This post originally appeared at Healthy is the New Skinny last year. I’m reposting a slightly altered version for National Eating Disorders Week.
According to most experts, rates of eating disorders and exercise addiction are rising fast among… guys. A 2007 Harvard University showed that fully 25% of Americans suffering from anorexia are male; in the 1980s, that figure was closer to 5%.
It’s not hard to figure out the cause. In the past twenty years, the number of men’s fitness magazines featuring shirtless and ripped male models with six or eight-pack abs has exploded. If you compare what movie stars looked like thirty years ago to what they look like now, today’s stars are far bigger and better defined (think Vin Diesel or Jason Statham). On the other hand, male fashion models seem skinnier than ever. Whether the trend is towards bulk or bones, one thing is clear: the media’s vision of the ideal male body is increasingly unattainable.
There’s no question that in almost every respect, the situation is still worse for young women. While most studies show that fewer than half of young men are unhappy with their bodies, the evidence is that upwards of 80% of American teenage girls wish they could change their appearance. We’re still a long way from parity.
But in another way, guys do have it worse: they aren’t given permission to talk about their body anxieties. We expect women to worry out loud about how they look; girls are not only allowed to talk with their friends about weight, they’re almost required to do so. But if a guy wants to lose weight, or expresses too much concern about his appearance, his masculinity gets questioned.
One of my mentees told me the other guys called him a “faggot” the first time he mentioned worrying about his weight. Like many males, he felt more comfortable talking about his body image issues with his female friends. Many women assume that guys don’t care about their looks as much as girls, and they’re often taken aback and confused when their boyfriends admit to being insecure.
Nobody – and no body – is immune from the pain of self-loathing. Eating disorders and poor self-esteem are found in men and women alike, and if we haven’t hit parity yet, the evidence is that within a generation, we might. Too many of our little brothers as well as our little sisters are struggling to live up to an impossible ideal, doing harm to their bodies and their spirits as they pursue the unrealistic and the unhealthy.
We need to encourage more men to be open about their own body image issues. We also need to be ready to hear what they have to say without insisting that women invariably “have it worse.” Fighting for young people’s self-esteem can’t ever be a zero-sum game.
I think it’s precisely because the majority of women report having body insecurities – and because young girls are taught to see their bodies as aesthetic objects – that men face this problem of ridicule when they are feeling insecure. It’s the same issue we face with homophobia among men. As long as the male gender role is defined by dominating women and our society teaches contempt for all things feminine, men will be ostracized for this stereotypically feminine behavior. It’s certainly not a zero-sum game; I don’t think it’s possible to truly address the male side of the problem without confronting our society’s basic perception of women.
“… our society teaches contempt for all things feminine …”
That is absolute nonsense and part of the “victim politics” that is promoted in women’s studies.
“Women and children first” (the men can just drown). Sit-at-home women are “homemakers”, sit-at-home men are “unemployed bums”. No, force the men to sign up for selective service, because they are disposable if there’s a war. There is a woman present, for God’s sake, take off your hat, stand up to greet her, and offer her your seat. Help her, she’s a woman – and let the idiot man fend for himself. Give her probation, not jail, because she’s a mother.
Society in general is starting to view “victim politics” and aggressive, stupid statements like the one at the top with the contempt they deserve. Hugo promotes the victimhood of women for his own purposes, so we know what side he is always going to land on.
“Women and children first” (the men can just drown). Sit-at-home women are “homemakers”, sit-at-home men are “unemployed bums”.
You sort of prove the point there. Housekeeping is associated with women, and neither women nor men get any respect if they decide to stay home and do what’s seen as “women’s work.”
No, force the men to sign up for selective service, because they are disposable if there’s a war. There is a woman present, for God’s sake, take off your hat, stand up to greet her, and offer her your seat. Help her, she’s a woman – and let the idiot man fend for himself. Give her probation, not jail, because she’s a mother.
Society in general is starting to view “victim politics” and aggressive, stupid statements like the one at the top with the contempt they deserve. Hugo promotes the victimhood of women for his own purposes, so we know what side he is always going to land on.
I find it funny that people derride other people for claiming victimhood and yet wave the suffering their own group experiences around like there are medals being given out for being the greater victim. You know, this isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s not as though there’s a certain amount of empathy or love in the world, and once it’s gone there’s nothing left. It’s all right to have compassion for people who aren’t like yourself.
But I do find it funny that your comment comes on a post dealing with the difficulties men face when they’re trying to deal with body image issues. Dude, he’s talking about how men’s problems in this area shouldn’t be dismissed with talk that women have it worse.
