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those Hoops girls wear around their head.... (pg. 6)
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
So are you saying that if the media didn't portray women (or men) in the way that you describe, nobody would aspire to look like that? If people didn't think they were expected to look like models in order to succeed, they would just let themselves go and not care about what they look like? |
well it's not just about media, but media is a large part of the equation and the fashion industry.
it's not fair to say that all women think they are expected to look like models. certainly where i live you can tell that everyone does, though. even the 'counter culture' is typically simply laying prostrate, waiting to for validation from the editorial wing of the fashion industry.
i think female sexuality is inherently (biologically, psychologically) powerful, and that this drive for hotness is more of a simulacrum of female sexuality created originally by men rather than the actual thing. kind of like the matrix. :p and just like the matrix, there will always be people enslaved by its artifices who prefer it because it satiates them and keeps them just happy enough.
and it's funny because you can replace 'sexuality' and 'hotness' for 'piety' and 'chastity' in everything im saying to describe attitudes towards womens fashion in the past :p |
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| srussell0018 |
| It was Easter :o |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
well it's not just about media, but media is a large part of the equation and the fashion industry.
it's not fair to say that all women think they are expected to look like models. certainly where i live you can tell that everyone does, though. even the 'counter culture' is typically simply laying prostrate, waiting to for validation from the editorial wing of the fashion industry.
i think female sexuality is inherently (biologically, psychologically) powerful, and that this drive for hotness is more of a simulacrum of female sexuality created originally by men rather than the actual thing. kind of like the matrix. :p and just like the matrix, there will always be people enslaved by its artifices who prefer it because it satiates them and keeps them just happy enough.
and it's funny because you can replace 'sexuality' and 'hotness' for 'piety' and 'chastity' in everything im saying to describe attitudes towards womens fashion in the past :p |
That "standard" of beautify is quite variable though. It's not like there's one universal standard that all men subscribe to. People from India find light skin to be very attractive, while tans are desirable here. Black men tend to prefer more "thick" women than white men. I guess you're right in that women tend to aspire to look like whatever their desired "type" seems to find attractive, but I think it's at least a somewhat often occurrence that their assumptions about what men find attractive are completely off base. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
i think female sexuality is inherently (biologically, psychologically) powerful, and that this drive for hotness is more of a simulacrum of female sexuality created originally by men rather than the actual thing. |
I find this to be a decidedly pedestrian view. Empowerment is not something granted by the status quo, that is often the very crux of its challenge and its worth.
I refuse to believe that in a world where most everybody has a mother - and most everyone throughout history has had a mother - that the worth of femininity has been thrown under the bus by the males of the species in some consciously absurd power grab for all time. So you're right; this industry does exist for means not empowering to women in its suggestion of self-image, but I don't believe its any latent conspiracy to put women down, but the perpetually historic consequence of cultural capitalism only amplified by our information age and the hyper-asexualization of our increasingly rational cynicism. |
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| srussell0018 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
I find this to be a decidedly pedestrian view. Empowerment is not something granted by the status quo, that is often the very crux of its challenge and its worth.
I refuse to believe that in a world where most everybody has a mother - and most everyone throughout history has had a mother - that the worth of femininity has been thrown under the bus by the males of the species in some consciously absurd power grab for all time. So you're right; this industry does exist for means not empowering to women in its suggestion of self-image, but I don't believe its any latent conspiracy to put women down, but the perpetually historic consequence of cultural capitalism only amplified by our information age and the hyper-asexualization of our increasingly rational cynicism. |
I agree, but I would have used more syllables. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| Men invented the hair hoop not to hold all of womanhood down, but to hold her ankles in place while you pump her spider button. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
indulgent verbosity |
Its not a latent conspiracy, it's just the way things happened, and the way things men would rather keep them, and the way things women are mostly happy with keeping them too, despite the fact that it basically it's bad deal for them.
To deny we still live in a patriarchal society though would be absurd. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| I, too, am a power middle. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
I, too, am a power middle. |
i am both the peanut butter and the jelly |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
I, too, am a power middle. |
lucky Pierre? |
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| srussell0018 |
To be fair, the "ideal" body that most men find the most appealing is also the healthiest body type. So it's not like a woman working her ass off to be fit is to appease the desires of men, it's also just being healthy.
It's like saying that being fat is okay as long as you love who you are and what you look like. It's not okay. Fat women (plus size models) who stay fat because they think that it's empowering are just using it as a cop out to be lazy and not go to the gym imo. They're not doing anything beneficial for the rest of the fat women everywhere by attempting to tell them that it's okay to be fat. That's the same as saying it's okay to smoke cigarettes or it's okay to go tanning for an hour every day. It's not healthy, and to suggest that those things are "okay" is irresponsible.
The whole idea is not to look great for men, it's to not develop diabetes and die from cardiovascular disease when you're 55. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by srussell0018
To be fair, the "ideal" body that most men find the most appealing is also the healthiest body type. |
Srussell is an eating disorder denier |
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