I’m a little hesitant to post this, because — although Campos never actually blames white women for the obsession with weight loss (in fact, Campos describes it as something done to white women — he describes anti-fat “neuroses” as something “middle- and upper-class American white women… are taught from a very early age”), he doesn’t do much to cut off that reading either.
From having read other writings by Campos, I don’t think he intended a “blame women” sexist reading; but nonetheless, he should have written the article in a way that foreclosed such a reading. Nonetheless, the article concisely states some good ideas that I might want to use in a cartoon later, and posting it here is the best way I have of not losing track of the article.
This was part of an alleged debate between Kelly Brownell — whose form of anti-fat bigotry Campos aptly likens to a fundamentalist Christian who despises bigotry towards homosexuals, has no animus towards homosexuals personally, he just wants them to learn not to be gay anymore! — and Campos, author of The Obesity Myth. I say “alleged debate” because Brownell simply refused to address any of Campos’ points right from the start, and Campos just barely addresses any of Brownell’s points.
Inflicting white neuroses on nonwhite women
By Paul F. CamposAmericans are obsessed with fat because fatness has become a symbol for poverty, downward mobility, nonwhiteness and socially marginal status in general. Fear and hatred of fat has very little to do with the health risks associated with being “overweight” and “obese” (which are wholly imaginary and highly exaggerated, respectively), and everything to do with the symbolic meanings that thin and fat bodies have in this culture.
The fundamental strategy of the war on fat is to universalize the attitudes of middle- and upper-class white American women toward weight, food, dieting and exercise. Such women are taught from a very early age to hate their bodies, to be terrified of fat and to turn eating into an endless moralistic struggle between the imperative to eat appropriately petite portions of supposedly “good” foods while avoiding the quasi-erotic seductions of “bad” foods.
This, of course, is a recipe for producing an epidemic of eating disorders, which is precisely what we’ve managed to do. Indeed, the current panic over “obesity” resembles nothing so much as the projection of a classically eating-disordered world view onto an entire society.
And, increasingly, we’re successfully exporting this worldview. For example, until a few years ago, anorexia and bulimia were unknown in the western Pacific. But with the advent of cable television and programs such as “Baywatch,” adolescent girls in these cultures have begun to act like so many of their American counterparts as they learn that they have the “wrong” kinds of bodies.
Recognizing a golden marketing opportunity, companies such as Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig have begun to target their advertising at African American and Latina women because, as Laura Fraser points out in her book “Losing It,” most white women already “can’t make it through a day without getting disgusted with themselves for not having a better — meaning thinner — body.”
You claim that nearly four out of every five black American women are “overweight” or “obese,” yet studies generally find that African American girls and women have much more positive views of their own bodies than white girls and women do. Is it a coincidence that studies also record no increased mortality risk ((Okay, Campos didn’t really put in a link to “Alas” here. But it was fairly relevant, so I stuck in the link myself.)) associated with even very high levels of body mass among black women?
Needless to say, both diet companies and obesity researchers are doing their best to change this unacceptable situation. Thus we have researchers advocating “the development of culturally sensitive public health intervention programs … to encourage black youth to achieve a healthy and reasonable (sic) body size.” Translation: Let’s make black and brown girls feel as bad about their bodies as we’ve managed to make the average white girl feel about hers.
Indeed, as long as they’re fat, it’s possible for even a double-plus good-thinking liberal in a magazine like Harper’s to express the kind of horror and disgust at the sight of nonwhite poor people that would be considered somewhat problematic in any other context. Thus, after a stroll through downtown Pasadena, during which he encounters the horrifying and disgusting spectacle of fat black and Latino working-class people, Greg Critser asks, “For what do the fat, darker, exploited poor, with their unbridled primal appetites, have to offer us but a chance for we diet- and shape-conscious folk to live vicariously? Call it boundary envy. Or, rather, boundary-free envy.”
Perhaps all we “diet- and shape-conscious folk” ought to put down the white man’s (or more precisely, the white woman’s) burden and stop inflicting our neuroses on everyone else. At the least — to echo another narrator who traveled into the heart of darkness — we ought to consider the possibility that, like Mr. Kurtz, our “methods have become unsound.”
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado and syndicated columnist for Scripps Howard. His most recent book is “The Obesity Myth.”
Has anyone looked at the effect of class and body image? Comparing blue-collar white women with blue-collar black women, for example, or blue-collar black women with white-collar black women? I’m thinking of Oprah’s pingponging relationship with weight, and it makes me curious.
