Women and their weight
A lot of men on b3ta seem not to be able to understand why women are obsessed with their weight, so here’s a sort-of explanation.

Obviously there’s a lot of societal pressure on women to be thin. We all know that, and most of it doesn’t come from images of anorexic models - it comes from the slow drip-drip of social oppression that plagues girls from childhood and indoctrinates us to become good citizens in a world in which being only marginally overweight is the kiss of death to both career and social life, blah blah blah - so far, so conventionally feminist.

However, most of it - and I’m sure I don’t really need to tell you this - comes from other women. It’s really only women who define “fat” as “possessing any body fat whatsoever” and whilst most heterosexual men will profess to a preference for slim women, what most really mean by that is that a potential partner has to be healthy-looking and not revoltingly obese. So it’s not about pleasing men. Crucially however, it’s not about pleasing women either.

“EH?” I hear you say. Yep you heard that right. It’s not about pleasing other women. It’s about bonding with them. This is a bonding ritual that is probably taking place at millions of locations all over the country right now:

Girl #1: I’m so fat
Girl #2: No you’re not, you’re so thin! I’m so fat
Girl #1: But you’re so slim! Look at my thighs!
Girl #2: Look at my bum!
Girl #1: I think I’ll skip dinner tonight
Girl #2: But honey you must eat, you’ll waste away!
Girl #1: Nooooo, I’m so fat!

Crucially, whether one actually loses weight or not is completely irrelevant. It’s that one must be seen to be trying to lose weight.

Thus, both Girl #1 and Girl #2 get to demonstrate three things - their support for one another, their mutual goal to improve their bodies, and their own rock-bottom self-esteem. It’s part competition for who thinks lower of themselves, and part bonding ritual. I don’t know why it happens, why it’s so seemingly universal, and why some women can be such intelligent sparkling company in mixed groups but such dribbling troglodytes in front of the mirror in the ladies. But what I do know is that if you don’t join in, you can’t really be friends with them. And even if you want to join in, because you’re young and stupid and just want to get on with everybody (we’ve all been there - don’t try and tell me you haven’t) you can’t if you’re not the right size.

In order to be popular with other women, one must be of average size. Be too thin, and you can’t participate in the game because you can’t convince the others that you think you’re fat, and if you do, they’ll understandably worry about what on earth you must think of them by comparison. Be too fat, and you can’t participate in the game because it’s just embarrassing to have to tell a genuinely fat woman that she is “SOOOOOOO skinny!”

So unless you’re a size 10-16, depending on height and build of course, you are toast, doomed to a social life based on such things as shared interests, genuine support for one another and getting pissed and quoting Monty Python.

However, the solution to this is the same piece of advice I would give to all the people who complain that “all men are bastards” or “all women are bitches”, and it‘s pretty simple: Just don’t hang around with stupid/horrible people. There are lots of lovely people of both sexes in the world, and lots of dickwads too. Choose your friends carefully, and you need never stand around with a bunch of attractive women who pinch at their love handles whilst expecting you to do the same.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 19:26, 10 replies)

All that only really applies
In groups of shallow, stupid women. My confusion lies in the groups who, as a whole, are hapy with themselves, and someone who genuinely is undeniably huge whinges about it with no reference to any attempt to rectify the situation. There's no mutual bonding, and no one would be fussed if they were fat and comfortable, but yet even the enlightened women are incapable of not blurting out the same false compliments that are being fished for.

At least in the situations you describe there's some vaguely acceptable motivation for the mutual bullshitting
( greedyostrich Cheese is evil! Cheddar is VOODOO!, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 19:34, closed)

Yeah
I've never actually observed that, but would definitely find it disturbing...for the record, whenever fat friends of either gender have complained about it I've always suggested - in a supportive manner - that they do something practical about it, and none of them have ever been offended. Maybe the people I hang out with are just too cool for that.

As for groups of shallow stupid women, like I said, there seem to be so many women who are great in mixed company but screaming harpies in an all-female group. It's really weird and disturbing.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 19:40, closed)

Conclusion
Women = Disturbing
( greedyostrich Cheese is evil! Cheddar is VOODOO!, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 19:43, closed)

See
now you're actually being sexist ;)

Women = come in lots of different types, just like men
Weird screaming harpy women who pinch their love handles in the ladies = disturbing

;)
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 19:50, closed)

Hey
I was just drawing conclusions from what you said ;-)

If I include my experience then women are indeed composed of loonies and lovelies, and many a combination of the two.
( greedyostrich Cheese is evil! Cheddar is VOODOO!, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 20:17, closed)

And another thing
And this REALLY bugs me - some women who've got a fat friend who really needs to lose weight, or even a not-particularly-fat friend who's trying to eat healthier and get more exercise to improve her self-esteem more than anything else, will be really unsupportive of her efforts. I know it's meant kindly, but it's just horrid.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 19:49, closed)

Maybe I'm just a cow
but the boyfriends daughter recently went up 3 dress sizes due to eating like a pig and not excercising.
When she split her jeans and asked me if I thought she was fat, I told her she could do to either lose weight, or buy clothes that actually fit.
She got pissed off. Her dad agreed with me, though.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sat 2 Jan 2010, 23:00, closed)