Yikes the anti-feminist takes in this thread lol
Men do not experience body policing in even remotely similar ways to women. If that fact offends you you probably don’t actually understand how misogyny functions.
Dear men: stfu, you are not allowed to have any problems. Get back to your stoicism.
Sincerely, Feminists who claim to care about men.
Dear confused men (hashtag: not all men): You have lots of problems. The vast majority are not caused by women. One of your problems is trying to blame us for many of the harmful things you do to yourselves, or that patriarchy/toxic masculinity does to you. Another problem is loathing it when women try to help you by explaining this to you but it isn’t what you want to hear bc it isn’t stroking your ego (or other bits). So there really isn’t much else to be done - your problems are yours to solve, and all we can do is try some damage control for ourselves while you guys bang your heads against the floor.
Sincerely - Feminists, who care about men, but not to the point of our own destruction any longer.
One of your problems
Thank you, oh glorious and righteous Angel of Feminism, for educating us lowly male peasants on Our Problems.
No one was blaming you all for shit until you came in here belittling male issues out of nowhere.
Bunch of feminists came in this thread and picked a fight. Piss off.
One of your problems is trying to blame us for many of the harmful things you do to yourselves, or that patriarchy/toxic masculinity does to you.
Ummm… First of all men are not a collective, but aside from that…
Women are complicit in toxic masculinity, and patriarchy, you are aware of that right? Like women have the same ingrained societal baises.
It drives me insane that the academics that created the concept of toxic masculinity would be so friggen sexist in their connotations. That seems like a basic ethical consideration for someone studing gender, but apparently not!
Ideological holes.
Thanks for pointing this out. I’m trans and I got sexually harassed for being asexual when I was presenting as a man. Ain’t never happened as a woman. On the other hand, the people who harassed me in the first place were men. It was horrible, but it wasn’t gender warfare, it was just the patriarchy being horrible for men. As a woman, there’s no pressure to enjoy sex. Instead, you’re expected to marry a man you aren’t sexually attracted to and have his kids. It’s a whole different kind of awful, and both kinds of awful are caused by the heteropatriarchy.
Nah, men can and do have problems. This post is an example of a man problem. There are people on this post trying to claim that men and women suffer equally in this regard and arguing with people who are pointing out that this is wrong.
Men suffer from toxic body standards and would greatly benefit from body positivity and better representation in media. But men aren’t (as an entire class of people) getting harassed as 10 year olds by 40 year old men making comments about their bodies. Men aren’t (as an entire class of people) having relatives make open comments about the size of their secondary sex characteristics and their bodies in general. As a class you don’t experience this. Some individuals might, I’ve rarely met women who did not experience body policing from their earliest memories, ive rarely met women who have never experienced sexual harassment. The statistics are crystal clear in this regard.
Again, body positivity and better representation for diverse body types would be great for men too. No one is saying otherwise. Even that isn’t enough for women, because institutional misogyny exists at all levels of society and in nearly all people in society. Even well meaning and otherwise progressive people can and are misogynist. Even your family and friends are. Its impossible to simply change one thing. It requires a society wide change in tolerance for bigotry.
But men aren’t (as an entire class of people) getting harassed as 10 year olds by 40 year old men making comments about their bodies. Men aren’t (as an entire class of people) having relatives make open comments about the size of their secondary sex characteristics and their bodies in general
/*Pokes circumcised dick.
/*Looks at the countless men living their lives recieving no emotional support.
/*Looks at male suicide rates.
/*Looks at male domestic abuse rates.
/*Looks at history of men getting lynched.
/*Looks at what happens when a man wears a bun, has long hair, has piercings, has any sort of distinguishing features.
/*Looks at classic stereotypes of “fat stupid man”
/*Looks at people casually calling men fat.
/*Looks at stats showing men are more then twice as likely to face assault in public, are twice as likely to experience assault causing bodily injuries, are twice as likely recieve major injuries…
Like how you can look at the male suicide rates and just “nah there’s nothing deeper here” is beyond me.
Have you ever heard of “two for flinching”? That was (I hope) a thing back in my school days, whereby another boy would mime a physical attack, like a punch to the face, or body slam. When you instinctually recoiled, the other boy would delightedly proclaim, “two for flinching,” and punch you hard in the arm, twice. The message was clear.
