretty, because its true even if I don't match the magazines.
Our internal standards often try to match the impossible ideal unless we are getting the reality check from others that they think we are pretty inspite of our non conformity.
Reply
Leave a comment