Despite all the gains, legislation passed and rules enacted to bring about and help facilitate equality, one group that tend to have a lot of unnecessary stress heaped on them are women. Especially by men. Men still dominate upper level positions in the workplace and politics. Men still earn more dollar for dollar, than women.
Women can use their minds just as well as men. It's pretty obvious women have the biological potential to be just as smart if not smarter than men. It's also clear women can lead just as well as men with just as much potential for success as men, given the chance.
But the workplace and other such places where women can lead and participate aren't the only places women still seem to have to work at least twice as hard. Women have to be able to do all these things, and on top of it most men still expect women to look a certain way physically. There are of course whole industries committed to this look, and they purvey the ideal and corresponding products people can (or should) purchase for women to be able to fit the fantasy mold.
In fact, these industries also work to convince men that this is the ideal they should seek also. They show the pictures of women the industries have decided posses the physical type they want people to buy into in order to try and keep women and men insecure, causing them to want to consume their products in the hopes they'll feel better. These are products that say to women, “if you can't reach this impossible standard everyday of your life, here's how you can cover it up, as you're worth less than women that naturally, or with the aid of Photoshop, fit our definition of what's attractive.” The products that say, “sure you can get somewhere in the ballpark of the ideal we drew up and decided you need to live by, but for most of you it will take hours and hours of sacrifice weekly to look less like a woman than you're supposed to. That's besides all else you need to do just to get by in your life and the greater world – let alone being a success. Just remember, it won't make you healthier and will probably do just the opposite. In the end, you don't really equal what men do to us, but that's your problem, not ours.”
Men buy into the ideals and, on a superficial level, believe we want a woman that fits that physical description also, but that's not chemistry of course. Sure, we claim it's our preference, but in reality it's someone else's false creation – right out of thin air – like Bush's WMD and Obama's wanting to adhere to the Bush timetable in Iraq, and most of the time we're scared to admit we disagree. God forbid.
One of the most preposterous aspects of it is the idea women should be thinner than men. Women are actually biologically just the opposite. Their hips are biologically wider to aid them in childbirth. They have extra weight around their hips and other parts of their body from times in our evolution when we were hunters/ gatherers. In case there was a shortage of game or gathered food they could provide for their unborn children with the extra energy from reserves, and it was also for the nutrition of newborns. Further, it helped mom stay alive herself to care for her child if needed.
Of course, we're no longer hunters and gatherers, but that does not make it any less ridiculous for grown women and the people that are attracted to them to be manipulated into being convinced that real women – women that are biologically adult women, are unattractive and that only the body type resembling children is attractive.
Who believes that? Who believes it so strongly, or is so warped they had to get together with others and create an industry to convince the world women that looked biologically like grown women needed to look more like children? What men were looking at their twelve year old daughters and thinking, “I wish my wife looked more like that?”
Why buy into that ideal for physical beauty in a women?
It wasn't always this way and it was once the norm for adult men to admire adult women for looking like adult women. Marilyn Monroe serenaded President Kennedy for his birthday, but today she'd be called overweight. Ridiculous.
Men have become effete wimps afraid of women that look like real women because they became convinced the way adult women looked was to be shunned, and women that had suffered all kinds of hell just to look less feminine was the ideal to be aspired to. All this so infomercials can sell milkshakes made of horse hooves claiming to guarantee the body of a child can sell millions. Who are these people and why are they bitter towards women? Why not just make millions selling things that compliment the natural beauty of women?
Guys have become sheep afraid of the opinions of their buddies that can't see they have totally bought the psychological idea pitched to them dictating grown women should look more like children. Instead of ducking your head so your friends won't notice when you see that real woman your eyes naturally drift towards, be yourself. Do something really revolutionary - be honest. We have to hide so much about our honest opinions in our daily lives, we don't need to do it there too. In this area especially men are not supposed to be sheep.
And to people that say it's just biological, read the studies. It isn't true at all. Surprise, surprise, grown men aren't supposed to find the bodies of children attractive. Yeah, who woulda thunk it. There's actually something wrong with that.
One such study was discussed in Australia's Daily Telegraph which said, “The research from St Andrews University in Scotland, published in the journal Perception, involved a group of male students. Researchers asked them to rate photographs of female faces for attractiveness. The women in the ‘normal’ weight range were rated as better looking than the skinny ones. 'This sends out a strong message to all the girls out there who believe you have to be underweight to be attractive,' researcher Professor David Perrett told the Daily Mail newspaper in the UK.” (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/men-prefer-normal-sized-woman-with-curves-to-thin-girls-study-in-perception-journal-reveals/story-e6frf00i-1225792189618)
Another study discussed in the UK Daily Telegraph further showed, “It is already known that 'normal sized' women live longer and that men find them more attractive but the new research suggests that they are also cleverer. The study, to be published this week, shows that men [...] do so because ['normal sized' women] are more intelligent.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1569070/Another-reason-why-men-like-curves.html)
So why do the tastemakers insist on selling men on the body types that come as a result of starvation, drug addiction and prepubescence? Further, what happened in their lives to make them have such deep seated animosity towards women? Now I'm not talking to any one person or specific group of people, gender, etc, as there are a many different people from different backgrounds that participate in purveying the bizarre myth.
Wanting adult women to be built less like adult women to be more more attractive as adult women is crazy. It's like wanting a person to think a certain way so desperately, you drug them up in the hopes it will help soften them up so you can convince them to do so. Yet, in your desperation you over flood them with the drug causing short term memory loss and they forget what it is you wanted them to think. It makes no sense.
For the average guy, this is nothing new. Most women are 'normal sized' and truth is, the men that are with them/ love them, deep down, not only could care less, they like it. They too wonder what's wrong with the world when they are looking at their spouses, girlfriends, etc. They see the most beautiful thing they've ever laid eyes on. That's more than the remnants of yesterday's Ciroc or the endorphins released by being in the vicinity of their loved one. And BTW, cellulite isn't what magazines make it out to be either. It's time guys man up.
On this memorial day this issue is not as important as remembering the brave Americans that fought against communist dictators and their kind that gassed their own countrymen for not thinking as they did. Still, it's time we send a message as men to all watching that just as there are trucks that we like, whether we prefer Escalades for the city or tricked out ones for off-roading, there are also sports cars, sedans, coupes and even station wagons we like. Why should we let someone else tell us we all have to like something fitting one description – the same description? Not that women are objects to be owned like cars of course.
And to guys in Hollywood (not that any will be reading this, as after averaging my readership stats it's roughly 0.0000000000000000000002 per article), next time you walk down the red carpet, do something really revolutionary and help break the cycle. Make the walk with a woman that is 'normal sized' and be proud. Do it not just as a way of making a statement. Do it as a manifestation of the fact that deep down, you too know it's true – because you do.
To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.