“In this highly technological and complicated world, most men are feeling incompetent and scared. And women are paying the price. Amidst their agony, men have made women, their one potential ally, their enemies. Men are also going through a major crisis of sexual identity. The last thing they need is any challenges to their masculinity. Trying to keep women physically small and feeble, (emphasis mine) uncertain about their own sexual identity, and preoccupied with their body image is just what the doctor ordered (literally). One way that women might reclaim their bodies from the tyranny of male whim and social propriety is to free themselves of the chains of dieting. Becoming bigger and stronger violates taboos, but these taboos are patrolled by men and the financial interests of the fashion industry, not by the health and well-being of women. How could we have traveled so far down the wrong road? This is not a health issue. It never was. Our physically-endowed women are labeled obese, sick, while being told to idolize shriveled creatures comprised of only skin, hair, bones and an attitude, who actually are medically the sick ones.”

I suspect that the reason is censorship..we have enough overweight people in this country who are afraid of the subject hitting home that they are attempting to take the subject off the table and eliminate any debate.

I start http://www.myfatspouse.com because of this to give these people a forum where they won’t be attacked for dare bringing up the subject. If they do have a valid arguement they don’t have to worry about someone nit picking every piece of grammer and spelling because the nit picker knows the post is correct!

No one wants to acknowledge the fact that attractiveness is greatly based on physical appearances and to deny it would be denying reality. But this doesn’t even go into the bigger issue of the health implications of weight and what it does.

Via Happy Feminist (see previous post), I came across the April 18th Carnival of the Feminists (just what I needmore time-suck blog reading!). Via CofF, Im finding a plethora of fascinating posts about women, marriage, weight, and body-…

I agree. Certainly, SOME people fit these stereotypes, but I’d just as soon not be placed in a box with them.

boy genteel
End violence against women AND men.
http://www.safe4all.org

The equivalent of a woman gaining weight is not a man losing his job or his money. The equivalent of a woman gaining weight is a man gaining weight.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

you’re both acting as if this is an all-or-nothing thing

The subject of Hugo’s post was not an article about how to deal with your girlfriend turning morbidly obese, giving up regular bathing, or any serious changes: it’s how to get her to lose weight, period. You may not personally know any men so shallow, but does that mean no AskMen reader is?

(For that matter, I don’t think women who fuss about their husband/boyfriend gaining a few pounds are any less assholish.)

No, you haven’t read what I’ve said. What I said was that any partner in any relationship has the right to leave at any time, for any reason. Whether he or she is shallow or an asshole depends on a number of factors: how serious the relationship is, whether promises have been made, whether he or she has claimed to love the other partner, and so on. But I said quite clearly that if a man is repulsed by his lover’s body, let alone if he’s unable to sustain respect or affection for her, he should leave. Not, he can leave - he should leave.

Staying with her and insulting her looks, or screwing her with the lights out so he doesn’t have to look at her, or trying to shame or bully her into slimming down, that’s what makes him a shallow asshole. Leaving is much, much better than any of that.