I'm not so sure I agree with the writer's premise here. He seems to be saying that women are their own worst enemy when it comes to size and accepting/loving themselves. He also seems to be saying that thin women aren't womanly, only women with "curves" are womanly.
Since this is a British newspaper, and his main "woman with curves" seems to be Nigella Lawson (and I don't have a clue who she is since I don't watch British tv, hell, I don't even watch that much American tv), I can't say if she's "average", "thin", "overweight", "obese", or whatever.
I will agree that women are harder on themselves than they should be, and we are prone to judging each other by size/shape/hair color, etc. But, and I think this is a big but, has it gotten so bad because women are naturally so judgmental of other women, is it because we are competing against each other for whatever it is we want out of life, or is it because we've been programmed by the entertainment industry, the diet industry, and the cosmetics industry to try to reach some unattainable ideal of beauty and fix every little teeny tiny flaw we have (or maybe all of these)?
I will admit, that before I found FA, I was as guilty as the next one for judging on the basis of looks alone. I don't know how many times I saw a thin woman and said "I hate skinny women (actually, it was skinny bitches), they don't know how good they have it" or a fat woman and said "Damn, I'm glad I'm not that big (or: "fuck, I wish I was her size", if she was smaller than me)." I never stopped to think that the issues I had about my body applied to every other woman out there, no matter what her size happened to be. I never stopped to realize that the perfection we are supposed to strive for and attain is impossible for all but a very few (and they have it because they were born with it). And even though those born with that supposed ideal beauty probably still have issues every day that they aren't perfect either. I'm not proud of the fact that I used to think that way, but I'll tell you what, I am damned glad I found FA and that I can see the way I used to think is nothing but programming/brainwashing/whatever and that I have the ability to realize that and change my attitude about myself and other women.
“I don’t think that it has necessarily got worse: my mother was obsessed with weight,” says Feltz. “But now, nobody ever says, ‘Handsome is as handsome does, and so what if she’s put on few pounds – she’s still fascinating.’ That’s the real difference.”
I wonder though, even when people said that, did they really mean it? Did they really apply it to the people they knew, the people they met? And did a person's weight, back when that quote was popular, have little bearing on how handsome/beautiful a person was considered? I don't know how many times I was told "you'd be so pretty if you just lost some weight" (and all that did was make want to punch out the lights of the person who said it).
Everyone has biases, and it's impossible to eradicate all bias, but just because you have a bias about some aspect of a person doesn't mean you get to treat them as less than human. Everyone, no matter their size/looks/intelligence/ability/whatever, is worthy of being treated with respect and dignity. If they're an asshat, on the other hand...........
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