Ok, so I feel really uncomfortable going here because it takes me back to when I was, like, a horny 17-year-old boy… and because it’s about fashion, which is always sort of a loaded issue but…
In a very cool post on body/mass indexes, working out vs. dieting, and standards of attraction Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon said
“...a lot of women polled still found women like Alba attractive, but 41% said that muscles are never attractive on women. 72% said they don’t think men find muscles on women attractive, and 77% said that they don’t think women find them attractive.”
S’cuse me but… this is going to sound like male privilege out the wazoo or something (I promise it’s not) but… but… who gives a crap what women think other women should look like?!?
I ask because it’s certainly the case that women appear to care hugely more about how other women look than men do. And also appear to care hugely more about how other women think they look than how men think they look.
If I was an MRA or something I’d snuffle about how it’s so unfair that Teh Feminists blame men for forcing women into unhealthy diets, uncomfortable shoes, entire toxic waste dumps full of cosmetics and hair products and (worst of all in my opinion anyway) clothes without pockets that… cost two to five times as much to purchase as men’s and two to ten times as much to (dry!) clean. When, as this survey shows, women are full of the harsh towards other women.
Of course I’m not an MRA so I’ll go with stuff Hegel, or Naomi Wolfe, or Susie Orbach and say something about the feminine beauty trap which, like the corresponding masculine worthiness trap is a product of our self-criticism and self-policing in the face of our gendered expectations. And that is sure seems like there’s sort of the opposite of that stupid joke about bears and running shoes where we tell ourselves if we’re going to get the man/woman/whatever of our dreams we can’t just meet the typical non-gendered threshhold of attractiveness to the opposite gender and instead perceive that we have to beat everyone else who might also be interested in them. With the result that we’re more acutely attuned to the nuances of… whatever gender trap is assigned to us than members of the opposite sex are ever likely to be…
...with the result that, ironically, we’re likely to be more judgmental of, and have higher standards for, ourselves and our peers than the prospective partners we’re allegedly competing for. Which is why I think it’s an escalating trap. To the point that, say, women can wind up saying things like “don’t kiss me I just did my hair” and men say things like “I can’t come home now, I’m not earning enough to keep you happy” that are objectively dumb but subjectively make perfect sense to them.
—-
But what I really wanted to say was I think it’s weird that the report would gather statistics on whether other women think buff women are unattractive. Which goes back, I think, to me being gender, and probably cis- and all kinds of other privileged after all. Because when I hear “women are” attractive/unattractive/whatever I automatically append “to men.” As if that was the only criteria that matters. And I’m not sure it’s a good excuse that that really is supposed to be what the whole attractiveness industry is predicated on.
And now after saying that I’m going to add that I think 77% of women are out of their minds if they don’t think men think muscles on women are attractive. It’s as dumb as saying 77% of men think women aren’t interested in men who don’t have… I dunno… high-paying jobs or something. Because I’m pretty sure a heck of a lot fewer than 77% of men think buff women are unattractive. I mean, seriously, I don’t get it.
—-
One more thing: in comment #29 to Amanda’s post La Lubu said: “Women’s clothing—-outside of workout clothes—-doesn’t come in an ‘athletic’ cut the way men’s clothing does.” That part certainly is true. In the past I spent a lot of time doing pool aerobics with athletes recovering from knee, foot, and leg injuries and it’s certainly true that contemporary women’s clothes, ironically, don’t seem to “flatter” fit women’s bodies as well as they do women who aren’t as fit. Except, I guess, in the pool or at the beach.
—-
Things like this make you wonder who invented heterosexuality anyway? I mean, I like being heterosexual and all but wow, for something that’s supposed to be “how nature made us” we end up doing a lot of embarrassing things to ourselves and each other.
