A Curse of Privilege

I recently found this image on another persons facebook page and was inspired by the beauty of this full figured woman and the story that went with it. The caption was as follows:

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?" The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way: "Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness. They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia. They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires. Mermaids do not exist. But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish? They would have no sex life and could not bear children. Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad. And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side? Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale. At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends. We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies. We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated. Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

With this post, I expected the typical response...but instead, the topic took an unforeseen turn with this response:

I have an issue with this kind of argument. Not with the content itself, but the associations one makes because of it. Men are often pressured by women to view women who are larger than model-thin as beautiful. Yes, fine, whatever. I have no problem with this. I prefer women who are human sized anyway. My issue is that while men are essentially required by the feminist movement to view beauty *in women* more broadly, the same standard does not apply to men in any aspect. There is no push-back to encourage other men or women (especially the feminists) to think of larger men as attractive. And believe me, there is A TON of negative body image reinforcement out there for men.

This was a view point I had never encountered before. My entire life I knew that women struggled with their weight and body image, but for the most part, we don't hear about men's eating disorders and body image issues. These are thought of as to be "women's issues" and so men don't discuss it. Men compare their bodies to other men all the time. This can be seen in a wide range of men, spanning from your average Joe, to the top athletes. Here is a link to a video of one of our own male olympic athletes, Apolo Ahno.

http://gma.yahoo.com/video/celebs-26594247/apolo-ohno-in-the-buff-26833097.html

The fact that even an athlete of his caliber could express insecurities about his body shows just how bad this problem may actually be. We ignore the overweight male. It is emasculating to have issues with food or weight. As well, because of societies view point on this issue, men with eating disorders tend to go untreated and unnoticed by their peers.

Long story short (too late...I know!), we need to realize that everyone has their weaknesses and that no one socio-ecomonic, racial, gendered, or spiritual group goes without their problems and that in a way, being of a privileged group may in fact be a disadvantage in the long run.

~Miranda LeBrun~

(aka Randi)