Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeke.
I agree with most of your posts comments. However, I have to call out this assertion because it's one of my biggest concerns.
Men may not feel pressure to be thin but the male physique is very much asserted to men. The strong, muscular, "sex appeal" type. There is still pressure to live up to a physical standard and it's very tough because men aren't supposed to care about beauty. That is slowly changing. However, the pressure is still there that "I am not good enough" and to assert more sex appeal in the form of physique. On a side note, the task of achieving a muscular built physique is much more difficult, time consuming, and draining than it is to achieve a thin body type - so the work a man has to put in to fit that image is much more than women who merely want to be thin.
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That's a difficult topic and although I think the pressure for women is much harder (not the becoming thin part but the overall assumptions about women that come along with it, like women are just pretty dolls and that their worth is measured by their appearance and not their skills - in simplified terms) I agree that men also suffer under the sexism that actually is directed at women. While women have to be pretty and gentle men have to be tough. That's especially a problem for little boys who should be kids and not bothered by the "men don't cry" shit.
I hope one day girls can be loud and play dressed up as a pirate and boys can be shy and play with "My little Pony" if they want to without anyone telling the kids they aren't "real" girls or boys.
And I find it interesting that you say men don't have to care about beauty, because here in Germany they have (not as much as women, though). A friend of mine who comes from the US always says that people over there think European men are all "gay". Is this true?