From an evolutionary standpoint, human males should do their best to seek out the most fertile female, the one that will be able to produce the most offspring. All species do it. Within groups of social apes and monkeys, this female is reserved for the alpha male, the male at the head of the particular social group. This is the male that exerts the most control over the group, the male who has the most power and status. Hopefully this status will be passed along to his offspring.
Generally speaking, the most fertile women in our species exhibit these characteristics in their body type. The phrase "child-bearing hips" didn't just appear out of nowhere. Basically, these fertile women exhibit curvature, they have a little more meat on their bones.
Socially, at least in this country and throughout much of the West we are taught to be attracted to the total opposite. This is what sociologists call the "body norm." That is, the most socially accepted physique in a certain time and place. Through bombardments of media portrayals of women, men are taught to be attracted to lean, athletic looking women with large (often augmented) breasts. The same media encourages women, young and old alike, to look like the body norm portrayed. These portrayals of women are in direct conflict with what nature intends for a species. Furthermore, men and women who conform to this beauty norm are statistically more likely to succeed in the job market as well as other societal institutions.
I think that this brings up an interesting point on the contradiction between nature and nurture. This contradiction was explored in Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, including the question if humans are still subject to Natural Selection. Is the body norm an example of the social overpowering the natural? Has society inadvertently created a block to overpopulation?
There is no denying that the body norm in this country has changed drastically over the last 50 years. One simply has to pick up an old issue of Playboy magazine to see that, Marilyn Monroe would be an unlikely candidate for the August 2007 centerfold. In the year that that magazine started, 1958, the US population was 174.8 million. Today, it has swelled to over 300 million.
Marilyn Monroe - December 1953
Playmate Tayrn Richard - March 2007 Playmate
In this case, I think that perhaps society has evolved in a way that may actually be good for our planet. As we all know, we are dangerously closing in on the carrying capacity of Earth, and if the human population does continue to climb at the rate it is we are all going to be without a home. I find it totally unfair to encourage all women to achieve an impossible body norm, and eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia are a direct result of social acceptability. If the most powerful men in this country are encouraged to mate with the least fertile women, perhaps this could elicit change in the entire class structure by ensuring that the least powerful continue the population trend while stagnating that of the upper class.
Hey, it's just an idea. After all, "Fat bottom girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round."
