I am reading a book by Michael and Mary Eades called The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle: The Simple Plan to Flatten Your Belly Fast! The book gives good information on how to reduce your stomach, hence the title. But what caught my eye was the cultural implications of belly fat from an excerpt of the book:
In 1991, feminist Naomi Wolf opined, “Beauty is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.” In other words, Ms. Wolf views our opinion of beauty as being based not on any innate or inborn sense of what is attractive, but as a product of our cultural indoctrination. We think a pretty face is pretty or a flat belly is attractive for no other reason than that’s the way we’ve been programmed to think by the society in which we live. The covers of Playboy, Playgirl, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan, she claims, set our standards for attractiveness, not the reverse. According to Wolf and others of her opinion, there is no universal standard for human beauty. Were we not programmed by advertisers and the entertainment industry, we would find a fat man or woman just as attractive and desirable as a thin one.
We disagree.
Years of serious scientific study, across numerous disciplines, prove otherwise. Our attraction to a pretty face and a flat belly is in our genes and is an atavistic throwback to a time when such features represented health and the ability to reproduce—important requirements in the selection of a mate. As Harvard Professor Deirdre Barrett puts it, these deep-seated universal standards of beauty “reflect our evolutionary need to estimate the health of others from their physical characteristics.”
What do you think? Is belly fat a reflection of health? What about women who are very thin and have trouble getting pregnant because of low body fat?
Well, it’s fairly obvious that the perception of beauty changes with society. Consider Rubens’ paintings. Most of the women in them would now be considered unattractively fat.
There is no evidence that the women that Rubens painted were considered the most desirable or beautiful, even in his day. Many of his contemporaries painted slender women.
I would like to see someone do a study on that. If you’ll notice, in many of the Great Masters paintings, women were painted as large-limbed, big-hipped, and yet had small breasts… an inconsistent image with our present-day overweight women (and in some cases, men). I submit that large women were more attractive in those eras, because they were considered the healthiest, but that doesn’t equate with being overly fat. They ate a basic diet, they walked everywhere, they labored mightily, and despite their size, might have been far fitter than our present demographic.
How do you explain those Victorian portraits of “sexy” women who were always a bit on the chubby side? And the women’s fashions that gave the illusion of a hefty (actually, a HUGE) back side?
I don’t believe television and magazine covers have everything to do with modern standards of beauty, but it’s clear they fluctuate over time.
Clearly, Miss Wolf was (as usual) spouting nonsense. She doesn’t know the difference between money and currency, which is bad enough. Worse, she thinks that people value gold because the law compels them to do so, which suggests that she hasn’t listened to the financial news in at least three years. Still worse, she asserts that if Mr. Smith considers Miss Jones attractive, it can only be because of political consensus!
Konrad Adenauer once said, “The good Lord set definite limits on Man’s intelligence but no limits on his stupidity — and that’s just not fair!” In Naomi Wolf, we have the perfect example of unlimited stupidity in service to a perverted cause.
Now, as to belly fat: There have been eras, aesthetically somewhat broader-minded than our own, in which a modest “belly dome” was considered within the bounds of female beauty. But note the word modest: a saggy protuberance has never been considered a mark of beauty.
Health and beauty cannot be perceptually separated. More, health and age cannot be perceptually separated: the sense that Miss Jones is within the “optimal mating / gestating” age band is at the very least important to a man’s perception of her attractiveness. And health, age, and beauty tend to move together: as Miss Jones ages, her overall health will tend to decline, as does men’s opinion of her pulchritude. A woman’s ability to control her waistline tends to decrease as she ages and the tension in her abdominal muscles declines.
There isn’t much a woman can do about it. It takes a steadily increasing amount of time, effort, and dedication to stay fit and trim as one moves through the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. This is as true for men as for women. Fortunately for men, our attractiveness (or lack thereof) to a woman is partakes considerably less of how we look. And fortunately for women, a mature man learns to love his lady for reasons quite apart from how she looks in a Spandex bikini.
It’s both. Genetics provide a broad platform for what we feel is attractive. Culture refines it.
I saw the cover recently for an early SI swimsuit edition, which at the time, I found to be the most erotic thing I had ever seen. Today, the girl looks average and overweight. Last I looked, my genes haven’t changed.
