Male body image and male privilege

Two articles in as many days have addressed the issue of male body image and part of me is intrigued while another part of me remains dubious.  I remain dubious because of what I've learned about the extent to which women's bodies are policed (just consider all the talk that's been had lately around dress codes in schools) as well as the timing of another article that has made it's way into the mainstream media detailing how an 8 year old girl was told to cover up at a pool.

The headline for the two news bites on male body image are: "Stop ridiculing small penises, says winner of subversive pageant" and "Adam Scott on the naked truth about male body image."  As a male-identified person who has not really measured up to certain male body image standards, I am interested to have a more extensive discussion on how male-identified people feel about their own bodies.  There's certainly some discussion that hasn't been had around this topic and I can tell you, from personal experience, that not having had this discussion has been cause for some frustration and shame.  However, I can't help but notice a difference in how this topic is being approached in these two articles to how body image is approached when were talking about femininity and body image.

It's only in recent months that the discussion around dress codes has taken steps into a more positive direction by focusing on how sexist dress codes actually are because they only ever apply to female-identified people; a quick google search will show that almost all school dress code policies are much more restrictive when it comes to attire that it's traditionally seen as feminine than it is when it comes to attire that's traditionally seen as masculine.  Moreover, the rational for dress codes often cites reasons that generally revolve on "being distracting to male students," which fits into the "boys will be boys" standard that a patriarchal society holds. The assumption is made that the behaviors of male-identified people is not something that can, or should, be looked at, so the responsibility falls to female-identified people to control and manage the behavior of male-identified people.

It's a standard that is blindingly sexist but it has become so normalized that it's difficult to have a discussion around it without falling into patriarchal patterns that invoke rigid, traditional gender stereotypes.  Historically, before the efforts of Feminist activists in this discussion were recognized by mainstream media, the discussion around dress code tended to involve depressingly "balanced" discussion as media folks tried to dismiss the camp that questioned dress codes without looking like they were being dismissive.  It is common practice for the privileged to pit the oppressed group against a voice of the oppressive group and paint the issue as essentially subjective which allows the people of the status quo to dismiss the discussion entirely; when presented with a debate on an issue that has the potential to affect the status quo, people are more inclined to side with the voice maintaining the status quo if they are, or have been, beneficiaries of it.

What we have with these two articles discussing male body image issues, is we have a privileged group finding out, probably for the first time, that there's an issue with how male-identified people view their own bodies.  The winner of the small penis pageant hints at a positive train of thought, although it's not further explored, when he speculates that the reason a woman came up with the idea for the pageant was because women "probably" (his words) have had to think more about body image in their lives.  The narrative is the same in the other article that's an interview with Adam Scott who cites his own personal history with not feeling comfortable with his own body growing up.  There is an awareness that something is wrong and that men do feel insecure about their own bodies, but it doesn't go down the road of discussing why that is and only really stops at "stop making us feel insecure."  These two articles feel more like they're placating the male ego and expressing an element of "me-too-ism" when it comes to the ever growing discussion feminists have been having around how women's bodies are policed.

I should state outright that my issue isn't with the two articles themselves, more so in consideration with the greater context of how mainstream media approaches body image issues these days.  It's hard to be enthusiastic about a topic like male body image, that does need to be discussed in greater depth, when the medium that it's happening in is still running articles that suggest that, for instance, an 8 year old girl should cover up because her body has the potential to trigger arousal in someone else.  The only people to bring up the idea that maybe boys should wear tops as well was the parents of the girl when they suggested that the rule of having to wear tops be applied to children of all genders.

The thing that I'm seeing here is that there's a willingness to talk about the harms of shaming the bodies of male identified people, but an unwillingness to talk about the harm that comes from telling an 8 year old girl she has to cover her body up.  Again, the discussions on male body image didn't invoke a debate between dissenting and assenting voices, while the article discussing the sexualization of a young girl did invoke voices from each camp.  I don't want to suggest that there was any ill intent on behalf of the programmers or editors of the respective publications, I would imagine the best of intentions behind the decisions to run the segments the way they were run.  However, I can't ignore the presence and timing of each of these articles as mainstream media, like everything else, doesn't exist in a vacuum and these articles are evidence of the gendered way in which mainstream media talks about body image.

A further issue I see with how the articles on the Q were carried out revolves around, how to put this, the precedent or context that exists for cis-male body image policing versus cis-female body image policing.  While there would be a particular standard for cis-male people that one could point to, I would argue that there's a lot less active policing going on for cis-male bodies than there is for cis-female bodies.  A cis-male child may feel shame for his body because he has not been able to achieve a certain athletic standard or doesn't look like a cis-male character/celebrity he admires, but he is not being conditioned to monitor his body to the same degree cis-female children are taught to do.  It is not difficult to find examples of young cis-girls feeling pressure to look a certain way very early on in their lives.

Adam Scott is actually proof that cis-males have more than just one type of body to look to as an ideal; there are actually a long list of other cis-male celebrities you could look at (Jack Black, Kevin James, Seth Rogan, Nick Offerman, or Aziz Ansari) who aren't known for having athletic bodies.  Moreover, while there is certainly a celebration of a certain type of athletic cis-male body, cis-men do not need to fit some narrow definition of physical attractiveness to be celebrated.  The story is much different for cis-women.  From politicians, to athletes, to celebrities cis-women's perceived attractiveness is always up for discussion and its regularly used to shame or dismiss accomplishments.

I am all for expanding the discussion on male body image, but any discussion that happens must occur with an awareness of the male privilege that exists around body image