Amp – I don’t think I’d be as generous as you are in terms of the sexism of that article. The last paragraph in particular, is a ridiculously individualistic reading of fat-phobia.
Will Shetterly – I can talk from my my experience, which is not research, and is based in New Zealand not America. Generally the more Maori and Pacific Island women who live in a Pakeha (white NZer) world the more they have body and food issues very similar to Pakeha women.
I wouldn’t say it exactly relates to blue vs. white collar (particularly because those descriptions don’t work very well with a lot of women’s work). But generally working class Maori or Pacific Island women spend less time in a Pakeha world, because of job segregation – middle class jobs are much less likely to have a critical mass of Maori or Pacific Island women.
In my experience, working-class Pakeha women have as many body and food issues as middle-class Pakeha women (and I guess ruling-class women, although I don’t spend very much time with ruling class women). Although they tend to be expressed more directly.
Maia, thanks for that. I agree that blue and white collar are imperfect terms, especially in the age of the service industry. Someone needs to come up with a generally agreed upon language for class–but then again, maybe it’s good that we need to clarify our terms before getting into serious discussion.
My anecdotal US experience seems to suggest that upper- and upper-middle class women are under a great deal more pressure to be thin than lower-class women.
It doesn’t sound like Fijian culture was completely non-disordered, in terms of eating, to begin with. When you introduce a culture with the polar opposite anxieties about food and eating, it’s bound to cause more harms.
Also, this:
is false on its face. If traditionally women have had cultural pressure to not be thin, were intervened with when they became thinner, were routinely excepted to eat past satiety, and were given stimulants to gain weight, then they have certainly “dieted for weight control.” (Just not weight reduction.)
I picked up Greg Crister’s Fatland recently and was so, so disappointed by his individualistic analysis. Even his take on calorie compensation in small children was completely off the mark. There are much better books out there on the same topic. Fast Food Nation and Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilema are two that I’ve read and would strongly recommend. (Marion Nestle’s Food Politics was comprehensive but dry.)
I’d be interested to know what Campos (and all of you) think about Eric Bailey’s New Black Cultural Diet initiative. I hadn’t seen any posts on here about it before; apologies if I missed them.
I don’t know that this is just a working class vs middle (& upper) class issue. It strikes me as one of the rare instances where as a naturally thin, middle-class white woman, I have long applauded “black” youth culture. Ar least as reported some years ago (and I don’t think this has changed much), where white girls said they wanted to be “thin,” the ideal black teenagers more commonly espoused was “shapely.”
I have also applauded my three-year-old granddaughter when she lifted up her shirt, pounded her bare chest and said, “good strong body!” She will, I trust, in time be both fit and “shapely”; indeed, to my mind, the one implies the other. Weight, on the other hand, seems a related but not identical issue — an issue very much related (for obvious reasons) to class . . .
Jean, people commonly say it’s a racial issue, but I wonder if that obscures the truth. The standard of beauty that capitalism promotes is extremely expensive to achieve: ideally, you need a combination of plastic surgeons, exercise coaches, and dieticians to meet it. So it makes sense to me that poor people of any race would say, “Forget that.” (In those words or more blunt ones.) We do know that middle class POC adopt the class norm for health and beauty, which is why I wonder whether poor white women have the more accepting attitude toward their bodies that’ poor black women seem to have.
As always, I’m not ruling out the possibility that ethnicity is a factor in body image. But until we know the situation with poor white women, I’m reluctant to conclude that this is a racial difference. As a one-time Southerner, I do know that the food and exercise habits of poor blacks and poor whites are pretty much identical. (Thinking fondly now of my meat-eating days when I would go far out of my way for a great BBQ joint.)
Will, I wasn’t assuming that it WAS a racial issue, only responding to a school survey of “body image” ideals. and a reported split among “racial” lines. In these surveyed schools there obviously WAS a “black culture” affecting “body image” ideals among girls. As you say, money can make a huge difference to a host of things–esp. food habits and exercise–affecting ultimate body shape and weight. But so can this matter of culture, especially when it comes to our hopes and dreams.
The point I’m trying to make isn’t in conflict with what you’re saying. I’m simply applauding (from wherever it comes!) the healthy feminine ideal of “shapeliness”–which I certainly don’t conflate with obesity and which IMO is psychologically a far healthier ideal than mere “thinness.”
