women making comments about other women's bodies...

30 replies

NigellasDealer · 25/06/2014 12:14

i was just thinking about my stepmother and remembering borrowing her copy of 'the female eunuch' at a young age, and being impressed that she kept her own name on marriage (it was more unusual back then). Now on her shelf is 'the Beauty Myth' by Naomi Wolf which I knd of dipped into.
then it struck me how fake it all has been - she makes such spiteful comments about other women's looks that how can she possibly be a feminist?
for example when Beyonce was on TV she kind of snorted 'legs like treetrunks'.
she has always done this kind of amused smirk at me buying clothes (lifelong size 16)
and her own daughters have both spent time starving themselves down to size 8. One of them now looks like a lollipop (oops I made a comment myself)
surely then she could not describe herself as a 'feminist'?

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Original poster

NigellasDealer · 25/06/2014 13:37

definitely we do golferman but making nasty little comments or backhanded compliments does seem to be reserved for women.

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Golferman · 25/06/2014 13:35

I think everyone, if we are honest, think judgementally, about other men or women and their appearance, all the time.

Original poster

NigellasDealer · 25/06/2014 13:15

if I went around making comments about male appearance the way people do about women, I would be considered rude, creepy, sexually inappropriate and mentally ill
well quite

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almondcakes · 25/06/2014 13:09

Your step mum may have known all the feminist stuff about appearance and done it anyway, because everybody has their failings. Some habits are hard to drop, and it is so much easier to make feminist and other statements and have people listen to them if you do so while being no bigger than a 12, have long hair and are wearing a dress. It is the aesthetic equivalent of tone policing, which maybe your step mum was considering when advising her daughters.

And I am actually hyper judgy about male appearance. I just keep the comments in my head, because if I went around making comments about male appearance the way people do about women, I would be considered rude, creepy, sexually inappropriate and mentally ill.

Original poster

NigellasDealer · 25/06/2014 12:27

then i was thinking about how often various people over the years have made a comment about my body when greeting me?
'hi dealer, havent you lost weight'
'hi dealer, gosh your actually lookng quite smart and slim'
'hi dealer' etc etc
is it me or is this just fuckng out of order and not something that men have to put up with?

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