There is a God

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Jun 11 12:11:19 PDT 2001



>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



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