Didn’t Instapundit just link to an article about women over 40 who seemed shocked they couldn’t conceive even though on the outside look 25?
Of course there’s a cultural component to beauty. There’s nothing “healthy” or “reproductive advantage” about foot-binding, but deformed, unusable feet were considered beautiful in China for many many years.
Keeping trim is not at all the same as deforming your feet.
And no, what men find beautiful is not “culturally conditioned” or determined by the mass media. Feminist shaming will not make slender women any less attractive. Much of this talk about beauty standards stems from modern notions of self-esteem, which state that saying things which hurt someone’s self-image shouldn’t be allowed, even if it’s true.
It seems pretty obvious that standards of beauty are constantly changing – but within limits. If you surveyed all the art from paleolithic times to the present and recorded the dimensions of all the figures intended to represent male and female beauty, you could probably come up with an average that might tell you what a good-looking person “should” look like. That average probably wouldn’t look like the most gorgeous supermodel you ever saw.
Also, I think there’s a difference between beauty and sexual attractiveness. A quick survey will convince you that ugly people reproduce far more readily than beautiful ones do. And it’s pretty obvious that we can look at a beautiful person within necessarily thinking “I’d hit dat.” It’s complicated.
That’s Naomi Wolf’s problem – she doesn’t do complicated. She may use complicated language, but for her all human phenomena are caused by politics, i.e., power relationships between people and groups. Nothing else matters.
Ugly people reproduce far more readily because there are more of them.
I saw House say something in one episode a year or two ago that is absolutely true: as couples go, 9s usually marry 9s, 5s usually marry 5s, and so on…unless there is another factor at play, like money or social position.
money and social position should come into play. it’s why guys work so hard, and create so much. no girl wants to hook up with a talentless, ambitionless hack. even at the bottom- that odd movie “white men can’t jump” – the women were open about what awaited the guys at home.
and women’s ambition can look like: I’ll risk my life and body for wonderful kids….it’s pretty win/ win, all around. I don’t think guys like creatures swimming around in their abdomens,or being the prey, or being confined with immature people…that’s Alien, and most prison movies…and that’s pregnancy, and nursing and child-raising…..
I didn’t criticize it. People marrying for money and/or social position is a fact of life. Although….speaking for myself, I can’t imagine marrying an ugly fat woman for money. I guess I place more emphasis on physical attractiveness, but this does bring a question to mind: who is more shallow? The man or woman who looks for physical attractiveness, or the man or woman who looks at the size of someone’s checkbook?
Well, go low enough on the weight thing, you lose curves, your body starts covering you with a hair, and your teeth get wonky. It’s not a good look.
I mean, would you rather “tap that” with Cindy Crawford in her prime, or Kate Moss? Do most guys get weak at the knees when facing Chynna, the wrestler, or either of the Olsens? So most extremes are out- too thin, too muscular, too juvenile- looking.
I wonder, though, if attractiveness was more widespread prior to food programs. B/c the fat kids at school? Are on free/reduced lunch plans, while the kids who bring lunch to school are all normal weight. The school is at 80% free lunch. We have poor, fat indolent kids. My daughter can stand in front of one of her classmates, and we could trace out four inches every direction of the kid standing behind her. in kindergarten.
I know my kids were excited to get to visit their friends in the project near us. Those kids had bags of chips and soda, unlike our house, or any house where at least one parent had a job.
And, if Naomi would quit name-calling beautiful women, I’d think maybe she’s got that “pretty inside” thing down. B/c right now, she’s just a snotty, over- privileged B**** who’s upset that her boyfriend would rather watch Jenna Jameson, than debate with Naomi.
Well, Naomi is trying to devalue beauty in the marriage market-place. Aren’t there studies about how guys would marry pretty but poor (which meant no college, back then?) but now mates are found in class? Naomi might be pretty- no clue- but she’s at the top of the educational food chain- grad student of Harold Bloom, best-selling author, acclaimed columnist. Of course she wants to clear the table and win.
