I tend to agree with Geek on that, 30 or so years forward, it becomes clear that fat is, well, much less of a feminist issue in itself that it seemed to be, though, despite all efforts of our media, governments corporations to the contrary, it’s still more of a female issue than a male one. But it’s much more of a male issue than it used to be.

That suggests that the economic argument has A LOT of merit.

Why is it still more of a female issue? Probably because looks/attractivness as well as eating/feeding are more female issues, and, assuming at least some merit to evolutionary psychology, it’s biologicaly determined (althought not necessirily desirable or culturaly inevitable).

Squander Two -

Why not? Young men have a tendency to top themselves for no apparent reason, and no-one blames women for that.

I hope you don’t think that I “blame men” for the whole unhealthy-body-image/extreme-dieting/eating-disorders thing. (If I go into how much I think they do or don’t have in common, particularly bearing in mind only one of them’s a mental illness that kills people, this comment will explode. But I see it as more of a continuum three similar but unrelated issues.) That’s why I distinguish between the actions of individual men and a patriarchal society.

Incidentally, I don’t really think that young men’s more successful suicide attempts are “for no apparent reason”. I see it as pretty much inevitable when you’ve got a gender role that doesn’t allow for asking for help with emotional problems, but does allow for both decisive and violent action. AFAIK, women get more depression diagnoses and have more unsuccessful suicide attempts and self-harm, which I reckon supports my pet theory.

PooterGeek -

So do I, but I believe it’s important to separate women’s issues from feminist issues

A women’s issue, to my way of thinking, would be something that affects women because of something not-really-changeable in the majority of women. Like endometriosis. Sure, there’s women who’ve had hysterectomies and there’s transwomen who don’t menstruate and the causes and treatment are kind of fuzzy, but basically, it’s a women’s issue. Now, I can’t see any sensible reason why the unhealthy-body-image/extreme-dieting/eating-disorder continuum should disproportionately affect women just because, whereas it does seem to be linked to gender roles - higher pressure on women to conform to an ideal beauty image (whether an individual man fancies that image or not) with the unspoken assumption that it’s men who ought to be approving of her beauty; generally less power, control and status in society (when the starve-y eating disorders are often about trying to prove some kind of control or power). Therefore, feminist issue.

(I take issue with your HIV/homosexuality thing, by the way - it doesn’t exist because of homophobia, but a lot of failure to treat, prevent or detect it probably comes down to stigmatising what sort of people are likely to contract it. For instance, a few years back, I read a survey on condom use among young heterosexuals and one of the reasons they didn’t use them was seeing HIV as a gay disease. See how easily a biological thing becomes a political thing?)

There’s almost certainly an inverse correlation on this planet between how “patriarchal” a society is and the levels of eating disorders among the women living in them. This is the exact opposite of what your explanation would predict. How do you account for this?

Well, if I knew everything about what caused eating disorders and how to fix them, I’d be making a lot of money selling some poor saps useless remedies. Okay, probably not: I have some sense of shame. But I spend a lot of time thinking about them - yeah, I’m weird like that - and particularly trying to work out how to make sure my own stays dead, and I don’t claim to understand how all the different factors interact or how much weight (no pun intended) to give to each factor in each situation. If patriarchy automatically equalled eating disorders every woman on the planet would have one. Still, it seems to me that it is a significant factor.

Jacqui -

Keira is a woman who is “empowered” to make her own choices about her image.

Possibly. I doubt she’d be anywhere near as successful in her chosen profession. Female leads seem to be generally skinny.

If you believe that she has been influenced to become thin because of any other reason, it implies that she has yielded her power and become a victim.

That is difficult line to try and avoid crossing with a lot of thinking about groups who are in some way disadvantaged, yes. But while I think it’s insulting to say “oh you’re just a victim”, I also think it’s misguided to say everything’s peachy when it doesn’t seem to be.

While I suspect Keira Knightley probably is under pressure to maintain a certain level of conventional beauty, I’m not convinced she’s pressurised into unhealthy eating so much as I’m convinced images of her, displayed something for women to aspire to, is part of the general pressure women face which leads to the whole unhealthy-body-image/extreme-dieting/eating-disorder continuum.

Women in the western world do have power but should learn to use it the right way and not create an image of demented screaming wenches complaining about everything men or society say about women. We should learn to play ball using the same rules.

We might just have a fundamental disagreement here. I’m very much a gloomy feminist. All in favour of celebrating women’s power and autonomy when they’ve got it, but very very reluctant to think there’s - to stay with your metaphor - a level playing field all of a sudden.

2) Various sentences were lacking words like “than” and “as” which, when slotted in correctly, would make everything so much more grammatical.

Forced? How? By whom?

Oops, should have been ‘can’t’.

To take Damian’s racial metaphor one could note that even in some predominately black societies people still resort to chemical skin-lightening preparations; presumably something to do with the way in which success is portrayed in the global media as something associated with a caucasion complexion.

All cultured men secretly love to sleep with fat women and to listen to Tchaikovsky.

Geek, does that mean that listening to Tchaikovsky is the musical equivalent of sleeping with fat women?

The bony look really suits some people, and Kiera is one of them. The dress is horrible, but she does not look anorexic to me - just naturally very thin.

Why not? Young men have a tendency to top themselves for no apparent reason, and no-one blames women for that.

> By all accounts, Kelly Brook has no brain at all

By all accounts, all good-looking women are stupid and bitchy. I have ignored such accounts for a long time now.

> some bald guy ten years her senior

Some bald, successful, famously attractive guy with oodles of money.

“It also undermines the credibility of feminist analysis of real discrimination against women.”

