I may be reading too much into it, but on the other hand, teenagers today are saying things that disturb me about the role of women in society. (Yes, I know, I'm becoming an old crank at 27.) There is this expectation by teenage boys nowadays that ALL young women must have a 24" waist, that ALL young women must have a perfect face with no blemishes, that ALL young women must look exactly like Photoshopped pictures in magazines and porn. Admittedly, there were idiots who thought such depictions of women were accurate 10 or 15 years ago, but it didn't seem to be nearly as ubiquitous as it is now. And 15 years ago, people weren't calling size-2 women "fat cows" and being agreed with. There are too many of them for it to just be an army of trolls.
These crazy ideas have to be coming from somewhere. You don't just wake up one morning and say, "hey, I think I'll treat people this way instead of that way." The way you are treated, and the way you see other people treating each other, and the way people are depicted on the covers of books and magazines, affect the way you treat other people as a teenager and an adult.
So much this. I would love it if comics, the media et.al. would start portraying women that are between 14-16 sizes and in different heights (ex. 5' 3.5") in a way that is strong, confident, fighters, etc. In other words, in roles that are not the stereotypical lonely, ugly, gluttonous fat girls. I think it would be a boost to young girls' self esteem and makes them think that they could be a strong, confident woman themselves and will have someone where they say "she looks like me" and to be relate-able to.
As for the size 2 being called a "fat cow." I don't know much about this but I do know that the thin, emaciated look came around in the 70's with the supermodel Twiggy. Calvin Klein was the one that really pushed that look with their models in 1990's IIRC. Either way, I would not be surprised now with the so-called "war on obesity" (not sure who declared that, the Bush Admin, or the Obama Admin, but I do know that Michelle Obama has a program called "Let's Move" and has claimed that she will eradicated childhood obesity in 10 years, she stated this around 2008, 2009.) has amped up double time in the past 4 years and along with shows like "The Biggest Loser" which has unrealistic and unhealthy weight loss goals for its contestants (one of who was the 3rd season winner and came out and discussed the unhealthy, desperate ways of how she and other contestants tried to get rid of their weight, another who developed an eating disorder as well as how the trainers, the staff et.al. were abusive to them.) is being touted basically as "well, if these fat asses can lose weight in so little time, then I can as well!" "Fat people can exercise, they just don't want to," "fat people are costing us money when they get sick!" and a lot of other anti-fat or fatophobic comments. Not to mention that shows like "Here comes Honey Boo Boo," "Toddlers and Tiaras," etc. portray fat people in a negative light and often times exaggerate as well as confirm the negative stereotypes of fat people in general. I am not sure how this makes Americans look like to the rest of the world, but a recent excuse as to why we should wage war against the so-called "obesity epidemic" is that people outside the USA see American citizens through the lens of reality shows like those that are listed above.
Either way, I feel that by creating characters of obese people (of women in particular) in non-sterotypical roles would probably be a boost to many women, particularly that of young women and girls' self esteem and confidence.
Sorry about the long, probably unrelated rant... I have been thinking about this the past couple of days.