“I find it funny that people derride other people for claiming victimhood and yet wave the suffering their own group experiences around like there are medals being given out for being the greater victim.”
–
Here’s the general pattern:
1) Feminist claims that women have it so much harder than men. In every way possible.
2) Man thinks “Hmm, my life is not a walk in the Rose Garden either; why is she claiming victim status that way.
3) He makes the mistake of actually … saying something about it. Disagreeing. Giving examples of why that isn’t true (using the Patriarchal tools of logic, rationality and … saying what reality is).
4) He is then accused of either:
a) Whining. Man up you little complaining bitch.
or
b) Trying to compete in the Victim Olympics – when everyone knows that only women are allowed to do that.
Yeah, but the whole situation is like looking at a mirror.
You say feminists show little compassion, but you show little empathy for their situation. What stands out for you is their lack of empathy. The whole thing reminds me of the Jungian theory of the shadow.
Let’s take the example of royalty and commoners. If His or Her Highness (back when royalty meant something, LOL) smacked a commoner out of the way, the commoner may be berated for getting in the way of the King or Queen.
If the commoner, on the other hand, pushes the King or Queen out of the way, you know what might happen to him.
So I see a “hidden camera”-type show on Dateline NBC or a similar type of broadcast. You don’t even need to see it, you can guess how society things. In the first sequences, they show a man (acting like he is) pushing around a woman in public in a heavy argument. People rushed in right away to help the woman. No one laughed or thought it was funny.
Then there were sequences with a beefy, mouthy woman pushing around, loudly berating and even slapping / hitting a mousy type man in public. These were actors playing the part.
Most people just thought it was funny. One woman raised the Power fist and pumped it in the air, laughing. A few people tried to tell them to stop fighting but towards both of them.
Who’s royalty and who’s the commoner?
There are plenty of examples like that. Watch how a cute 20-year-old girl treats boys around her, for instance. So it’s just aggravating to hear feminists make it sound like women are always treated like dirt and men are all treated like kings. Open your eyes and quit simply believing what some women’s studies person says.
And, by the way, if you take advice on anything from Hugo – not just given his past, culminating in the position of “instructor” at a community college (and culminating in “unemployed” if they ever fire him, because no college would hire him given his antics), but his present personality – you REALLY need help. You need to figure out who the solid people are in the world … and who the con-artists are. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the gentle reader to decide what camp Hugo belongs in.
I think there are more than two groups in the world. Or maybe there’s just one — we’re all human beings.
Soft golf claps slowly erupting into thunderous applause on the Oprah show.
Everyone is wildly enthusiastic about that comment, but … uhh … what did he/she really say again? I mean it sounded good.
Hey, I’ll take that buddy. Polarizing the world into black and white gets you nowhere, except maybe crushed at the next zebra crossing.
OK – try that approach about rapists. Go on a feminist Web site and proclaim that we are all humans and there shouldn’t be such a sharp demarcation or disapproval.
LOL
No really LOL.
All you are doing is changing your arguments for whatever you want – you wouldn’t know a “search for the truth” if it bit you in your fat butt.
What do you know of my attitude towards rapists or feminists? You’re projecting dude.
But hey, isn’t that what the shadow is for — I’m here to throw all your perceived moral deficiency onto someone else?
Whatever gets you through the night.
I need to get into the spirit of things. For every blog post by Hugo, no matter what the topic, I’m going to make a statement reminding everyone about his past with chinchillas. Don’t be fooled: Hugo is pro-chinchilla. He’s always been pro-chinchilla. He always WILL be pro-chinchilla. He’s even LIVED with chinchillas. Remember Matilde Hugo? You just couldn’t help yourself against all that furry cute awesomeness. That’s how you roll. She didn’t take treats from your hand YOU FED HER THOSE TREATS didn’t you? She rolled around in her dust bath and you know what? You watched! To Hugo all humans are helpless victims to the captivating power of chinchilla charm and must be protected at all costs from going “Squee!” He’s a husband, father, professor, feminist, and writer (and many more cool things) but first and foremost he’s a chinchilla fan. Chinchilla fans never change. He’ll always love chinchillas, no matter what he says.
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I think that there is sort of a trade off. Women overall have greater problems with self image, and are almost told they must have problems with self image (i.e. a group of women all talking about how “fat” they are as a way of bonding), while men have these problems less frequently but aren’t free to express them. It’s just yet another social construct regarding gender that is harmful to both men and women.
On a side note, “Reality” why do you spend so much time on this website when you so clearly disapprove of its message? Its fine that you disagree, but I don’t understand why you’ve invested so much time commenting on each blog entry when you clearly consider it flawed and irrelevant.