Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight

by Linda Bacon

This isn’t a conspiracy enacted by men to keep women oppressed; all of us, male and female, participate in reinforcing these social beliefs and standards of beauty, and all of us are damaged by it. Though the damage to women is obvious, we’re less apt to talk about how it also harms the “oppressor.” Think of the loneliness of heterosexual men with their “trophy” wives. Choosing women based on their looks doesn’t allow them true intimacy in relationships. There are huge industries heavily invested in our acceptance of these cultural standards, and they have a big stake in convincing us to conform. The fashion, cosmetics, and diet industries survive by telling us that we are ugly and unacceptable as we are, but if we buy their products we can become beautiful. In other words, they get us to participate in our own oppression! And it seems as if advertisers have recently realized that they were so busy exploiting women’s insecurities that they’d forgotten half the population. So now they’re doing their best to make men feel equally horrible about themselves.