Jean, sorry about hitting that point hard. I tend to blame capitalism for everything, and while that usually works, there are exceptions. I also applaud those who don’t fall prey to unrealistic notions of beauty.
This has been getting a bit of blog buzz lately; it’s about the size 12 model who couldn’t make it as a “regular” model and has switched to “plus-size” modeling. Which shows that the Brits, who tend to be a little less thin-obsessed than USans when it comes to television casting, are just as thin-obsessed in looking for models.
The challenge comes from the fact that the message is so bizarrely mixed.
I mean, on the one hand, Americans really are too fat. Numerous medical professionals have already said this.
On the other hand, slender women really are visually more appealing than overweight ones. (Notice I’m disginguishing overweight vs. slender, NOT “a few pounds” vs. “freaky skinny”). This is unpleasant to acknowledge, but true.
On the third hand, the fashion industry is enamoured with freaky anorexic-style skinnynesss, which can lead to seriously self-destructive behaviour. Girls die to achieve that appearance. The current catchphrase for the condition on Fark is “she looks like a bag of antlers”, which shows that at least some mainstream sexual appetites have rejected this a bit.
Plus, the North American lifestyle of suburban living and greasy food is impossible to be healthy in. You have to drive to get to a place you can go for a walk. Daytime talk-shows are full of yo-yo dieting housewives.
Then, you get the “one of the guys” effect. Women are expected to act a little more like men now – men don’t want a housewife anymore (most realize their future households will be dual income, and have learned to cook and clean at least a little), they want a person who shares their interests, their passions, etc. And most guys like to eat to a level that would make women get heavily overweight very quickly… but with more active jobs, hobbies, and natural metabolic differences, the guys can get away with eating a stack of chicken wings and beer.
So in the end, it’s just a mess. Women are pushed every-which-way on the issue, and a lifestyle that would actually make a healthy body come naturally simply isn’t possible when living in the sprawl.
The way you phrase this seems to imply that you’re referring to a universal standard of beauty, rather than a culturally relative, media-manufactured standard.
—Myca
And numerous medical professionals disagree. If you look at the professional peer-reviewed literature, there’s actually quite a lot of disagreement on this.
As Myca says, your statement makes this sound like a preference for slenderness is universally true, when it is not.
To which I’d add, why is it important for women to be “visually… appealing” when what we’re discussing is health? If a black woman become more “visually appealing” according to MSM standards, but also becomes more self-hating and live slightly less long, is that worthwhile? I don’t think so.
Not just the fashion industry.
Remember, insulting women’s bodies is always fun!
And yet, North Americans are now living longer than ever before.
Will, as usual, studies vary. I’ve seen one study of upper-class women that found no differences in self-esteem and body image between white and black women. On the other hand, some studies have found that class doesn’t explain the differences. For instance, from a study in the journal Sex Roles:
What the study found is that differences in gender role identity and different perceptions of what men find attractive were much more important factors explaining the differences between black and white women than class is.
If a black woman become more “visually appealing” according to MSM standards, but also becomes more self-hating and live slightly less long, is that worthwhile?
Well…shouldn’t we ask her, rather than you?
It maybe that the “visual appeal” increment she gains to her community of potential mates is sufficient to put her over the bar to reproductive success. If reproducing is/was important to her, then that might be worth some emotional problems or even a reduction in lifespan, from her point of view.
I think we need to keep her point of view in mind.
Amp, thanks for that! I did a teensy bit of googling, and I found more fodder for discussion:
From 2006: USA Today: Race doesn’t reflect on women’s poor body image
A summary of research findings on body image from 1997 does point out some of the cultural considerations: “Another British study showed that Asian-British women were more content with their body size than white British women, despite the fact that the Asians’ ideal body size was as slim as that of the white women, suggesting that the Asian-British women were less concerned about matching the ideal than the white women.” It’s a nice overview, even if it’s dated.
Healthy Body Image & Facts says, “A survey conducted by the largest African-American women’s publication in the U.S. (Essence magazine) served as an eating disorders study. The results from over 2,000 respondents indicated that African American women are at risk for eating disorders in at least equal proportions to their White counterparts. Analysis of the results also revealed that African American women have adopted similar attitudes towards body image, weight and eating to White women (Pumariega, Gustavson, Gustavson, Stone Motes & Ayers, 1994). ”
And I found this, which is not directly pertinent to the discussion, but is interesting: POOR WHITE WOMEN by Roxanne Dunbar (Undated but probably written around 1970)
Robert, I don’t think it’s really that hard for the average woman of any class or race to “reproduce.”