Men as a class certainly do get policed by boys, girls, and adults about affect, height, weight, voice change, et cetera. I say this not to dismiss or downplay what girls experience, but to say that certainly happens. In fact, I’m certain that it’s two sides of the same coin, and it all needs to go away.
This is not what anybody is saying, except for the meme bit towards women. Did you read the top line on it?
It’s absolutely the tone. You’re not allowed to complain because we women have it worse. That’s the message that’s being sent across right now.
Men do not experience body policing in even remotely similar ways to women.
That is combative, dismissive, and by the way totally wrong. If the feminists in this thread actually gave a shit about men, they’d be listening, not lecturing. They came here to pick a fight.
The standard of “very good body” is higher for women, sure, but the standard of “good enough body” for women is much, much lower than the one for men.
The first one is useful if you want to be an actor or model, the second if you want to find a partner for life. Guess which of the two is more relevant for the average person.
Your body affects your life in many more ways when you’re a woman. My body affects my employment, it affects me whenever I go anywhere in public, it affects my relationships with friends with family and with coworkers. It’s open season to make comments about my body, regardless of if I’ve got a “very good body” or not. Harassment of women is the norm. It’s not attached to perceived attractiveness, at least not in that only those deemed very attractive suffer sexual harassment and assault. We all suffer in this, and over a lifetime starting as a literal child it totally dehumanizes you. Being lesser is a woman’s place, because all society will ever focus on is our bodies and how they relate to men. We don’t even get to be people, just game pieces surrounding men only relevant in whatever use we have to them. Misogyny is a cornerstone of our society itself. It’s baked into our politics, our tradition, our history, our legal system, our families, It’s everywhere. And thats why comparing the way men and women experience body standards and policing doesn’t work. The scale isn’t even close to the same, nor is the severity.
Being lesser is a woman’s place, because all society will ever focus on is our bodies and how they relate to men. We don’t even get to be people, just game pieces surrounding men only relevant in whatever use we have to them.
Ok, now this is just plain overdramatizing. We’re not in the 19th century anymore, on paper women have every right men have in the whole first world, plenty of corporations are built with the main purpose of providing pleasant experiences to women and a lot of women have been in very high positions of power. Women ARE people just as much as men according to the huge majority of people, and those who don’t think so are usually unlikeable by men and women alike.
Misogyny is very much an issue in the modern society because its roots were in misogyny and you don’t change thousands of years in a century, but we’re moving very fast. I can get that your physical appearance can make a difference in whether you get hired in some companies (and if it does, you probably dodged a bullet), but to say that in modern society women “don’t get to be people” is insulting to all the progress humanity has done.
This assumes women on average are as interest in “just sex” as men are. I don’t care for men thinking my body is just good enough for sex.
I mean, in a relationship, what else do you need a body for? The main thing that keeps two people interested in each other is the personality, as long as the bodies are “good enough” to sexually stimulate your partner there’s not much more they’re needed for. Hell, for some that isn’t even a requirement.
I love the goal post shift!
Feminism: “We need to promote body positivity”
Society promotes body positivity towards women.
Men: “What about us?”
Feminism: “Men don’t experience body policing like women do!”
But… what about body positivity…
This is the shit that confused me about people pushing vaccinations. It’s all “body rights body rights body rights” until someone gets recognition you don’t like.
“Oh but traditionally women have been… etc”
Oh so now we care about traditions? Now suddenly we’re pushing social norms? Now conveniently personal rights, and freedoms don’t matter?
Do you know why feminists suck? It’s because they aren’t actually egalitarian. And worse, they are blinded by their own friggen biases.
I’ve watched feminists chop a fucking guy down, and gaslight him that “it sounds like he hates women” for talking about not getting emotional support in relationships. Dude then got muted. Women calling men trash though? “Ohhh you should know they’re not talking about you. A good man wouldn’t take offense to this”.
Fuck, I’m nonbinary, I date a lot of other nonbinaries. I’ve literally got in arguments with nonbinary feminists sitting there telling me “You have to understand society sees you as a white man”.
Shit is fucked. Just completely fucked.
I am fucking happy to see men getting recognition instead of seeing everything blamed on toxic masculinity.
/rant
Okay, so firstly I never said that body positivity and diverse representation of body types didn’t also need to take into account body image standards for men. I was responding to people in the comments of this post who were essentially saying “body image issues for men” and “body image issues for women” are the same in terms of how they affect men and women respectively. Which isn’t true, and we can easily see why when discussing the systemic issue of misogyny and the way women have their bodies policed throughout their entire lives and by their family friends coworkers peers and society at large including all forms of media. Body image issues for women are related to societal misogyny, and affected by continuous sexual harassment and assault starting when we are children. It happens everywhere, including from your own family.
