Men Are Becoming Sissies

We all know most women are preoccupied with their appearance and philosophers such as Sigmund Freud put this down to women's narcissistic nature. Women's narcissism he says was developed as a result of 'penis envy' because during our evolution from infancy to girls we stopped short of developing what he calls the super-ego. Men on the other side developed the super ego that's why they pay more attention to external things such as amassing wealth than personal beauty.

Susan Bordo, Wendy Chapkis among other early feminists were obviously opposed to this view and posited that patriarchal culture is to be blamed for women's intense pursuit of beauty.. They claim that it is not biological for women to want to seek beauty above other things but rather because from birth there have been gender roles demarcated for both sexes where girls are bought dolls and dressed in gowns while boys are encouraged to be involved in activities related to display of strength and vigour such as sports.

Why am I going all academic? Well my point is from the word go we all know there are gender roles. We've come to expect the woman to pay attention to her physical appearance while making herself desirable to men. The man on the other hand is expected to be all macho and work hard to get a fat bank balance. As women we are expected to attribute things such as rippling muscles, hard square jaw, hard bodies and the likes to a real man. The closest a man could ever dream to being feminine is to smell nice. Other than this, nothing but an 'alpha male' will do.

Fast forward 21st century, gender roles is beginning to be blurred and it is now commonplace to find women in positions hitherto occupied by men and vice versa. However who could ever think that men would become so effeminate? They coined a new term 'metrosexual' to describe heterosexual men who have a strong concern for their appearance. A good example of a metrosexual man is David Beckham. Some women tried to come to terms with this new soft alpha male with ladies like me even preferring a metrosexual brother as long as he stops short of being gay and vain. I mean who needs a sissy?

Alas last Friday I was reading my favourite evening paper, The Londonpaper and six or seven pages down the headlines blared 'Guyliner or Manscara..? Splashed over the page were men who had applied eyeliner and looked no more than a court jester. I'm like what is this? To my horror the article covered how super drug had released a make up line for men. What for? Why on earth will any real man need a eye liner? I'm all for using moisturisers and perhaps eye brow trimming but eye liner or mascara? As if that was not enough, on BBC breakfast this morning, they unearth how tights are now being made for men and I'm thinking would they need to start wearing skirts too? I certainly don’t wear tights when I wear trousers so why is there a need for tights to be made for men?

I guess the implication for this is that most of the gender theories that have been developed in the past to explain the differences between man and woman may need to be revised. The likes of Freud unfortunately he's dead now would have to go back to the drawing board and re-write their theories. I am thinking the feminists are right on this one, gender roles are man-made and not nature based. I personally think that after God created the foundations of the world everything else that was created including culture, religion, beliefs, norms etc are man-made and if it is manmade it is changeable.

Have a good week everyone.

The Lost Battle of Dieting.

I am sure am like every other girl out there. I worry about my waistline and feel guilty whenever I eat anything remotely unhealthy. Isn't the world a cruel place? Why is it that the food items that does your body good are the most expensive and worst tasting set of food available? Before I came to this country I didnt even know what my dress size was. I've heard about the gym but only thought of it as a place people who have too much money go to or where a girl in search of a mega rich Aristo go to. A trip down Excellence Hotel Ikeja on a Saturday and you will find all those beer bellied rich man sprinting away on the treadmill. How futile when by 6pm that same evening they are at Iya Rici's beer-palour drinking goat meat pepper-soup and Odeku.

Back to me, In Nigeria I eat what I want to eat and am never worried about my weight. In fact what pre-occupied my mind then was how I could have a bigger bum and boobs. I was never the stick thin neither was I yokozuna. Infact some people called me 'lepa-orobo' mainly because of my tiny waist but voluptuous hips. My stomach was taut like someone who does 120 crunches a day when in fact the only sport I did was a regular swimming every weekend. Even that wasn't done with the intent of keeping in shape.

Fast forward 5 years, I now know what a dress size is. My first shopping down Oxford Street was at Benettons where I went home with some size 10-12 clothes. In the land of plenty I developed an unhealthy craving for Doritos and for someone who had always liked biscuit I had loads of varieties to choose from. Then my waistline started to expand but I didnt see it. I sent photos of myself back to friends home and they say 'you've added weght'. Still I couldn't see until one day I went shopping and I noticed I had to buy a size 14...what had happened? I've always had big cheeks but now it looked I had golf ball stuffed into my mouth. I consoled myself that am big and beautiful and size 14 was hardly fat.

But the attention from guys started to dry up. No longer was I regarded to as sexy, they just say you're beautiful and that wasn't quite enough for an egoistic girl like me. My friends told me a few home truths about how different I looked now and in fact took the effort to send me a school magazine that had a picture of me as one of the hottest babes on campus. Dang! it was time to act.  I went shopping for a whole healthy range (weight watchers to be precise). I spent £140 in one go and in a week had thrown all of them in the bin. It wasn't just me. I couldn't stand all them yeye food abeg and went back to my pounded yam and egusi soup but knew I still had to do something. So I went shopping for diet tablets; Adios, Zotrim which  had no desired effect on me so I ditched them. 

It took a while for me to know that it was entirely futile trying to loose weight. My life now is different from the life of the girl in that magazine so embarking on the journey of yoyo dieting was a complete waste of time. Back then I used to go dancing from Thursday to Saturday and of cos my swimming every weekend and these activities were enough to burn off whatever fat I may have absorbed from eating ewa elepo. However in London, I try to go the gym which I pay £35 for and only managed to go 7 times in 3 months. I dont have friends to go out dancing with and even if I do where was the time? The little time I have left for myself is spent catching up on lost energy during the week in preparation for the following week. My life is home, school, work and back home and food is a major part of my daily activities.

However, one look around you and you get a constant reminder of why 'fat' has been criminalised so no matter how busy I am, I have to find time to embark on a permanent solution diet. Last year July I read up on all available journals on healthy dieting and through my gained knowledge I lost 17lbs. Yippee! that's a whole stone and 5 pounds and I went back to being a size 12, it was all worth it. Now am told am sexy again and some even say am smoking hot now that's what i want to hear... The down side to my new found figure is the guilt trip that accompanies every unhealthy food I ingest. My friend bought me a strawberry cheesecake today and I almost finished the whole lot. Now I feel so guilty about putting such bad food in my body that I've become suddenly unhappy. hence my reason for writing this. Mentally, am thinking how many calories have I added on to my body and how do I loose it. I've had to change my wardrobe and am so scared of going back to a size 14 and do a new set of shopping only to loose it again. This back and forth is what I dread but even I know that it is what am going to be beleaguered with for the rest of my life. Dieting is a lost battle so why even try?