She's right, of course, up to a point - women watch their weight mostly for other women, most men honestly don't care that much. There's a man for every body type, you know? I'm a European size 44, and I'm being hit on and checked out all the time. I know guys (and girls) who love figures like mine, and I know other guys (and girls) who don't find it attractive at all. There are no general rules, and there's no accounting for taste.
But it's not really as easy as just saying that women are to blame, or the fashion industry are to blame - we're all part of this system and I think we all of us support and reinforce it, in many different ways. Every time we call someone a fat slob, inwardly or to their face, we reinforce it. Every time we buy a fashion mag that tells us to lose weight and keeps using scrawny, prepubescent models to sell clothes to average-sized adult women, we support it.
I honestly don't think it's possible not to be a part of it, and I'm not suggesting that we should preach obesity - after all, the whole point of trying to counteract these ideals is that they are unhealthy, as is obesity. I'm not suggesting that we stop caring about clothes and fashion either - hell, I love clothes! But I do think we could be more tolerant towards others, I do think that we could be better at seeing the big picture, and I think we could cut ourselves some more slack, too.
And we should vote with our feet. It's almost impossible not to support any companies that promote and reinforce unhealthy ideals, but we can choose not to buy from the worst offenders, and we can choose to support the companies we feel provide a better, more varied standard of beauty.
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