Sounds more like het
Submitted by colorlessblue (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 03:33.Sounds more like het privilege than male privilege to me. ;)
(Kinda stirring the pot: I know what you meant.) – I don’t mind pockets much because I love big bags, but I could go postal on stores that tell you “sorry, we don’t make large sizes”. And the ones that do have large sizes, here in Brazil, are going on an opposite vanity sizing, so that a medium shirt I bought in one of those no-large stores years ago fits me perfectly (except for breasts, that never fit anything and I always have to wear a cami inside my shirts), but extra-large sizes nowadays are tight, and my tiny cousin who was an extra-small now wears medium. If I didn’t know a seamstress I don’t know what I’d do. – The other side of the point you made, that men like buff women even if women think they don’t: I don’t like my body to be buff. I’ve never been much athletic, but at a time when I was lifting weights and dancing, my legs changed a lot. I always disliked having thin legs so I was happy with the growth, but at some point I asked my trainer at the gym to change my series for my thighs because they were starting to show too much muscle for my taste. I wanted to exercise to keep them at the point they were and not change more. He called all the other trainers on the shift to listen to that and laugh, because they didn’t understand how I’d choose to look like I wanted to look instead of looking like what’s attractive to men.
I think it’s great to get
Submitted by Joanna Cake (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 05:18.I think it’s great to get this from a male perspective.
A certain amount of muscle tone in your limbs and torso is good, whether you’re female or male. But, more important, than any of this is how the person concerned feels about their appearance.
If they’re insecure about their body, then it will show in their personality. People are attracted to those who are confident about themselves, whatever they’re wearing.
You’re new to me. I like this :)
My response got a little
Submitted by Attie (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 06:56.My response got a little longer, so I wrote about it over at my blog: http://penguin-attie.livejournal.com/266712.html
About the clothes, “fit” is not the ideal. “anorexic photoshop disaster” is the goal. “Fit” would be far too easy to live up to, you know, there might actually be real women looking like that!
To the point that, say, women
Submitted by Dw3t-Hthr (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 07:06.To the point that, say, women can wind up saying things like “don’t kiss me I just did my hair” and men say things like “I can’t come home now, I’m not earning enough to keep you happy” that are objectively dumb but subjectively make perfect sense to them.
I’ve always considered these to be code for, on the female side, “I don’t want you to touch me, but I don’t have a safe way of enforcing that boundary”, and, on the male side, “I don’t want to deal with being at home, but I don’t have a socially acceptable way of saying that.”
They’re very no-divorce-is-acceptable, keeping-up-appearances, stealth-domestic-abuse language to my perceptions.
The worst part there is that
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 15:18.The worst part there is that muscles are useful. I like to exercise and I have to do physically demanding work.
But I’ve never really understood physical beauty outside of sex. As far as I’m concerned, pretty enough for the partner of my choice to desire me is as pretty as I need to be. But I think a lot of people don’t think that way. Pretty is something that needs to be maximized for its own sake, I guess? Which makes it both objective and tremendously demanding.
Holly wrote:Pretty is
Submitted by Soren (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 15:45.Holly wrote:Pretty is something that needs to be maximized for its own sake, I guess? Which makes it both objective and tremendously demanding.
One other reason to strive for maximum beauty is approach anxiety; we live under the impression, as a culture, that if you’re pretty enough, you can avoid doing the gut-churning work of asking people out, and wait for them to ask you – because if you’re gorgeous, you won’t have to wait very long.
The problem with this is that it reinforces passivity (never sexy) and leads to a downwards spiral of timidity and self-loathing. It works about as well as any other irrational gendered expectation.
I always find that particular
Submitted by Dw3t-Hthr (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 21:14.I always find that particular line of logic kind of hilarious, but I’ve been the ‘aggressor’ in pretty much every relationship I’ve had, in part because the sort of person I tend to be attracted to tends to be the sort of person who ranges from “socially oblivious” to “too shy to express an attraction first”.
Well, you have to consider
Submitted by ozymandias (not verified) on Wed, 2010-01-27 19:34.Well, you have to consider that, for example, with “natural” makeup or eyebrow plucking, women care about other women’s opinions because a lot of guys don’t even notice. If I had a dollar for every time some guy pointed out that he liked “cute girls without makeup” and pointed to some girl in foundation, lip gloss and light eyeliner, I’d be able to actually afford that shit. Culturally, women are the experts on beauty, and of course you’re going to want your beauty to be judged by the experts.
Even if it does lead to weird results like “guys don’t like muscular women.” Because, well, they don’t show up in fashion magazines much, and that’s basically the resource.
