Comments on: Forty years of wankitude

By: pamela

pamela — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:27:41 +0000

i have wondered if the 2008 ‘ideal’ is more extreme exactly because there are fewer and fewer people ‘meeting’ even the 1965 standard. It was just a thought and I haven’t worked it through yet. It is interesting, though, that as the population becomes larger, the ‘ideal’ becomes more extreme.

By: The Amazing Kim

The Amazing Kim — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:09:32 +0000

isn’t atrophy really Goth though?

*snork* bwa ha ha.

By: Tangerina

Tangerina — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:28:00 +0000

D’oh, sorry. Think I was just reacting to the nostalgic tone of some comments, not really to the original post. And that is a very interesting point you bring up from The Beauty Myth.

By: auds

auds — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:32:55 +0000

Sorry this is OT–I guess that’s what I do lately, swoop in after everyone’s gone and talk off topic (sorry!) but I was thinking about what you said the other day, sophiabrooks, about how the way women’s waists look has changed, and then I saw this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/19/michael-phelps-spitz-take_n_119764.html

and thought huh, it’s changed in the same way for men too. Weird! What *is* that?

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:52:48 +0000

As far as corsets go, I was more of a Goth in high school, but still enjoy the music. The idea is so that if you do induce a starvation in yourself, the corset will keep the fat from appearing in the middle.

I however have also heard stories about corsets doing weird things to some people’s spines, and them not being able to stand up straight without the corset due to an atrophy of core muscles. However, isn’t atrophy really Goth though? (sarcasm)

By: Sweet Machine

Sweet Machine — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:17:50 +0000

Tangerina, this post is definitely not in any way arguing that the 60s were somehow more feminist than today — far from it. Where you see an “idealization” of the past is completely beyond me.

I suggest reading (or rereading) The Beauty Myth to think about the relation between the beauty ideal and feminist progress; Wolf argues that the more actual power women gain in the public sphere, the narrower the beauty ideal gets. The more figurative space women take up en masse, the less physical space an individual female body should take up.

By: The Amazing Kim

The Amazing Kim — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:14:49 +0000

I haven’t measured a woman with a waist smaller than 26″ in about 10 years, but the waist to hip ratio seems to be getting smaller, in general, for the particular age group I measure.

I’m always told that’ I’m lucky to have a 21″ waist by my goth, corset-buying friends.

From my Mum’s old nursing books, I remember reading that eating disorders and otherwise extreme or long-term dieting can change fat distribution, resulting in skinny limbs but a thicker middle. It’s a famine thing, that the body protects the organs with the little reserves it has.

By: lindabeth

lindabeth — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:00:57 +0000

Excellent, excellent post. Just…excellent! Very well written and so spot-on.

By: Tangerina

Tangerina — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:52:58 +0000

Yeah, I really agree how things like photoshop and backlash have led to an even crappier beauty standard and it would be nice if models that looked even halfway like the older one could be accepted, but on the other hand I also think about what it was like for my mom growing up in the 60′s and for me growing up in the 00′s and I think I’ll put up with the magazine isle for the fact that all my science classes in college were half male and half female and the fact that we almost had a female president and that we have safe and legal abortion and that I was never made to feel that any career is closed to me because of my gender, which was not the case for my mother.

I’m NOT saying we currently live in a feminist utopia, or that the 60′s were necessarily a crappy time to grow up or anything like that, I’m just saying that as much as there are still countless crappy setbacks and some things have gotten worse, I’m just really really happy for the progress we’ve made and will make and would rather focus on that than idealizing a past time.

But yeah, I really sincerely wish that remotely realistic female bodies could make it in today’s media.

By: Eucritta

Eucritta — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:04:04 +0000

It’s like what women desire is a complete mystery to the industry, or that what we desire isn’t of concern.

There are companies which produce porn aimed at women, both published and filmed. Problem is … well, it’s like romance: it’s assumed that women will want to read about or watch characters we can identify with and desire to *be,* rather than simply desire. Ergo, even het porn for women assumes we’ll be watching the women.

Myself, I think women have in fact spoken loudly, clearly, and in public about just what it is that tickles our fancy, and then written for ourselves — in fanfic.