The comparison of Asian-British and white-British women summarized in that articles doesn’t mention whether the two groups were actually similar in weight or body shape. (I’d assume that they were, but they should really mention the baselines.)
Damnit – I try to play devil’s advocate for 5 seconds, and always some guy comes in and makes me look even dumber by association. Robert – please never ever use biology in sociological discussions. Accurate or not, it makes you look like an idiot. The only people who talk in terms of biology are nutbar libertarians that apply Darwin to everything, or guys who live in their mom’s basement and have never seen a real woman, so they can only infer what one must be like.
Robert, I don’t think it’s really that hard for the average woman of any class or race to “reproduce.”
What relevance does that have? The average person is a statistical construct; it is individuals who make choices and face consequences.
The only people who talk in terms of biology are nutbar libertarians that apply Darwin to everything, or guys who live in their mom’s basement and have never seen a real woman, so they can only infer what one must be like.
Or people who think science is real and provides us with information about the world.
Outlier, agreed that a lot of things are only hinted at in those articles.
I’ll use this comment as an excuse to quote a bit I should’ve quoted above, from the USA Today article: “Contrary to popular belief, white and non-white women are about equally unhappy with their looks, according to an analysis of 98 studies published in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin. It is the largest U.S. research ever done on feminine body dissatisfaction.”
The bolded sections of the quoted message above do not meet our moderation goals. I often disagree with Robert, (and do in this case!) but this is inappropriate.
—Myca
Sorry, got a little carried away. My bad.
Regarding comment #17:
Will, regarding the Essence Magazine reference, do I really have to explain why a self-selected reader survey of a pop magazine is meaningless?
Your second link has this to say:
Regarding the USA Today quote, the study they’re referring to actually found that black women are somewhat less likely to be unhappy with their looks than white women are (“White women are more dissatisfied, but the difference is small. All other comparisons were smaller, and many were close to zero”), and that the effect was larger among high-school and college-age women.
Also, note that there’s a difference between body dissatisfaction in general and weight-related body dissatisfaction issues, a difference that a huge meta-study like this almost certainly ignored. (One problem with meta-studies, especially those that try to increase their statistical power by including as many studies as possible, is that their results are often extreme generalizations that may gloss over specific issues and contexts. They also weigh data from mediocre studies and well-conducted studies exactly the same.)
Why are you so determined to argue that race is never an important factor? What would you think of a wealthy person who constantly argues that class is not important?
Amp, I’m not arguing that race is never an important factor. Where, for example, have I suggested that racism isn’t the most important factor in understanding Jena 6?
But your post here is all about race, not class, and the evidence I keep encountering says that when you buy into the modern capitalist class system, you buy into very expensive and very unrealistic ideas about beauty. That’s why I keep wishing for information about poor white women to put this in perspective.
Campos talks about universalizing “the attitudes of middle- and upper-class white American women.” I think he has the cart-horse relationship screwed up: those are class attitudes, and as more non-whites enter those classes, they adopt the appropriate class values. That’s how class works.
Of course race affects self-image. We frequently encounter commenters here who talk about how ugly black women are.
“Weight is the least of my concerns,” a black woman friend told me last year, after praising my hair for being soft and curly, and my skin for being pale.
We belong to the same class.
Also, self-selected groups offer interesting information about themselves. All information is meaningful when you know it’s context.
The second link is dated, but I thought it was worth including for bits like the ones you and I have quoted here. And also, for the fellow who thinks only thin is attractive, “In a study of British and Ugandan students’ evaluation of body-shapes, the Ugandans rated an ‘obese’ female figure much more attractive than the British (they were also more tolerant of too-skinny males).”
And I never mean to offer any study as the final word on anything. Human knowledge constantly changes, and studies are always limited by the biases of the studiers.
” they adopt the appropriate class values.”
But as far as beauty image goes, the appropriate class values venerate women with caucasian features, certain frames, hair that looks white (though this can be chemically acheived), and pale skin.
Can you imagine Octavia Butler ever being able to fit herself into the acceptable beauty image of wealthy womanhood? She was tall and large, with a prominent underbite, African features, and dark skin.
Surely you know about things like paper bag tests. They affect wealthy people as well as poor people.