FWIW, I like muscles on women better than muscles on men, but then I have often been told my tastes are, quote, “really weird.”
[Pretty brilliant analysis, O. Usually when I say “with no makeup” I mean “just got out of the shower” but in general I know what you mean. I also know what you mean when you say “a lot of guys don’t even notice.” Because typically we don’t! That’s not to say there’s no difference between before and after a shower, it’s that it’s usually something on the order of beginning and end of the day, with a cold or without, etc. In other words within the standard variation over the course of a day. Unless of course it’s really heavy makeup… when even then most men notice only when it’s worn out of context, as in nightclub makeup under bright light. FWIW I like muscles better on women too. I don’t think that, or you, are weird. Thanks. —fl]
Several things: 1. Not sure
Submitted by Red (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-28 11:36.Several things:
1. Not sure I would call it “male privilege” per se, but you already know I have a problem with that paradigm to begin with. And not because I have any truck with the MRA’s but because I don’t like using making pronouncements about individual people to prove the existence of a society wide bias, especially not to the point of labeling such subjective things as attitudes as “privileged” because my life experience is that with a lot of people who’ve had very hard lives (extreme poverty, homelessness, combat vets, disabled and more) is that a lot of time their attitudes DON’T line up with what people tend to assume, and often would seem pie in the sky if you didn’t hear them say it firsthand and know their backgrounds for a fact.
2. Why women care so much about how other women look? Of course, there are studies saying that men react more favorably to relatively attractive men (so long as they are NOT rated as too feminine), such as being more likely to defer to them or take their opinions seriously. I think men are less open about it, because they fear accusations of being gay. For some reason those accusations fall a bit more easily on men, with some exceptions such as football field ass patting.
3. A lot of fathers will really get on their daughters about every littlest thing with this massive threat of “men don’t like that”, every time she does the tiniest thing he doesn’t like. Instead of it being “That’s rude.” or even “Stop that.” It’s always “You’ll never get a husband if you don’t clean up your act big time.” Some of them start this when their daughters haven’t even started kindergarten. So that really sets them up to expect the absolute worst.
4. And yes, some men really will judge women negatively if they fall outside these parameters. And not just in romantic contexts. There was a case recently in the UK, where the Bank of England held a seminar specifically for female employees in which they specifically told to wear lipstick, high heels but under 2 inches, skirts with pantyhose rather than trousers, and so on. Yes, this was labeled as discrimination. But since the UK was the hardest hit European country with the “Great Recession” and since this is a country that institutionally leans to the “Reagan solution” to male unemployment and has for over a century, but especially since Thatcher took office….......You get the idea.
I do think this is a
Submitted by GR (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-28 11:57.I do think this is a thoughtful and intelligent piece of writing, and I don’t think you have anything to be uncomfortable about.
I would take a slightly different viewpoint on a couple of things. One, yep, there is that gay thing. In my experience (I’m a woman who’s mostly dated other women) dykes tend, as a group, to be a bit less fixated on appearance than society in general.
Also, I’ve found that men can be just as harshly judgmental as other women can about a women’s appearance – I think perhaps because it’s clear to everyone in this culture that usually the fastest way to make a woman feel crappy, assert dominance over her, put her down, whatever, is to tell her she’s ugly.
Speaking as a woman who
Submitted by Elitza (not verified) on Thu, 2010-01-28 13:09.Speaking as a woman who rarely blow-fries my hair, hardly ever wears makeup or jewelry, and basically lives in jeans and t-shirts, even when going to the bar….and has muscular-ish (I don’t work out, but I serve for a living and am pretty toned from all the walking and carrying) arms, legs, and back—*and* wears a 34AA bra—*and* has never ever had a problem getting sex…..well…..
All I can say is that guys must be a lot less shallow than I intellectually give them credit for.
Girls, however, give me dirty looks when I shoot a good game of pool, drink a double IPA, and carry on an intelligent conversation with the guy they’re eyeing. I’m not pretty. I’m not stylish. But I am, unapologetically, myself. And it turns out that the guys who look at me when I’m showing off my legs and not when I’m in jeans arent the guys I’d ever want to date.
Screw stereotypes.