Precisely how? And perhaps I believe that women giving themselves physical and mental health problems is a major issue”

So do I, but I believe it’s important to separate women’s issues from feminist issues, just as it’s important to separate black issues from race issues. For example, HIV is a public health issue; the treatment of gay housebuyers by life insurance companies is a gay rights issue. You can’t blame prevailing attitudes towards gays for the existence of HIV, but you can blame them for discrimination against the “pink pound”.

There’s almost certainly an inverse correlation on this planet between how “patriarchal” a society is and the levels of eating disorders among the women living in them. This is the exact opposite of what your explanation would predict. How do you account for this?

Like I said, it is obviously gendered. And unless you’re going to argue that women just have this naturally tendency to starve themselves for no apparent reason, then yeah, it’s probably linked to ongoing unequal expectations and aspirations of men and women.

If one group of exclusively black people machete another group of exclusively black people to death in a world in which white people have the vast majority of the power and money should we blame the racism of the whites for the slaughter—“even if it’s not obvious”?

Or, we could ignore analogies which might or might not be relevant, and mostly seem to distract attention from the actual issue.

“Hmm. I think that what individual men might want, and what a generally patriarchal culture pushes at women, are different things, and that the latter still justifies calling it a feminist issue…

…if it’s not to do with what individual straight men want (which I’m prepared to accept), it’s still gendered, and there’s probably a reason for that even if it’s not obvious. Gendered pressure is, I think, a feminist issue.”

So, regardless of the generally acknowledged behaviour of men, the generally sexist nature of society is probably behind it all? I don’t think this holds up. It also undermines the credibility of feminist analysis of real discrimination against women.

If one group of exclusively black people machete another group of exclusively black people to death in a world in which white people have the vast majority of the power and money should we blame the racism of the whites for the slaughter—“even if it’s not obvious”?

Hmm. I think that what individual men might want, and what a generally patriarchal culture pushes at women, are different things, and that the latter still justifies calling it a feminist issue. Particularly when women are under so much more pressure to conform to a beauty stereotype than men - if it’s not to do with what individual straight men want (which I’m prepared to accept), it’s still gendered, and there’s probably a reason for that even if it’s not obvious. Gendered pressure is, I think, a feminist issue.

I also suspect (admittedly on no more evidence than general cynicism about gender gaps in employment) that most of the people making money out of it aren’t women.

The competitive thing is interesting, yes. I’ve been in workplaces where the women did compete to lose weight, and it didn’t seem to have anything to do with attracting men. But again, I think that falls into the difference between individuals’ relationships and a general ideal of female beauty that is predicated on “you’ll never get a man with that cellulite”, whatever individual or even majority male desire actually is. (Which, as Second Sex points out below, isn’t as uncomplicatedly rosy as you seem to be implying. I can’t see much of Kelly in that photo, but I suspect she’s still unusually thin - it’s just that she’s not thin relative to Keira.)

“However, the position advanced on this page—that curves are good because men like them—is not one of the better ones.”

I certainly didn’t advance that view.

I do believe, however, that the bodyshapes that most men find attractive are healthier than the ones most women envy.

P.S. I should point out that the male gaze isn’t exactly the most tolerant either: you want curves, fair enough, but you also want slim waists, lean ankles, and attractive faces…

Precisely how? And perhaps I believe that women giving themselves physical and mental health problems is a major issue…

“Don’t really understand the title. Seems like a feminist issue to me.”

Well, it’s certainly mostly a female issue, but it’s not primarily about the power relations between the sexes so I wouldn’t call it a feminist issue. The gulf between what (most) men want women to look like and what (most) women want to look like is simply too large for this to be the case. It’s not about men keeping women down; it’s about men and women making money out of other women (and men). And it’s about women competing with other women—and not about their competing with each other for men.
Yet again, I’d say prevailing unhealthy attitudes about body image aren’t linked to sex; they’re linked to class. If I presented you with a collection of silhouettes of the bodies of British females and only told you the ages of their owners I suspect that, overall, you’d make a pretty good guess at their social class. Anorexic girls are far more likely to attend expensive private schools than inner-city comprehensives. Exclusive women’s clothes shops are far less likely to stock over-size garments.
Slimness signals self-control, the ability to defer gratification, an awareness of fashion—and it’s a signal to other women, not to men. It’s striking that higher status female professionals are far less likely to be fat than higher status males. Why should it be that the richer, more powerful, and more independent a woman is the more likely she is to be starving? It’s not as though she has less access to food or that men have more control over her consumption of it than her lower status peers.

“Incidentally, I’m really not convinced that ‘hey, men don’t fancy it’ is a useful argument against unrealistic body images.”

It might not be, but it is a useful argument against blaming men (as a whole) for the promotion of unrealistic body images—or, rather, this particular class of unrealistic body images. Pamela Anderson and Jordan are a different matter.

“Women who are actually starving themselves in an attempt to look like emaciated celebrities are probably being judged enough for their figures. How about making them feel worthwhile for something else?”

Have you ever tried to reassure an intelligent, educated, successful but weight-conscious woman that there are more important measures of her worth than her dress size? You might as well try to persuade a man that size doesn’t matter.

Women who are actually starving themselves in an attempt to look like emaciated celebrities are probably being judged enough for their figures. How about making them feel worthwhile for something else?

And well, that’s what comes of living in a society that promotes images of unhealthily underweight women as normal and attractive. Wow, what a newsflash. Most women I know have no idea how heavy it’s possible to be and still be healthy (they’re startled by how heavy I am, despite the fact I’m tall and have a BMI within the healthy range, for instance), and god knows I’ve encountered women who thought that liquid-only, sub-1000-kcal diets were healthy and okay. Unrealistic images portrayed as aspirational for women aren’t exactly new.