Sometimes caucazoid features combined with a skinny frame can ameliorate the kind of vitriol aimed against dark-skinned women, but most dark-skinned women find themselves judged less attractive and less worthy than their lighter counterparts. Whether or not you want to admit it, part of the beauty ideal for wealthy women is whiteness.
Mandolin, now we’re moving away from bodies to faces and skin, but that’s cool.
Yes, race can be a factor in standards of beauty. In more racist times that was screamingly obvious. But things started getting strange around the 1980s, when, for example, Asian and black women would dye their hair blond. Or metallic red. Or purple. I just did a very informal test; according to CBS, the most beautiful woman today is Aishwarya Rai. Now, you could argue that she has “white” features. But those white features are Indian, and they’re unattainable by most whites. Tyra Banks hardly looks white, and no way you’re going to tell me Angela Bassett looks white.
But what they do have in common is that very few women of any race can look like that, and if you make the attempt, you’re going to spend a lot of money. What’s being sold here is a very expensive product.
Yes, racists apply race to their standard of beauty. Their loss. And who wants to date a racist anyway?
I’ve always loved women whose features are strongly their own. Michelle Yeoh. Grace Jones. My first models of black beauty were Nichelle Nichols and Gail Fisher (for the youngsters, that’s Uhura on Star Trek and Peggy on Mannix, a TV show of about the same time). Neither looked white.
I don’t mean to generalize from my own example, or to set myself up as some sort of saint. But if you look at the working black models today, you’ll see a lot of gorgeous women that no one would say had white features.
Will, the anthropology on the subject disagrees with your anecdotal and misinterpreted evidence. Beauy standards of whiteness have even begun being propagated in African fashion magazines.
Your minimization of the pressures on black women is insulting. Go read Angry Black Woman, and come back when you’re better informed.
Will, for every Grace Jones in Hollywood, there are three Halle Berry’s being touted as great Black Actresses. Face it: pop culture does not like African features, and there’s not a whole helluvalot a person can do about it if they have them. At least a black man can shave his head to get rid of the hair (think how many young black men on TV have any hair). The women are SOL.
Also, notice how he used 3 different actresses that haven’t been household names in a few decades. That says something about trends, doesn’t it?
Silenced, I personally think Halle Berry is both unattractive and a bad actress, but I haven’t seen everything she’s done.
But the idea that Naomi Campbell looks white or unattractive is bizarre. Do you think Queen Latifah can’t find work? Was Dreamgirls a flop? Yes, Hollywood is wacky about the ways people should look, but claiming those standards are “white” seems awfully hard to support.
As for black men shaving their heads, I had never heard anyone suggest he did it to look more white. Wasn’t that another style that whites picked up from blacks?
Oh! When I was talking with my wife about capitalism and models of beauty, she reminded me of Beverly Johnson, who sold a lot of magazines in the ’70s and hardly looked white.
But to bring this back to the original subject, while none of the women I’ve mentioned looked “white,” they’ve all been representative of the body type that capitalism was selling at the time. (Uh, not including Queen Latifah in that; she was just an example of someone working in Hollywood who didn’t look white.)
To put it in far simpler terms: THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF SPERM. You can buy it from a sperm bank, for pete’s sake. Therefore, there is no competition for sperm, and being more attractive will not make a woman likelier to get sperm and reproduce.
“Well…shouldn’t we ask her, rather than you?
It maybe that the “visual appeal” increment she gains to her community of potential mates is sufficient to put her over the bar to reproductive success. If reproducing is/was important to her, then that might be worth some emotional problems or even a reduction in lifespan, from her point of view.
I think we need to keep her point of view in mind.”
The reproduction analogy is just plain silly – this is the 21st century, not the prehistoric savannah. But I agree that individual choices in this regard be left as individual choices (duh) – if someone wants social appeal more than their health, that’s their prerogative.
Yet it is still possible to argue that the standards themselves are wrong, while leaving individuals and individual choices out of the picture. For instance: gay person who wants to stay in the closet = that’s cool, that’s his choice. Gay people having to have to make that choice = that’s bad.
“The way you phrase this seems to imply that you’re referring to a universal standard of beauty, rather than a culturally relative, media-manufactured standard.”
