Of "tummies", "love-handles" and "manboobs"

[DavidDvorkin]

5. The burden on men is different from that on women but just as great

And just as difficult to cope with, and just as damaging emotionally and psychologically.

However, my annoyance with threads like the one you referred to -- the "beautiful tummies" silliness -- stems from something different.

It's natural for both men and women to want to be attractive. It's also inevitable that, no matter how the standards of beauty change over time and place, only a small minority of people will be meet those standards. That's tough on the majority, but that's the way the human visceral response to other humans works. In recent years, we've seen an effort by many women to redefine "beauty" as something that applies to every woman. Any standard of beauty that applies to a small minority of women (e.g., a flat, toned stomach and a narrow waist) is decried as artificial and in some mysterious way created by media manipulation. This argument is self-serving and self-deceiving nonsense.