To think that women define themselves too much by their bodies?

[silentcatastrophe]

Diets don't work. Surgery is dangerous. High heeled shoes are uncomfortable and make-up has been poisonous. I was teaching a child to ride and she was fretting about looking fat in johdpurs. I told her that it was much more important what her body could do than what it looked like. Whatever we do to ourselves, we are never going to look like Jessica Rabbit!

Okay so using the term 'opt out' was perhaps not the most effective way of saying what I was trying to, which is: if people define themselves by how they look, it is just as likely to be by the fact that they don't wear make-up/ colour their hair as by the fact that they never leave the house without applying foundation. Does that make more sense?

I think society defines women too much by their bodies, and their looks, and their age, and as women are born and raised into that society it has a negative effect on them as they work and strive and fail to meet the standards that society sets.

Mainly the media - adverts, magazines, television, all that stuff.

We don't see bodies, we see clothes. We don't see faces, we see make-up, and we don't smell BO, we smell deodorant. We are becoming rather artificial, aren't we? I recognise that artifice has always played a part in human nature, but aren't we making ourselves ill with it? Perhaps that has always been a concern?
I think that plastic surgery can make people look very peculiar. It doesn't make us last longer, and skin is an organ no less important than all the others. Imagine going for a pancreatic nip and tuck, for fun.

Women are their own worst critics. Or maybe I've been taught that? The most offensive swear words are about women. And are mainly used by women. Slag. Slut. Whore. Bitch. Cunt and so on. There are no equally offensive terms for men.

Well I have to say I'm all for the idea of not smelling B.O thank you very much

Not all women.

Prick, Dick, Cock, arse hole!

And actually 'Bastard' is normally reserved more for men than women

make up is fun though, i don't wear it to please anyone but myself, though i do understand that it's getting a little weird, make up aimed at really young children

Oh and Wanker!

It's not often you'll hear a woman say, "Oh here she comes again, the wanker woman from across the road"

But 'bastard' etc doesn't have the same connotations. Swear words that are reserved for females are usually directed at her sexuality and sexual behaviour.

Well that's true I suppose

But then we call men wankers, dicks and fuckers!

I'm just using this thread to swear gratuitously by the way

Amanda Knox being a case in point. She was referred to as a 'dirty soul' by one journo during the trial. You just don't get that calibre of personal insults on male defendants. You just don't.

I have a body - I will keep comparing it to those bodies of famous women 25 years younger than me - but not enough to do anything about it. I don't feel the need to.

i dont think about my body except when buying clothes got to be size ten, i am 5ft 6 long and skinny no hips always been the same, only thing ive always disliked is that i have no boobs would have liked a bit more up top, but as i dont put whieght on nought i can do about that, i dont wear make up either but mainly because i am allergic to it

Do you use masking tape to keep your trousers up? I'm straight up and down too and flat chested. We all have to grow into whatever shape we're in!

Amanda Knox was in Italy which had a lot to do with it ( Noel Coward said he loved travelling on Italian cruise liners because it was never women first)
im overweight at the mo and im trying hard to lose it.
The negative shouty comments i get in the street are from men not women.
I think some of them have been brainwashed by mens mags. I often refer to these idiot blokes as the FHM generation.
As a consequence i have no confidence around men i dont know and usually cant look them straight in the face while talking to them.
Thats if i havent run the other way first.

Shape and size have little to do with ability. Thin people are just as shapeless as obese people. I would so like to see people holding their heads high, whatever shape they are. Dieting is a form of self-destruction. In order to change shape, we need to change our view of the world.

I thinks its definitely and issue that seems to start younger,and younger.

I can't imagine women not being like that its so ingrained if that makes any sense.

Popcorns post is very good.

people who choose not to do 'girly things' becomes an issue in itself rather than a non issue.

Our papers called her "foxy knoxy" - her looks gave her real problems with the press coverage about her from what I could see. A fixation with her sex life etc.

I like your last post silentcatastrophe

archimedes also agree that deriding "girly things" is as sexist as insisting that females are girly. IYSWIM.

Headinhands, I think it's that women have been taught to internalise that set of bodily ideals - some women realise that and struggle against it, some don't notice, Some don't care, because they've been dealt a good hand physically and happen to resemble the current physical ideal for women - but they'll notice it as they age, or get alopecia, or 'lose their looks' and start to fail the 'standards'.

I know there's a rise in male body fascism and in male eating disorders, but I don't think men are anywere near as defined by their looks as women are, not yet, anyway. Look at the male faces and bodies we most often see presenting TV programmes, and ask yourself how many female equivalents of the ubiquitous Top Gear presenters there are.

To go on with the gratuitous swearing bit, I think that 'cunt' remainds a far worse insult than 'prick', especially when applied to a man. Plus there are contexts in which calling a man something by an expression which originates in something to do with his genitals can actually be intended positively or as a mark of respect - eg' 'Big Swinging Dick' for a big-time city trader who pulls in huge sums.

Most men, though less so in UK it seems, don't much like being called a Mother Fucker, a Wuss or a Mother's boy. There are untold unneccessary words for a penis. Do you think a man would like to be called Porrige Pistol?

There are untold unneccessary words for a penis. Do you think a man would like to be called Porrige Pistol?

onlineslangdictionary.com/thesaurus/words+meaning+penis.html

One particular charmer is 'bald-headed yoghurt slinger'.

Mind you, the same site offers 'PhD' as an ancronym for 'Pretty Huge Dick'. Which is clearly as wrong, as I have a PhD, and a lovely vagina, out of which I'm planning to push a baby in the near future.

Aw, how sweet! I guess the words are not so rude on their own!

How would a man feel then, to be called a Bald headed Yoghurt Slinger?

Its other women that seem to spend most of the time doing the defining.