From atop the sun-drenched Stoa today I wish to discuss Peer pressure. It seems appropriate in these days, as the children seem so connected with Twitter and Facebook. Just as the humidity here on the Bay can be oppressive, so can the desire to conform.
Recently, I read an article on weight gain and its affects on the developed, developing, and 3rd world (aka, starving) nations and their cultures (yep, my Saturday nights are EXCITING).
One stat, among many, that caught my interest was that of Japanese women. While the women in the developed and developing countries were all gaining weight, the women of Japan were losing weight (lets just assume that all men everywhere are gaining weight and leave it at that).
I drilled down in the data and began reading up about social norms, conformity, and culture. All of which are inseparable qualities within the Japanese culture. It also made me wonder if this was everywhere in Japan or just in the metropolitan areas. That last pondering is not off the wall for Japan. They are a relatively homogeneous people with fringes of aboriginals (don't go on with the angry mail, I'm aware of what they are all called and how many of them there are), and it is possible that this is shared cross-culture.
In the US, the largest critic of a woman and how she looks is another woman. Sometimes even their closest friends, or Frenemies as my daughter might say. Guys make a blanket assessment in about 1.3 seconds on whether a woman is attractive or not. Then when they open their mouths, we decide if we want to ask them on a date. American women spend hours primping for that 1.3 second assessment--the First Impression. A guy is lucky if he has clean shorts on, but I digress.
There is competition among girls/women for the pick of the guys out there. What many do not realize is that much of their thinking is driven as much by genetics as it is culture. In America, the tall, strong, and athletic type is sought out when a woman is younger. Stronger genes and all that. Later, the woman seeks out a man with potential to support the family. The looks of the man are important, but less so. Research even states that women have the ability to scent a man's pheromones and determine his health and potential as a male. This is all done subconsciously and drives or "shades" their first impression of the man to be either positive or negative. Interesting.
So, women compete among themselves to look more attractive to the male, and will keep turning down guys until the one that "smells" right comes along. I say that only half-jokingly. They do this in America by eyeing up the competition, scoring themselves against the other's looks and fashions, and then, once the calculations are complete, either go back and make changes, proudly strut past the other female, or, in some cases, tear the other woman's dyed hair out by the roots and call her nasty names.
In Japan, the issue is not so much that they look good for the Japanese men, though that is still a large part. They have an ideal in their collective minds about the "ideal" woman, whether they get this from Western magazines or a cultural gestalt is beyond my research at this time. Not only do they want to look good for the men, they want to look good for each other, competitively so. Hair pulling is not an option, so unless they are acknowledged as being at the pinnacle then it is back to the drawing board. Often, this means watching their weights...and the weights of all of their friends.
We all feel, regardless of culture or race, that we are somehow inferior to the human specimen next to us. It seems to be just basic psychology, unless you are a narcissist. Couple that truth with the Japanese culture and you see a self-sustaining feedback loop. They get skinnier and skinnier while Western women get heavier. American women see the girls in the magazines and think "airbrushing" and "photoshop" and then ask their girlfriends what they think. If that girlfriend is a bit on the pudgy side, then she is going to say "you look fine". We don't want to hurt their feelings and all that. Not so in Japan. You will be told that you are "fat", just like that...fatty.
So in a world that is getting fatter and fatter, the Japanese women buck the trend. They are short and petite, and though embarrassed on the outside, they are spiking the football on the inside. They are short because they deny themselves protein as children and stay slim and petite out of cultural pressure (peer pressure).
Why is this so?
Again, it makes no difference what language you speak or culture you come from. Women want to look good for men (even sub-consciously) and men what to look good to women (just ask the guy jumping from the second story window into the 3' deep kiddy pool headfirst to show how 'manly' he is). It is in our genes.
A man from America wants to look muscular, tall, and trim. A man from Japan wants to be slight and effeminate (again, no hate mail, people). A man from Central Africa wants to be tall and skinny. American women want to be medium height, not taller then their men. They want to be "built" but thin (not always an achievable combination). Japanese women want to be short and slight. African women need to be robust and fertile.
The point is this: genetically, we are driven to perpetuate the species; culture decides how all that looks. Things get out of control, though, when you start to add technology and civilization to the mix.
Remember, we have been a going species for over 100,000 years, with our close ancestral roots going back at least 500,000 years. The hardwiring runs deep. It runs throughout our genes and it runs in the background of our thoughts. Oftentimes, we do not really know why we think or feel certain things. Why are we afraid of spiders, or snakes, on an instinctive level. Why do we like what we like and dislike what we dislike?
Civilization kicked off about 5,500 years ago. A strobe light blink of historical time, and the strobe has only gotten faster. 10,000 years ago, it took thousands of years for new ideas to spread around. Today, the same idea flashes around the world at the speed of the typing finger.
The ideal European women in the Middle Ages was plump, small-breasted, and had pale skin. Those characteristics were of someone who did not have a lot of chores (she was rich or her family was), breasts did not seem important to the middle age fellow, but the hips and trunk seemed important which is why that Ruben fellow painted them with heavy posteriors. The pale skin also meant that she did not have to work in the field.
The Muslim woman has gone from embroidered burka to black robes and back again numerous times through the centuries. I've heard that next year the new stile will be a sexy gray that permits the eyelashes to show. Can't wait.
The Japanese woman of the Middle Ages had bound feet (to be petite), had pale skin, and wore kimono. Depending on the dynasty, she had no rights, or few rights. The peasant woman in Japan was better off, legally, than the urban wealthy. Odd, that.
The Japanese still seem to have a modernistic take on the Middle Age ideal while the Western woman seems to be reinvented on an annual basis. America has had a riot of styles and flavors through the ages. The hem-line would change every few years. Bathing suits when from actual "suits" to bikinis, and then backed off into a more tasteful middle ground. Bras have gone from bound to unbound and everything in between. It is no wonder so many American women are messed up. They have no idea, culturally, what "Normal" is. Everyone has a different message and a different "look".
Fat, thin, in-between. Modern feminism attempts to tell women that you are beautiful at any size and I agree with that whole-heartedly. People need to have more time thinking about who they are, now, and not what they should look like, tomorrow. I feel sorry for Japanese women because even as their culture embraces the modern world, their women are still caught in the collision between genes and culture.
I guess the thing you should take from this is this: be happy at whatever weight you are. If a man does not accept you for who you are then keep moving. Life is too short. If being heavy bothers you, fix it. If it does not, then don't. You may have to learn to live with cats when you are older, but it is all about personal fulfillment in then end, is it not? If being alone bothers you, then get thinner, but don't do it because society tells you to do it.
Live well...and pass a towel. It is hot and humid down here.
--Zavost
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