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Skinny Women On Diets
Feb. 7th, 2026 10:50 amWhile one always has to be rather careful with generalisations, it's still basically true to say I tend to get on better with men than with women, and that I am not generally comfortable in deliberately planned women-only environments (which is the one problem I have with my church; it insists on designating certain events as "men's events" or "women's events", when in fact they are relevant to everyone). That does not mean I don't like women, or that I don't have friends who are women. I have some good ones. It's more that I don't like not having men around... again, in general. There are a very few people on this earth who make my hackles rise the moment they walk into the room, and so far every single person like that has been a man. But they're pretty rare, and they don't affect the fact that I prefer mixed company.
And I think this is at least partly due to the fact that, when there are men present, women don't tend to talk about what they've been conditioned to believe is Women Stuff... and at the top of that unholy list is weight loss. I'm not talking here about losing weight because you genuinely need to do so for health reasons. Both men and women do that and it's obviously not a problem. Whether you're male, female, or whatever else, I am very happy to listen to you explain all about what you need to do to get that bariatric surgery, and cheerlead you all the way. (And, indeed, Porthos was in exactly that situation; he had to lose quite a lot of weight by other means before they were willing to operate, but he did, and they did, and he's a whole lot better for it. He's still big, but just regular big now, rather than enormous.)
No. What I absolutely cannot be doing with is Skinny Women On Diets. And I used to work with an entire office full of them.
They were obsessed. They talked about hardly anything else. Not only that, but they seemed to have transferred the greater part of their moral sense to food; so, instead of worrying about whether what they'd just said was helpful or kind, they'd worry about whether what they'd just eaten was "morally justified" in terms of their diet... a diet they were always on and permanently worried about, despite the fact that none of them had the slightest need to lose any weight. One of the academics famously ate a bar of chocolate every day (he, incidentally, was as thin as a rake), and one of these women criticised him for it because it was "bad".
I said, "Look at him! He's too thin to start with. He needs that chocolate."
"Oh," she said, "but it's bad. It'll damage his health."
I'm afraid I lost my temper. "Listen," I replied. "Lying is a sin. Stealing is a sin. Cheating on your husband is a sin. Chocolate is not a sin, it's a food!"
I don't think that went in. She was so thoroughly conditioned that it probably couldn't. And, while I was permanently at least mildly annoyed with her and her ilk, I also felt sorry for them. They couldn't simply enjoy their food; the whole big diet-guilt lie had stolen that from them altogether. Something like a small cake, which to me was nothing more than a nice little treat, was to them an evil temptation, and if they succumbed - as they invariably did, pretty often - they then felt obliged to beat themselves up about it for at least the rest of the day. The most extreme case, who happened to be my boss, had no figure to speak of and a very gaunt face; she probably didn't quite qualify as having an eating disorder, but she was pretty close, and she'd have looked vastly better if she'd put on about 10 kg. Maybe even 20. But she thought she looked great, because all the magazines were telling her that the thinner you were, the better you looked... even if you didn't.
Yet these were all intelligent women, and the moment you mixed a few men into the equation they'd immediately stop talking about the dread diets and start talking about all kinds of subjects of general interest. They instinctively knew that men didn't want to hear all about their unending efforts to turn themselves into stick figures; but I was supposed not only to want to know all about it, but to be sympathetic. I'm sure they thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn't (and because I, too, openly ate chocolate and didn't flagellate myself over it afterwards).
All right. A church women-only event is not the same thing as an office full of Skinny Women On Diets. Nonetheless, once bitten...
And I think this is at least partly due to the fact that, when there are men present, women don't tend to talk about what they've been conditioned to believe is Women Stuff... and at the top of that unholy list is weight loss. I'm not talking here about losing weight because you genuinely need to do so for health reasons. Both men and women do that and it's obviously not a problem. Whether you're male, female, or whatever else, I am very happy to listen to you explain all about what you need to do to get that bariatric surgery, and cheerlead you all the way. (And, indeed, Porthos was in exactly that situation; he had to lose quite a lot of weight by other means before they were willing to operate, but he did, and they did, and he's a whole lot better for it. He's still big, but just regular big now, rather than enormous.)
No. What I absolutely cannot be doing with is Skinny Women On Diets. And I used to work with an entire office full of them.
They were obsessed. They talked about hardly anything else. Not only that, but they seemed to have transferred the greater part of their moral sense to food; so, instead of worrying about whether what they'd just said was helpful or kind, they'd worry about whether what they'd just eaten was "morally justified" in terms of their diet... a diet they were always on and permanently worried about, despite the fact that none of them had the slightest need to lose any weight. One of the academics famously ate a bar of chocolate every day (he, incidentally, was as thin as a rake), and one of these women criticised him for it because it was "bad".
I said, "Look at him! He's too thin to start with. He needs that chocolate."
"Oh," she said, "but it's bad. It'll damage his health."
I'm afraid I lost my temper. "Listen," I replied. "Lying is a sin. Stealing is a sin. Cheating on your husband is a sin. Chocolate is not a sin, it's a food!"
I don't think that went in. She was so thoroughly conditioned that it probably couldn't. And, while I was permanently at least mildly annoyed with her and her ilk, I also felt sorry for them. They couldn't simply enjoy their food; the whole big diet-guilt lie had stolen that from them altogether. Something like a small cake, which to me was nothing more than a nice little treat, was to them an evil temptation, and if they succumbed - as they invariably did, pretty often - they then felt obliged to beat themselves up about it for at least the rest of the day. The most extreme case, who happened to be my boss, had no figure to speak of and a very gaunt face; she probably didn't quite qualify as having an eating disorder, but she was pretty close, and she'd have looked vastly better if she'd put on about 10 kg. Maybe even 20. But she thought she looked great, because all the magazines were telling her that the thinner you were, the better you looked... even if you didn't.
Yet these were all intelligent women, and the moment you mixed a few men into the equation they'd immediately stop talking about the dread diets and start talking about all kinds of subjects of general interest. They instinctively knew that men didn't want to hear all about their unending efforts to turn themselves into stick figures; but I was supposed not only to want to know all about it, but to be sympathetic. I'm sure they thought there was something wrong with me because I wasn't (and because I, too, openly ate chocolate and didn't flagellate myself over it afterwards).
All right. A church women-only event is not the same thing as an office full of Skinny Women On Diets. Nonetheless, once bitten...
