The body electric?

Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.

Some years ago, there was an amusing television ad; I can’t remember the product or message, but I do remember the ad. Some ordinary-looking men were standing around in a bar or in a locker room or somewhere, and one guy with his back to the camera turns his head over his shoulder and asks the other guys, “Do these pants make my thighs look big?” He might have asked if they made his butt look big; I can’t remember. Either way, it was so incongruous, it was really funny.

Yet what’s incongruous with men is completely normal with women. Haven’t we all asked someone, or at least ourselves, some version of that question? Does this *insert type of garment here* make my *insert body part* or “me” look *choose all that apply: fat, flat-chested, dumpy, thick, scrawny, too tall, too short, yadda, yadda, yadda.

When confronted with a photo (likely altered and air-brushed) of a well-built young man, all defined muscles and tapering torso, we say, “Nobody looks like that.” And we’re right. We recognize that this beautiful man’s occupation depends on his looks, and that he’s unusual. But when we see a photo (quite certainly air-brushed) of a beautiful woman, long-legged and flat-bellied, we say, “I need to lose weight,” or “Maybe liposuction,” or, worst of all, “I’ll never look like that, and I’m ugly.”

I know we’re a visually based, some might say visually susceptible, species. But our species comprises both women and men; why are the women, at least in this country, so much more obsessed with meeting a “model” image?   Those women are also unusual; they’re not typical, that’s why they have their jobs.

When I was a kid, during the Miss America pageant’s swimsuit competition, each contestant was introduced by state, name, height and measurements, as in, “Miss Ohio, Erie Laker, 5 feet 4 inches tall, 34, 24, 34.” 

Reminiscent of a 4H livestock show, that was bad enough, but those body specifics did describe an actual woman’s body attainable without surgical intervention. Now, it’s “Miss California, Simi Dotcom, 5 feet 9 inches tall, 36, 27, 33.” Or, as one fashion show review in The New York Times put it, “... skeletons with artfully arranged blobs of fat.”

Now there's an image.