For instance, when low-rise jeans and short tops were launched a few years
ago, and the fashion for women became to show their midriff and the top of
their knickers, did you know in advance that the female public was avid for
such look? Some women look great, but you see everyday lots of women with
protruding bellies and adipose rolls sporting this look, which is manifestly
unflattering to them. It seems to me that they are following a trend that
was created and instrumented by the fashion houses.

"J. David Anderson" <jdavidanderson_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:nHe5d.405$7q.14095@nnrp1.ozemail.com.au...

Bodhisattvacat wrote:

For a long time, the media espoused as a fashion standard the woman who
was emaciated.

Firstly, an emaciated woman is not attractive, but a woman who is pretty
and who has no surplus fat is considered by most men and women to be
attractive. Not having surplus fat is not emaciation.

Sure. But probably the problem lies in what "surplus fat" is. I have been
surprised a couple of times in recent times by skinny female friends of mine
saying that Marilyn Monroe was "fat". They clearly thought that MM had
surplus fat, whereas I think that MM was gorgeous, and whatever surplus fat
she may have had was very nicely distributed. MM, I have read somewhere,
was a size 12, whereas Hollywood sex symbols these days tend to be size 8.

Secondly the *media* didn't espouse anything, they use what is perceived
to be attractive by the general population. You are giving the media too
much credit. If the media started a pervasive campaign to promote
overweight or unattractive women what would happen is that particular
media outlet would lose following, not that public opinion would change
to accept a new standard of *beautiful*.

This is a chicken and egg problem. There is clearly a two-way relationship
between popular taste and the fashion produced by the media and the
designers.

of multimillion ad campaigns to influence popular views on looks and fashion
(or many other things like cereals, cars, watches, fast food, sodas, etc)

This made most women believe themselves ugly, give up on looking good
and let themselves go.

Anyone who just gives up has more problems than a lack of beauty.

But clearly dissatisfactiion with their looks may be for many people cause
for depression.

The women I know who did follow that fashion trend, told me that they
felt horrible for the entire time they did so.

A woman knowing that she looks attractive does not normally feel
*horrible*. Perhaps you have been talking to women who tried but failed
to attain a standard they set for themselves.

This was a crime against American women; creating an impossible
standard of beauty which nobody could achieve and sabotaging women's
self-esteem until they felt they could never be beautiful.

Many women achieve it, and labeling a publicly held standard of beauty
as crime is ridiculous.

I do not believe that emaciated women look good.

Nor does anyone else.

Aside from a brief fling by various modeling agencies with *heroin chic*
the media has not carried much on anyone who could be considered
emaciated. The heroin chic fad passed rapidly into obscurity *because*
people didn't find the women involved attractive.


I believe that the

women with healthy weight look good.

On the low side of the healthy weight scale, they can look very
attractive. On the high side of healthy weight they just look ordinary
unless they have very pretty faces or some other attractive feature.
Being at a healthy weight level has absolutely nothing to do with
attractiveness other than the fact that the person is not overweight.

You are tilting at windmills if you think that a deliberate change in a
perceived "standard" can influence a biological response.

No amount of wishful thinking is going to make a woman who does not look
youthful (slim and healthy) a male ideal. Women compete with each other
to attract men, men's perceptions are what set the standards. Those
perceptions are not a conscious, controllable thing, they are the result
of subconscious, lifelong conditioning. Media doesn't create an ideal,
media, for obvious commercial reasons, reflects an existing ideal.

Media does both: it leads and it reflects.

launch their collections using skinny models, then people assume that skinny
must be the new black this year.

cars, for example. The ad campaigns are usually produced to project the
image that some things are cool, fashionable and are a must-have.

For instance, when low-rise jeans and short tops were launched a few years
ago, and the fashion for women became to show their midriff and the top of
their knickers, did you know in advance that the female public was avid for
such look? Some women look great, but you see everyday lots of women with
protruding bellies and adipose rolls sporting this look, which is manifestly
unflattering to them.

was created and instrumented by the fashion houses.

In the same way, if girls see repeatedly that the women on the covers of
glossy magazines have a certain look , many will try to imitate that look.

Young kids have imitated the looks and hairdos of their favourite rock stars
or actors for decades. It happens all the time. The power of the media is
enormous and it should not be underestimated.