Standard of Beauty: Part II

I have become a stumbleupon addict. It’s bad. I could stumble for hours. It is actually more of a time suck than facebook. That is REALLY saying something.
Today I stumbled upon something that made me so angry, I almost started crying, and that takes a lot of angry.

It’s a website (www.about-face.org) that focuses around female body image, and exposes “violators” of companies and websites that tear down the normal female. Of course this website doesn’t make me angry. While browsing on their site, their number one violator was www.askmen.com. In particular, a top 10 list they compiled titled “10 Subtle Ways to tell Her She’s Getting Fat”. It is more sad and infuriating to read than watching a baby be punched in the face.

The link to the whole article can be found here. But I’ll break it down for you. . .
(Text in quotes is actual quotes from the article.)

10. Buy her clothes that are too small- “Oh . . . I thought you were a size eight. Isn’t that what you were last summer? “
9. Sign her up for Yoga under the pretence of “stress relief”.
8. Set out on your own weight loss plan.
7. Serve her unsatisfactory portions. “When dishing up meals for the two of you, try giving her smaller-than-usual-amounts. By making her ask for more food, you might succeed in shaming her into acknowledgement of her recent weight gain.”
6. Improve your own diet.
5. Playfully grab her love handles.
4. Ask her to wear an old dress. “Plan a romantic night for the two of you, and insist that she wears something from when you first got together; particularly one that you know doesn’t fit anymore.” . . . “Follow it up by telling her how good she looked in those days. . .”
3. (My personal fave) Sabotage her chair. “. . . nothing says “better lose some weight” like a broken chair. After you loosen a few screws or remove some important slats of a chair in which you know she’ll sit and subsequently break, sit back and watch the guaranteed dietary transformation that ensues.”
2. Leave “now” and “then” photos lying around. “By consistently reminding her of how she used to look, she’ll inevitably be more inclined to do something about her excess flab. Appropriately chosen and strategically placed photos should accomplish this quite nicely. Keep in mind, if she confronts you about trying to shame her into losing weight, the key approach here is denial, as you reply: “Do you actually think I would be that manipulative?”
1. Take her to places where she has to wear a swimsuit.
If she seems content staying at home eating donuts in her track pants, why not start taking her to places where she has no choice but to where (-5 for spelling. . .it’s WEAR, asshat) a swimsuit? As she awkwardly looks around at all the slender bodies having a great time, she’ll more than likely vow to do something about her recent weight gain, especially if she knows she’ll be back there in the not-so-distant future.

What man would do these things? What man would actively try to humiliate their significant other because they put on a few pounds? Actually, in my life, I have observed that the first person in a relationship to start putting on pounds is the guy. So maybe you need to put on your old clothes and see how they fit before you try to belittle your girlfriend/wife. Chances are, she knows she has gained a few, and she doesn’t need your simple ass to tell her.

Not only is this emotionally harmful, but sabotaging her chair? Do you not care that she could get hurt this way? Is a broken coccyx or pinched nerve really worth it?

I was chatting with my boyfriend as I was typing this blog, and telling him what the article said. I posed the question “What’s wrong with a girl having a little meat on her bones?” He came back with a quick reply of “Nothing. More padding for my boney hips *smiley face*” So there you have it. The opinion from your typical football watching, muscle car obsessed dude. I love him.

So, Thomas Foley (author of this article), I hope you become super-obese, and thus forced to live a life of unintentional celibacy.