This continues to this day. A couple years ago I volunteered at a youth group, and can confirm with certainty that the next generation of girls and women are suffering exactly the same. Misogyny is pervasive and girls and women are suffering much the same today as they were 50 years ago, there is just a (somewhat) larger push today to do something about it. Unfortunately there is a nearly equally large push to reinforce misogyny as an institution.
How you’ve been dismissed and told that society “sees you” as a white man is wrong and your experience is unique and should be acknowledged. You maybe have suffered from transphobia, queerphobia, and discrimination and prejudice towards nonbinary people. You should be able to understand the difference in the way discrimination towards men and nonbinary people functions. In that non-binary people come up against constant barriers across all levels of society, that is to say they face systemic institutional discrimination. Much the same, misogyny is not merely one person who hates women. Misogyny is a society that discriminates against women, it is media that perpetuates discrimination against women, it is education and social reinforcement of discrimination against women. Its systemic, its present at all levels and points of society. You have to actively work against it to counteract all the misogynistic propaganda you’re fed.
Men deserve body liberation too, I never said otherwise. But people in this comment thread were saying that body image issues with representation in media are the same for men and women. And that simply isn’t true.
Which isn’t true, and we can easily see why when discussing the systemic issue of misogyny and the way women have their bodies policed throughout their entire lives and by their family friends coworkers peers and society at large including all forms of media. Body image issues for women are related to societal misogyny, and affected by continuous sexual harassment and assault starting when we are children. It happens everywhere, including from your own family.
I have a question! Why is it that when men police men it’s toxic masculinity, but when women police women it’s misogyny?
Anyways I disagree with your entire premise basically because of toxic masculinity. Men are degraded into the ground to the point that they aren’t even willing to self express. If you look at society you’ll see women have countless different, more expressive options for expressing themselves. Yes they recieve criticism, they also recieve support.
Like all I did was paint my nails, and wear bright colours, and yesterday I got called fruity 😂
Like have you ever had to worry that painting your nails could cost you your job?
And both cis men and cis women don’t experience body policing in even remotely similar ways to nonbinary people. Most women don’t need a letter from a psychiatrist costing thousands of dollars to get permission to have a body they can enjoy.
Yes, I am aware of transphobia and discrimination against nonbinary people.
I know you are, but there’s plenty of gibletheads in this thread who ought to be told it
Unfortunately there are too many “open-minded” and “open-minded”-adjacent people who have huge blindspots to their own hypocrisy and philosophical paradoxes. I’ve met so many IRL and net-folk who are lefty “activists” who are huge fucking racists and douchebag misogynists. Extinction Rebellion for example is full of them. I get a bad taste in my mouth whenever I remember certain interactions with them.
Man, fuck extinction rebellion and their transphobic religious prosthelytising
I think that might be related to whether someone sees people as good and bad, or as being capable of doing good and bad things.
From how I see it, classifying people as just good and bad is very reductive in that you assume that bad people do bad things with bad intentions and the opposite for good people. That means that if you’re certain that you’re a good person, you don’t need to question your own actions or motives because you can’t do bad.
If you however see people as capable of making good or bad actions with good or bad intentions, you should realize that people you see as good can do bad things and vice versa. That means you should always examine your own motivations and your own decisions to make sure you’re doing the right things for the right reasons.
I personally believe this is why it is so common among certain activist groups to harbor some absolutely atrocious beliefs that seem contrary to what they’re working for.
That makes a lot of sense. I guess it’s always a matter of education in the home and otherwise. Critical thinking and self-analysis seem to be difficult to engender when there’s a culture of accepted vertical hierarchy. I don’t think it’s wrong to say capitalist philosophical leanings create emotionally and philiosophically lazy individuals. The true laziness is always in the opposite direction of the espoused morals of work culture.
Why can’t you talk about this issue without a side jab at the issues women face?
What side jab? Showing men can face similar issues is a side jab?
Why can’t things be compared?
What side jab
The first lines of the meme. Explain to me what else they are supposed to mean?
The difference is that those men are not objectified. Yes, those bodies are unrealistic indeed, but those beefcake guys are not presented as sex objects who have no other purpose in this world than to please women.
