to be angry at the fact women MUST NOT BE FAT

[MagicMojito]

I'm just so pissed off with the double standards!

I went into primark and there is a whole wall dedicated to "hide your fat" type underware
and I dont just mean Spanx and the like, there were corset type tops, underware leggings to stop the wobble as you walk, a "no more back fat" vest - I shit you not, that's what it said on the label!! Rows and rows of the same type of fat hiding underware in all different styles and colours.

In comparison the men's underware department consisted of three rails, boxer shorts, briefs, socks and vests . Its the same in most shops now (although I was pretty shocked and impressed with such a vast range of products of this style)

In summer all over the tv/magazines its advertising how to get a great bikini body, fab abs, summer holiday slim down etc.

Winter its the little black dress diet for the office Xmas party!! -AIMED ONLY AT WOMEN

Aibu to just think FUCK OFF ALREADY?!
I realise this is nothing new BTW. I just had a realisation that things are only gonna get worse and I feel sad that this is the message that my dds are going to get brought up around

People are 'allowed' to wear what they want. Nobody's said otherwise.

The OP is saying it's unfair for women to be under so much more pressure than men to have a certain body type, eg by having shapewear marketed at them.

So I don't think we're talking about the same issue, but no worries!

I have shape wear. After three DC in really self conscious if my saggy stomach and welcome any magic pants that suck it all in for me so my clothes look and fit better and gives me more confidence. No amount of exercise will ever cure my kangaroo pouch. Im not sure how control wear for men would work have an image in my head of DH wearing my undergarments under his rugby kit

Im not sure how control wear for men would work

www.underarmour.com/shop/uk/en/mens-heatgear-sonic-compression-shorts/pid1236237

OH has been known to wear my Zaggora hotpants (zaggora.com/gb_en/hotpants-trade-3-0-short/) under his football kit, to help avoid a groin strain.

the existence of shapewear could also be seen as accepting that women's bodies do not fit the 'ideal' and their the opposite of op's viewpoint. It depends which way you look at it. The existence of this stuff gives women a choice.

I don't see why blokes letting beer bellies hang over their jeans happily (if that's the case) is something women should aspire to.

I am massively fat (dealing with it now) I was fat when I was a child and lost loads of weight, it was not good enough for the world though and I had frequently reminders that I wasn't as pretty as my friends, wasn't attractive, wasn't good enough.

Eventually I partnered up with a man who told me I wasn't good enough but he 'accepted me despite my looks' I gained stones and stones in weight.

Now I have two children, have just separated and in 2 months have lost 1.5 stones. Still got a very long way to go.

All I want is one person to think I am attractive, to hold me like they really really want to and make me feel like I am worthy of praise and love.

I have never had that and I am thirty. I am well aware that I might never have that, after all being ugly is just what it is, you can't avoid it or get away from it, its just who you are.

In a society where it is almost impossible to be 'good enough' physically, even when you've put everything into trying and have done the 'mind over matter' confidence thing and still been told you are not quite good enough and never will be... well its easier to be fat.

Because at least then I could blame the fat rather than just knowing that it was something I could never change.

Now I want to be slimmer for health reasons and because (delusionally) I am still holding onto a tiny bit of hope that one day, somewhere, someone will think I am beautiful. Or at least tell me that I am once or twice.

Even if they are lying, I don't care. I've just had all the 'you'll never be beautiful' 'you aren't attractive like your friends you'll have to work hard at other things to get yourself a man' 'you will never be gorgeous like those models/those friends' to last a lifetime.

Sometimes its easier to be fat, in a world where very few people match up to the notion of 'beauty'

Bollocks. Middle aged angst on something nobody younger really cares about.

Many women who like fashion like these garments. As they help clothes look better and them feel better in them. Self confidence issue maybe but supply and demand is definitely there. Trinny and Susannah ten or more years ago started it. Spanxs is designed and owned by a woman. Bridget jones, the most famous big knicker celeb and "I've gained a pound" whiner? Written by a woman. Before you decry us as put down by men you need to be honest and stop just buying wholesale into old feminist anger and I dunno novel thought but open your eyes to new issues and problems. Maybe the issue is girl on girl (so to speak) not driven by men.

And finally had the op bothered to look around the market place is chock full of this shit marketed to men. Suck em in vests, six pack vests, bum lift pants. Just because it ain't in primark doesn't mean it isn't freely and easily available. Most young internet shop.

Before you decry us as put down by men you need to be honest and stop just buying wholesale into old feminist anger and I dunno novel thought but open your eyes to new issues and problems

Before you slag off an entire branch of thought I dunno novel thought but try finding out even the most rudimentary thing about it.

Before you decry us as put down by men you need to be honest and stop just buying wholesale into old feminist anger...Maybe the issue is girl on girl (so to speak) not driven by men.

Oh here we go, the anti-feminists have arrived.

Trinny and Susannah and Bridget Jones have fuck-all to do with it. Men, and the companies they own and control, make a shit-ton of money convincing women they need to buy products to make themselves look better. That is undeniable, and if you think 'feminism' is old-hat and everything is now equal so let's move on to 'new issues and problems' (as if the rest of us dwell on nothing but this particular topic all day), you are deluded.

I'm not saying women aren't their own worst enemies sometimes, but this is certainly not just a 'girl on girl' thing.

The supply/demand thing is an issue for me because of who perpetuates it-other women? men?. It isn't simply an overweight, fat hating, health worrying thing because as someone said, it's aimed at size 8-10 women as well.

The garments aren't strictly 'hide your fat', more 'hide your perfectly okay natural self' no matter how healthy you are, if it does not conform to the ideal. But it's who is imposing this ideal that is worrying for me.

