Body Image

I'm not quite sure how I missed this, but the NYTimes had this on Tuesday:

A new study finds that women who describe themselves as feminists are more forgiving than other women when assessing the attractiveness of women who are either very underweight or very heavy.

But:

Feminists and nonfeminists tended to agree on which woman was the most attractive. But that woman was described by the researchers as somewhat underweight, suggesting that even feminists cannot fully avoid societal pressures to be thin.

Gee, you mean feminists are subject to the same social pressures that everyone else is? And sometimes they fall victim to the exact same stereotypes everyone else does? Wow, thanks for that hard-hitting science. Granted, it was published in the very focused Body Images journal. I think the real conclusion to take away from this is that it's really hard to overcome stereotypes about what the ideal body is. After all, we're bombarded with images of the stereotype of attractiveness all the time. But the one thing that seems to help is when women identify as feminists -- i.e. don't buy into some of the ideas about how women are "supposed" to look and act -- the perceptions get a little better.

Cross-posted.