There is a God

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Isn't shame of, & desire to remedy, baldness a sign that men are, 
>>once again, becoming as body- & fashion-conscious as women, 
>>learning to think of themselves as objects of desire (not just as 
>>subjects of desire)?
>>
>>As women work out to create toned bodies, men try to restore hair 
>>on their heads.  Gradual convergence of male & female beauty 
>>standards?
>
>"Boys Will Be Girls": <http://www.cjr.org/year/98/3/boys.asp>

I'm sure Liza has already read both, but I recommend Barbara 
Ehrenreich, "Playboy Joins the Battle of the Sexes," _The Hearts of 
Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment_; and Susan 
Bordo, _Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body_. 
While women have come to reject fat (symbolically associated with 
financial dependence upon men, absence of autonomy, etc.), men have 
come to embrace pleasures of shopping (symbolically associated with 
femininity), either resentful or ambivalent about the imposition of 
the "breadwinner" role on them.  Both trends are overdetermined by 
class relations as well (e.g., in the States, the poorer you are, the 
fatter you are likely to be).

As for fashion, however, there remains a counter-trend:

*****   The New York Times
June 5, 2001, Tuesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 1; Column 4; Metropolitan Desk; Fashion Page
HEADLINE: In This Bare-It-All Age, Bikinis Are Back
BYLINE:  By GINIA BELLAFANTE

...As women's suits are shrinking, men's are growing larger. The 
men's Speedo, the abbreviated staple of St. Tropez -- ground zero in 
the bikini world -- stubbornly refuses to dominate stateside. 
Speedo's summer catalog features something called "water shorts" -- 
baggy swimsuits that hit the knee....   *****

Does "the abbreviated staple of St. Tropez" come across to American 
men as "too queer"?

Yoshie