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Women's bodies are only represented as objects of beauty when they are, as defined by medical standards, literally anorexic. I say that with absolute certainty, because even when I had 11% body fat and weighed under the lower limit for my height, I looked obese compared to the images thrown at me, and at everyone, as being beautiful. These women are not "on the thin side" of healthy. They are not the product of natural variation. They are starving and exercising to the point where life is an unrelenting hell where all you can think about is how badly you want to blow your head off so that you will never have to exercise again.

Women are taught from an early age that beauty is virtue. The prince falls in love with the beautiful princess. He doesn't find himself charmed by her witty humor or dazzled by her political acumen. He isn't floored by her financial savvy or humbled by her strong character. He just thinks she's pretty.

Merchandise plastered with Hannah Montana infests the little girls' clothing section at Wal Mart. Every seven-year-old wants to look like a Barbie doll and wear pretty clothes, sees that as the highest level of achievement. Even grown women are held to the standard of perfection. "Lose weight!" scream the internet ads, the TV ads, the magazines at the grocery checkout stand.

"It's what women want to read about," say the apologists, but in truth, it is the last thing women want to hear or see. Those ads, those headlines, do not make us buy magazines or products. They make us want to die, want to kill. They make us want to find the men who created those ads, abduct them, bind them. They make us want to rip out those mens' eyeballs and testicles, put them back in the wrong locations, and cauterize the wounds, letting the victim live so that he may suffer.

Women don't want to be told, "lose weight." It is men who want us to listen to that hateful message, and any woman who does is a traitor, setting a terrible example for others.

An article on Yahoo news excused men for treating their wives poorly if the wives were ugly and well if the wives were beautiful, as defined mostly by having a waist/hip ration of 0.67 or less. The researchers gathered data, but did not decry the immorality they uncovered, did not call for men to repent, did not scream for women to stand up for themselves.

The "lose weight" message is a tool of oppression. Seeing those ads, my brain goes black, and I am so overcome with despair that I cannot focus on my stock options

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