Well, there are some commonalities. I don’t know too many cultures where either out and out obesity or painful-to-look-at anorexia are held up at the top of the pyramid. Obviously, “thin” and “overweight” encompasses a lot more than that – but maybe that just means we need to subdivide into more precise terms.
will, you obviously have the best of intentions, but I don’t think there is any serious dispute that black women are viewed less attractive as a group than white women are. I could list all the unfortunate comments I’ve heard made in “guys’ talk” over the past couple of years, and they’d be more than all the “black actress/songstress makes it big” anecdotes you could up spanning the past eight decades. Hell, just give me five minutes to Google the right key words.
“As for black men shaving their heads, I had never heard anyone suggest he did it to look more white. Wasn’t that another style that whites picked up from blacks?”
I don’t know, will. The long and sordid relationship between black people’s hair – in particular black women’s – and normative standards of beauty, is sort of like the remedial/prereq course here. If you don’t know anything about it, and it doesn’t appear that you do, then I doubt your ability to say anything informed on this particular topic.
“I don’t know too many cultures where either out and out obesity or painful-to-look-at anorexia are held up at the top of the pyramid.”
We value bodies that are similar to anorexic bodies. “Painful to look at” is an aesthetic value. Of course we don’t find them painful to look at. That doesn’t mean that some of our models don’t die from starvation, which is clearly venerating an extreme kind of thinness.
There are lots of historically documented societies that value obesity — and again, “out and out obesity” is an imprecise term.
When you say you don’t know of many cultures that value these things, what are you basing that on?
sylphhead, if there was any reason to, I could probably match you story for story regarding race and hair, ’cause it is a subject I know fairly well. I love Malcolm X’s story about his decision to accept his hair. I know about the horrors of straighteners, and I’ve heard both sides of the argument about hair today: do you look “natural” or do you accept that we live in an age in which no one looks natural? I think the answer is you do what you like, but I hope what you like will be something that won’t feed the fashion industry, because they make everyone hate themselves.
And the men shaving their hair question? That was a black style first. The question was rhetorical. Black men did not shave their heads to look white, and if you asked one that question, you probably would deserve whatever response you got.
“We value bodies that are similar to anorexic bodies. “Painful to look at” is an aesthetic value. Of course we don’t find them painful to look at. That doesn’t mean that some of our models don’t die from starvation, which is clearly venerating an extreme kind of thinness.”
You’re universalizing ‘we’ to too great an extent. Just for a thought experiment, if we straw polled a random section of the population with a full body picture of someone suffering from anorexia nervosa and asked them if they found that attractive, what do you think the results would show?
And I don’t see how labeling something an aesthetic value is supposed to be damning when the topic in question deals with aesthetic values.
“There are lots of historically documented societies that value obesity — and again, “out and out obesity” is an imprecise term.”
I guess I did say we should use more precise terms, and ‘out and out obesity’ isn’t any more precise than ‘overweight’. How about 130 kg +?
That’s a problematic measure because for most of our history we didn’t have the means or surplus to create many in that weight range – cultures can’t normalize around people they don’t think even exist. But if we want precise definitions, we have to start somewhere.
“When you say you don’t know of many cultures that value these things, what are you basing that on?”
My own experience and accumulated knowledge – which is of course incomplete and fallible.
Sylph,
“Painful to look at” can’t be measured. Yes, lots of people don’t like to look at things that are “painful to look at.” That’s because they are by definition painful to look at. However, also obviously, what one person will find painful to look at may not be painful to another person.
When you ask whether the veneration of anorexic thinness in the modeling industry trickles down to what average people want to look at, you’re shifting the goal posts. You discussed what cultures venerate, not the tastes of the “average person.” Both arguments are problematic; howeever, it’s quite clear that there are dominant and influential cultures of veneration of anorexic appearance that exist today, and therefore that your argument that such things are rare doesn’t match with the evidence. If we were to switch to a metric of the “average person”, then I think we’d find the data there interesting, but it would hardly prove any theory about what “cultures like.” There’s usually a tension between the expression of culture as what people say about themselves, and what they enact. For instance, in the US we say that we are monogamous, when in fact we practice serial monogamy. Both aspects of culture have to be weighed.
Also, I’ve done a lot of study on anthropology and beauty myths. It happens to be one of the things I know about. I just gave counter-examples to your assertions. I would appreciate it if you’d acknowledge you’re wrong here, especially as you’ve admitted your assertions are based on a general and incomplete knowledge of the subject rather than a specific source.
If you do indeed have a specific source which is counter to what I’ve learned in my study of sex & sexuality across human culture, please do provide it.
“I know about the horrors of straighteners, and I’ve heard both sides of the argument about hair today: do you look “natural” or do you accept that we live in an age in which no one looks natural?”
