Sexism and beauty

[kellinator]

The Britney Spears discussion has reminded me of something else that galls me.

Think about all the ugly male rock stars out there. They're everywhere. Now can you name one female rock star (besides Janis Joplin, she's the exception that proves the rule) who isn't drop-dead gorgeous? A woman may well have the talent, but she can't suceed if she doesn't have the looks. And the music industry (and the entertainment industry in general) will promote a beautiful but talentless woman over a not-so-pretty, but wildly talented woman any time.

Comments

[polychromatic22.livejournal.com]

I don't think carnie wilson is an incredible example when you remember that when she was fat the groups handlers consistenly put her behind painos and rocks and things ("hey, people won't notice quite how fat she is if they can't see all of her...")

i think it's incredibly awful that people are being moved to alter their bodies so severly that they can never ever live again without medical help. people who do the radical stomach stapling wilson did have a stomach the size of an average thumb. they can eat no more than a few teaspoons at a time, and must take huge amounts of vitamins and fiber because of how incredibly bad it is for the body to not just eat.
i agree that there needs to be a solution to the whole thing, but endangering someone's life that seriously? what they basically do is make you so that you are physically (if not psychologically) anorexic for the entire rest of your life.

there's a solution, and it's true that diet and exercise are a massive part of the solution, but there is more and more evidence everyday that diet and exercise by themselves will simply not get every single person thin. the chemical make-up of the human body, not to mention the behavior of our genes, is very little understood, still (gosh, for years they did medical tests on men thinking that it would be just the same on women even though we have entirely different systems, doctors are only walking out of the dark ages now..)