The thing is on both sides it’s for the male gaze. Women are are objectified for men (look how sexy she is, don’t you want this?), and men are objectified for men (look how strong and handsome he is, don’t you want to be like him?)
My partner and I tried to come up with an example of a character built for the female gaze. The best we could do was Idris Elba as a Jinn from 3000 Years of Longing.
Edit: I think you all are missing the point.
From Wikipedia
In cinematic representations of women, the male gaze denies the woman’s human agency and human identity to transform her from person to object — someone to be considered only for her beauty, physique, and sex appeal, as defined in the male sexual fantasy of narrative cinema.
So while women might like looking at the men in Magic Mike or watching nameless romcoms, the women in the stories have no agency. The men might serve their every need and save them from whatever situation, but the men are still doing all the things, and they follow the men-in-charge storyline.
Surprised you could only think of Idris! Would say he’s definitely female gaze in most of his roles. Off the top of my head, and as a woman who talks about celeb ‘crushes’ with other women, the tops are:
- Stanley Tucci in literally anything.
- Tom Hiddleston (Loki had way more female attention than Thor)
- Jack Black as Bowser
- David Harbour as Jim Hopper
- Sean Austin (in general, but also as Bob in ST)
- Paul Rudd (again, in almost anything)
- Pedro Pascal (particularly as Joel)
- Hugh Jackman in musicals (as opposed to being Wolverine)
All examples of men who, for the most part, are not obvious sex symbols in their roles, all of whom women go absolutely wild for.
Just a tangent: In my film class back in school, they defined the male gaze by what the camera focuses on, i.e. does it mimic what a straight, male viewer would focus on. Whether a character is “designed for the male gaze” is kind of squishy, and debatable, but the mechanical, film-studies definition of male gaze is indisputable. Once you see it, you can’t unsee how many times a female character is introduced by panning up her body.
men are objectified for men (look how strong and handsome he is, don’t you want to be like him?)
If you think women aren’t enjoying the male eye candy, I have some news for you
Reread my comment and you’ll find I never said or claimed that. But that’s not the primary reason it’s done. Women aren’t the primary demographic for comic books and comic book movies. Superhero men are drawn the way they are for the male gaze, and women are drawn the way they are for the male gaze. If some women like it too, that’s just a bonus for the publishers. This translates onto the screen.
Man, you shifted those goalposts fast! You’ve been doing this a long time, haven’t you?
Oh yes, Thor is oiled up and shirtless while Natalie Portman ogles him for the entire first movie because… It looks powerful? It represents his stoicism? Definitely not a sexual objectification thing, oh no sir
Tbf you can be ogled and not objectified. The difference is that Thor absolutely is portrayed as a complex character with his own agency, or subjectivity. The whole movie is about him learning to step out of the role of warmonger and into a more mature, nurturing role of a king. That gives him a lot of subjectivity - the opposite of objectivity
Edit: So to clarify, yes Thor is part of a series of unrealistic body standards for men. But he’s not objectified
In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire, is a subset of objectification,
Emphasis mine. Where in “Thor” is Thor dehumanized? Do the creators of the movie dehumanize him? No, if anything he exhibits more humanity as the movie goes on. Does Jane Foster dehumanize him? No, she’s clearly sexually attracted to him and some scenes do focus on his body, but that’s not enough to dehumanize someone. He is not a “mere object of sexual desire” because those scenes exist amid an entire movie that treats Thor with respect as a character, including Jane who gets to know him and love him. The only character who dehumanizes him could be Loki but he’s clearly portrayed as being wrong
Tbf you can be ogled and not objectified
I gotta get me some of that copium, looks like the good stuff.
Tbf you can be ogled and not objectified. The difference is that Thor absolutely is portrayed as a complex character with his own agency, or subjectivity.
By that definition, no female main character of a film ever has been objectified.
The difference is that Thor absolutely is portrayed as a complex character with his own agency, or subjectivity.
So is Black Widow, but she is 100% leathered up sex symbol too and no one questions that.
It does look powerful though. He looks super strong and has an incredibly hot women who is into him, many guys want to live that fantasy.
Do you think Natalie Portman was ogling him because she thought he looked hot and the camera happened to catch her staring or do you think it was written into the script?
I simply don’t see women clamoring for men to go to these extremes. I’m not saying doesn’t happen, I just don’t think it’s very often. And it’d be super cool if the men on this thread would take comments from women about our own experiences at face value and not assume we’re what? Being coy about what we actually find attractive?