Because there’s absolutely no difference between a hot comb that burns your scalp and fortifying conditioner.
“And the men shaving their hair question? That was a black style first. The question was rhetorical. Black men did not shave their heads to look white, and if you asked one that question, you probably would deserve whatever response you got.”
will, no one’s claiming that Black men shaved their heads to look White. What Silenced was trying to say (if I may speak for you, Silenced) was that Black men shave their heads to get rid of that unacceptable Black hair. Obviously, they aren’t copying a White style because White men would have no need to do the same – their hair is acceptable.
“Because there’s absolutely no difference between a hot comb that burns your scalp and fortifying conditioner.”
Good point, Sylph.
” “Painful to look at” can’t be measured. Yes, lots of people don’t like to look at things that are “painful to look at.” That’s because they are by definition painful to look at. However, also obviously, what one person will find painful to look at may not be painful to another person.
Also, I’ve done a lot of study on anthropology and beauty myths. It happens to be one of the things I know about. I just gave counter-examples to your assertions. I would appreciate it if you’d acknowledge you’re wrong here, especially as you’ve admitted your assertions are based on a general and incomplete knowledge of the subject rather than a specific source.”
I’ll definitely concede that neither “painful-to-look-at” or “out and out” are accurate, measurable terms. I did not intend them to be, but in the context of the rest of my post I should have (intended accurate, measurable terms).
I do have something of a source that suggests that an ‘hourglass’ figure has a legitimate claim to being the basic standard of beauty (for women). I’m somewhat reluctant to link to it because it also espouses a number of tenets that sets off my internal red flags – rather, I’m putting it here in the vein of I Didn’t Just Make This Shit Up Myself.
However, I won’t back down from asserting that my “straw poll” and “130 kg” queries are legitimate points.
If anyone wants to make the claim that hatred toward fat people stems a large part in their being seen as sexually unviable and because of that we can conclude that our society pathologizes sexuality too much, that’s fine. I’d agree with that statement more than I’d disagree with it. I just don’t see “norms of beauty vary by culture” (it’s hard to think of any intangible concepts that DON’T – off the top of my head: smart, dumb, funny, delicious, hot, cold, freedom, justice) as anything but an oversimplified sidestep.
Yeah, the Hourglass Study. It’s one of the more convincing pieces of sociobiology, in my opinion, but it still suffers from most of the methodological problems that haunt most sociobiological studies.
The idea that fat people are sexually unviable is strange, though. Why would they be? Why would fertility symbols be obese if fat people are sexually unviable? Why would we have cultures in Africa that count rolls of fat to calculate who is sexually most attractive? Why would we have ritual feeder cultures where some women are kept immobile and fed lots of food so they will become obese?
For that matter, why do you assume that most cultures don’t have the resources to create obese people? This may be true for some hunter/gatherer cultures, but it’s not true once you move into stratified sociological forms.
“Black men shave their heads to get rid of that unacceptable Black hair”
Okay, please reference this. I’ve had black friends for over a decade who shaved their heads, and none of ’em were trying to look white. I would ask them if they were trying to look white, but they would think I was an idiot, and I already have enough reasons for my friends to think I’m an idiot. I don’t need to look like I might think something as freaky as that.
But, really, please back up this claim with something other than your opinion. You’ve never seen pictures of Egyptians with shaved heads? You don’t know of African cultures where shaving your head is normal? You haven’t seen black and white guys both shave their heads to look like Asian martial arts stars? Do you really believe blacks shave their heads to look white? Or are you just trying to see how gullible I am? (I looked it up in the dictionary, and my picture is not there.)
I am a male white of Dano-Norwegian Jewish ethnicity. My girlfriend is a Maori. Our age range is between 45-54. I am stocky and formerly athletic. She is “chunky.” We are both American citizens in southern California.
As a believer not of “race” but of “ethnicity” and “culture”, I say that the standard of beauty is truly this: beauty is skin-deep. I am in love with this woman. I probably won’t come back to this website, but let me put it this way: my girlfriend isn’t a slinky long-haired blonde with lanky legs and curvy hips. But she is a woman of power (see Proverbs 31:10 to the end of the chapter).
All of humanity is of one family. I happened to have met a Maori woman and she met a Dano-Norwegian Jew. The rest is history; the unbearable abyss is bridged only by love.
Eat your heart out, slim blonde green-eyed girls.