Women's Self-Esteem and What Men Want
In a new study, female participants felt better about their bodies when told that men are attracted to plus-sized models.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archiv...nt/384492/
Reading between the lines a bit, researchers lied to overweight college girls and these girls knew they were being lied to, but they felt better about their fat asses anyway. I think it's better to praise attractive women in no uncertain terms than to fat shame, since many women will just say fuck it and let themselves go totally. Fat shaming should still be part of our arsenal, but not the main part.
Also, I am tired of this terminology of "stick thin" or "ultra thin" being what women say is the male ideal for women. They're basically saying "they want you to be anorexic, so you're right to resist." Excusing their lack of willpower to be a decent size.
In a new study, female participants felt better about their bodies when told that men are attracted to plus-sized models.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archiv...nt/384492/
Quote:Quote:
A recent study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that telling women men were attracted to non-stick-thin models increased their body satisfaction.
The researchers, from Southern Methodist University and Florida State University, had undergraduate heterosexual women look at images of plus-sized models (“plus-sized” in model terms—the models in the photos were estimated to be between a size 8 and 10, or “representative of the average female undergraduate,” the study says). In some cases, the width of the pictures was reduced by 30 percent, “to depict the thin-ideal.”
The women were either told that men picked the images because they found them attractive, or just that the images were taken from the media. In one experiment, another control group was told that men prefer thin women.
The participants reported higher satisfaction with their weight when they were told men were attracted to the average-sized models. But body satisfaction when women were told nothing was the same as when they were told men are attracted to ultra-thin women. This didn’t surprise the researchers, though.
“We did not expect women who were led to believe that men desired the ultra-thin women would necessarily feel worse about their bodies than the women who were not given any information,” they write. “The media already makes it clear that men desire ultra-thin women and we believed women told nothing would rely on this perception.”
With that sad conclusion in hand, the researchers tried one more test—telling the participants that other women preferred the average-sized models. That did nothing. The researchers suggest that “what women think men desire” may account for, at least partially, the relationship between the prevalence of super-thin images of women in the media, and poor body satisfaction among women who see those images. “For example, men in the media are more likely to date, provide physical affection to, and/or engage in sexual relations with thinner women compared to larger women,” the study reads. These portrayals may be part of why women tend to overestimate how thin men want them to be.
Reading between the lines a bit, researchers lied to overweight college girls and these girls knew they were being lied to, but they felt better about their fat asses anyway. I think it's better to praise attractive women in no uncertain terms than to fat shame, since many women will just say fuck it and let themselves go totally. Fat shaming should still be part of our arsenal, but not the main part.
Also, I am tired of this terminology of "stick thin" or "ultra thin" being what women say is the male ideal for women. They're basically saying "they want you to be anorexic, so you're right to resist." Excusing their lack of willpower to be a decent size.
If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts. - Camille Paglia