For some reason, women who are envious disparage on sight really beautiful women. Well, to be a beautiful swan, you’ve probably got a few years as an ugly duckling. You have to grow into your cheekbones. This usually means you look awkward and mal- proportioned right at the start of puberty. It’s humbling. If you’re a tall guy, this is when you’re short, or gangly, or uncoordinated when you have a growth spurt. And this is where good study habits meet challenging material. So, my friend who looks like Barbie, was a shy, reserved bio-chem major. My best friend, studied linguistics. Another learned a language every two years, including Hungarian. The advertising model studied commercial architecture. Beauty fell on them late in high school, or early in college. They were as surprised as anyone else. It didn’t help that short, average girls who’d had dates all the way through high school were snotty to them. This led to stand-offishness ( who wants to be the subject of baseless gossip?) and making friends with others like oneself. Which leads to more gossip….
So, if the bright, fat girls would quit talking smack, they might learn something.
and, well, it is evolutionary advantaged. There’s a trace saying fat girls have more autistic children. They definitely suffer during pregnancy. Surgery is more dangerous. Even features speak to even development, and balanced brains parts under the skull. Clear skin is indicative of mental fitness- they both are from the same layer of cells during fetal development ( the eyes have all three layers, so saying good things about eyes really is a full – evaluation.)
And,further, so what? if it is time-dependent. you’re impregnating your own wife, not helen of troy.
and, well, as women have more financial autonomy, some are choosing bimbo guys….not that there’s any gossip pages about that working out poorly, right now……
How is Anna Nicole Smith getting several million dollars of her own, and then marrying very well to a guy who left her everything in his will, male dominance? The guy had to wildcat and work in the oil-field for that money. He worked like a junkyard dog for it. His son gets disparaged as half a man, for suing ANS for her share, b/c he thought she was icky, rather than being grateful his dad was happy.
It seems like her pretty face was her capital, and we should not disparage her skills at marketing her only viable asset.
It seems to me that the Bravo Channel, Hollywood and various other metro/gay cultural forces have been the most prominent recently in pushing certain so-called “beauty standards,” which frankly many of us straight guys don’t find very attractive–at least 30- or 40-something guys like me. Maybe its different for younger guys.
I and all of the guys of various ages whom I have asked about female beauty are repulsed by the stick-thin, washboard-abs-look that is so heavily promoted now. At least in my neck of the woods, most of us find women with “a little meat on their bones” to be the most attractive–for instance a Marilyn Monroe or Barbara Stanwyck or Ann Margaret. This would seem to fit in well with the Instinct Theory.
Our obsession with thinness began in the early part of the 20th century, when Paris became the epitome of all that was fashionable. Before that, hefty women were considered more attractive, because it was such a rare occurrence owing to the economic circumstances (lack of adequate diet) in most of the population. Parisian coutures in the first part of that century began designing clothes for very thin, shapeless women, partly because so many of them wanted to be avant garde, going against the current style, and because… let’s face it… so many deplored the female form. I leave that to your imagination. Before that, an earlier generation had designed women’s clothes that accentuated the waist and the buttocks (remember bustles?).
We’ve sort of come half-circle, where our problem is too much weight, rather than too little (and thank God for that, since it has lengthened lives considerably since the days of the early Parisian coutures, despite what the nanny-dieters say). I think we’re in the process now of balancing out, realizing that too much is as bad a problem as too little, that is, being too fat is as bad as being anorexia-thin.
Weight in pounds is misleading anyway, since the fitness of the body is what is all-important. Moderate diet and moderate exercise is my mantra, or as the Buddha said, “Moderation in all things… including moderation.”
Most of the overweight people I see aren’t fit – they’re fat.
I would agree that one doesn’t need to be stick-thin to be healthy, but let’s not fool ourselves. People in this country (and in the West, generally) are getting fat by eating too much and exercising too little. It’s our lifestyle. Despite the economy, food is still plentiful, and our lives are sedentary. It takes effort to stay in shape, and a lot of people don’t bother.
Not that we need a nanny-state to take care of it. But at the same time, I won’t listen to people ctiticize me because I’m sexually aroused by women who are slender and physically fit as not so much by women who are not.
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So when I’m attracted to healthy looking, curvy women rather than emaciated runway models it’s because my “politics” are directing me?