I don't think the pressure on men is the same, yes there are protein shakes and buff men in advertising but there aren't 'hide yourself' products if you don't - not the same shame is implied, not the same negativity, not the same perfection imposed. Men are judged on more than physical appearance, women are not-it has become the sole thing they are judged on regardless of other qualities.

Is "middle aged angst" less worthy or important than "young woman angst" would be?

I wonder why that is?

Is it because middle aged women are viewed as less sexually appealing by men and therefore what they have to say is less important?

Dismissing the OP as middle aged is a very telling tactic.

I can hear you slim=beautiful fat=not beautiful just isn't true. I am slim and definitely not beautiful ! I don't mean that in a derogatory way but it's just the truth. Happy to accept 'average' that's me ......

I think the issue is self esteem gosh not spandex. I simply do not interpret it in the way the op does.

I agree with Worra and other posters saying that we, as women are our own worst enemies in this. Whether we have been brainwashed by men is a separate debate but I think women are far more obsessed with their 'flaws' than men are obsessed (by their own or women's). Yes there will be men who have bought into it too - the dickheads that critique a 3yo body for example, but IMO there will be plenty of men married to women they fancy and love just as they are (also through weight fluctuations) and that same woman will be hating her body, beating herself up every day and never happy with it. Often they will be modelling their own mother in this. So I'm not sure we can shout about it being male oppression, it's more of a societal/cultural issue.

Branston you have the evangelical zeal of someone who has stopped smoking/lost weight/found religion. Good for you, whatever shift occurred so that you could do that, it is different for everyone. Labelling anyone 'greedy' is pretty unhelpful though. Define greed - taking/eating more than you need?...for me that suggests that overeating is often an attempt to fill a different need, but until you can figure out exactly what that is and how to fill it then it's not so easy. Nor is it always such a bad thing, as Captain pointed out, for her food provided the comfort/solace that literally kept her alive.

ICanHearYou, that made me so sad.

Eventually I partnered up with a man who told me I wasn't good enough but he 'accepted me despite my looks

He's a complete and utter prick. Truly. This says everything about him and nothing whatsoever about you. He can get fucked with his 'acceptance'.

Someone will tell you that you are beautiful one day, and mean it, I have no doubt. In the meantime, enjoy your two precious children.

Stuff exists, but you don't need to buy into it.

Personally I see refusing to buy any of the body shaming magazines as an act of female solidarity - wouldn't it be nicer if we all did this? Wouldn't you feel happier if you'd never realised cankles was a thing?

Thanks Koala

I take great pleasure in telling people, when asked about my weightloss that I lost 15 stone in 1 night, by kicking him out the door and the rest of it is looking to be easy.

As for finding another partner, well am happy to stay single but I would so love to find that warm mutual glow... I've never really had it and I would love to experience it just once

Interesting debate
But surely the fat is only the physical manifestation of something that is, for a majority, a psychological problem.
Wearing restrictive underwear is ALSO a physical manifestation of a psychological problem. Being too thin is again a physical manifestation of..actually I'm getting fed up of writing psychological...

As is...changing your skin colour (fake tan) - gluing hair to your face (false eyelashes) removing the majority of your body hair...wearing painful shoes to appear taller and so on...these are all physical manifestations of unhappiness and competitiveness.

I don’t think men escape this they have their own problems and are just as restricted by societal expectations - they're just different expectations - but as we homogenise more they are starting to share the same problems women have too..
So the poor bastards are ending up with two opposing and incompatible sets of things to be unhappy about.

tobysmum77 Thu 24-Jul-14 09:48:47
I can hear you slim=beautiful fat=not beautiful just isn't true. I am slim and definitely not beautiful grin ! I don't mean that in a derogatory way but it's just the truth. Happy to accept 'average' that's me ......

Me too. But I do like the fact that I can make myself look better when I feel like it with makeup and clothes.

Ah see it doesn't really matter what I do, slim or fat, make up or no, I am just pretty fucking ugly!

No you're not. Nobody is objectively ugly. They're just not.

You think you're ugly because you've been brainwashed by arseholes.

I'm abit confused at middle aged angst I'm 26.

I'm not for one minute denying that there is a market for these products for men too, I'm neither blind or an idiot but its aimed EVERYWHERE for women, they're in department stores, on the high street, on the tv, in magazines and papers, they even sell them in Tesco ffs. The message surrounds us that there really is no excuse for us to flaunt our fat when there are all these alternatives.
If men want these products they are not nearly as freely available as they are for women. Nor is there the expectation that they SHOULD be wearing them.

Indeed, what we find attractive is a social construct.

Darkness I don't believe that wanting to look as attractive (however you define it for yourself) as possible is a sign of unhappiness or competitiveness, I think that for most it is human nature. In fact I would argue that not caring at all about your appearance indicates a psychological problem (and indeed for some very overweight people it is indicative of exactly that feeling-having self esteem so low they don't feel like they deserve to look 'nice' and may be using food as a form of self harm). The problem for me is more the idea that so many of us - but I think especially women - have bought into, that there is only one very narrow (literally wink]) template for what is attractive.

I have yet to meet an ugly women. I have always, always been able to see at least one beautiful feature of every woman I've ever met in my life.

I never voluntarily enter a shop - it's a theft of time. Loads of women hate shops and shopping. Just buy on line. It takes a few seconds and is much faster. I certainly agree women are silly to buy clothes which are uncomfortable and hold them in like Victorian corsets did.

60% of people are overweight nowadays which is not great so not surprisingly there is more demand to cover up the fat bits. I also agree it is sexist when more emphasis is put on women being slim than men. May be as we all start to earn more than our men - it is happening- things will reverse although plenty of us would never date a fat man and there are loads of them around these days.