Male Body Image

Western society's overemphasis on the female body has a result that many often overlook.  When women are praised for their appearances in ways that ignore or trivialize other aspects of their being, men's bodies are usually ignored at the same time.  Conservative traditions treat men and women as opposites in ways that have nothing to do with anatomy and physiology.  Consequently, an emphasis on the female body is almost always accompanied by the neglect of the male body--and the denial or dismissal of male struggles with issues concerning body image.

Men can struggle quite deeply with the acceptance of their bodies, just as women can, and yet it is more common to hear about the drastically overexaggerated capacity of women to struggle with matters related to body image.  If a woman admits to struggling with the acceptance of her appearance, many would rush to affirm the beauty of her body even though the actual societal factors "pressuring" women to look a certain way are far less numerous and overt than many people pretend.  Contrarily, if a man admits to struggling with the acceptance of his body, many people do not encourage him in the same way.  Furthermore, the male body is often judged beautiful only within far stricter parameters than those affiliated with judgments of female beauty.

Someone is not concerned with their body's appearance simply because they are a woman, just as another person is not unconcerned with their body's appearance simply because they are a man.  Instead of treating people as individuals when it comes to what they think of their body, many assume that men simply do not care about wanting to be physically attractive or do not care to the same extent that women are assumed to.  The desires of men to be physically beautiful--in either a platonic or sexual way--are often completely unacknowledged even by otherwise egalitarian people.  At worst, the male body is treated as a humorous, utilitarian, or largely unattractive thing, as evidenced by many jokes in popular culture.

The human body, not just the female body, is worthy of acknowledgment and admiration, and thus the idea that one gender or the other has the more beautiful body by default is a sexist myth that harms both genders.  If one gender is held up as more beautiful than the other, it will be directly or indirectly encouraged to trivialize other aspects of its being, whereas the gender whose beauty is fallaciously regarded as inferior will almost inevitably have its desires for beauty disregarded.  Men and women have bodies; men and women can be attractive.  It follows that there is no basis for the sexist tendency to ignore men's bodies.