It happens, but it’s not pervasive. There’s nothing wrong with sexual imagery in a vacuum.
The issue for women is the sheer avalanche of bullshit. Images of half naked women with unrealistic bodies are EVERYWHERE. Billboards, magazine covers, commercials, etc.
It’s okay to discuss men’s issues without needing to whatabout them. Women’s issues are also valid. This isn’t a competition it’s about media creating body dysmorphia in people.
Do you find that the men in romantic movies and chickflicks have body types as unobtainable as the dudes in superhero movies? Like, yes they’re fit, but they don’t tend to have bulging muscles because women don’t tend to be into that.
There’s a difference between a movie with attractive people in it, and a movie with someone who had to dedicate themselves to their fitness for months and still had to do things like dehydrate themselves for the day of the shoot to achieve a sculpted look. They’re worlds away in terms of effort to achieve the desired effect. And women do not tend to be into the “dehydrate yourself to look more cut” look.
The point isnt that men aren’t given unrealistic body goals, they definitely ARE, but the push isn’t coming from women, generally.
Brandon Routh is what I imagine as “chick flic” bod. He’s in shape but I wouldn’t say he’s at all “unrealistic” or idealised bodybuilder muscular. Also let’s not forget one of the world’s most popular chick flicks of all time, The Notebook, had Cage as the lead.
Brandon Routh and Ryan Gosling are kinda regular guys? I took the OP’s meme as poking a little fun at the idea of unrealistic male body image in media, but now I’m thinking that there’s a real issue.
Seriously, a couple of square-jawed, six-foot-tall men with lustrous, full heads of hair, who have personal trainers and make working out a full-time job before a movie role? That’s realistic?
I get the feeling that you never hang out with a group of gals on a night out
I’m a woman, I have had many girls nights out with sex positive women… And yet no drooling over sexy superheros (or any other dudes)
I haven’t had a conversation like that since I was a teenager, many many years ago. (And even then it wasn’t hulked out guys we were giggling over, it was Nsync. Fully clothed.)
I think you have a point except for the fact that the meme is about unrealistic body standards, not objectification. So it’s kinda like bringing up pancakes in a conversation about waffles
But why does the meme has to take a jab at the problems women face? It’s undebatable that women are faced with unrealistic body standards all the time. And I don’t get why the meme has to try and take away from that.
If you think they aren’t objectified that’s your own lack of perspective.
Reminds me of the “everyone has sinful urges” anti-gay pastors
“Buff men are built for the male gaze”
My guy, I have some news for you
As a woman, who is into men, and has friends who are also into men. Everyone I know who is into men would say Hiddleston is more attractive than any of them.
When we say buff men are there for the male gaze what we’re saying is that they’re filling a male power fantasy of being the “big strong hero” archetype. You’ll also notice that all of them were depicted as being complex characters in their own right, absent of just being big and buff.
I really feel like this misses the point. And it sells both men and women short.
The most cruel part of depictions like this isn’t simply that the opposite sex is or isn’t drooling over them. It’s that they are presented as ideal and desirable physiques.
This impacts how people feel like they should aspire to look. And that impacts how they feel about their own bodies.
It is so reductive to focus just on whether these bodies are objectified by the opposite sex. It’s the internal struggle people are faced with that is the real issue.
All of these are in superhero movies, not exactly a representative sample of male movie bods.
Except for the fact that basically every leading man who takes his shirt off in 99% of mainstream movies have physiques much closer to this than those of most regular people.
Very few as well. I was addressing the unrealistic male bodies, not dismissing the fact that the same problem exists (arguably to a much worse degree) with regards to women like the OP seems to do.
Of course I have, what sort of ridiculous question is that? Have you heard any music that isn’t jazz?
Modern action movies are like this, but if you go back into the early 80s, and especially 70s, leading men in action movies had normal bodies. Tbh it kind of went down the tube with Stallone and Arnold.
It’s almost like humans in general prefer looking at people who appear healthy and conventionally attractive.
The fact that so many people have let themselves become fat and slovenly, doesn’t really impact our evolutionary desire to mate with healthy specimens… And being fit generally demostrates reproductive readiness.
These bodies are exemplary of course,but looking closer to that compared to the fupas and gunts waddling around bitching and moaning isn’t that difficult. Put the fork down and take a walk.
