Perceptions: Feminists More Open-Minded on Weight

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then try to be beheld by a feminist.

A new study finds that women who describe themselves as feminists are more forgiving than other women when assessing the attractiveness of women who are either very underweight or very heavy.

Writing in the journal Body Image, researchers said the findings added evidence to the argument that women who considered themselves feminists might be less likely to be taken in by the notion that the most important thing for women is to be thin. That belief, especially in younger women, can lead the way to an eating disorder.

“Feminism,” the authors write, “does appear to afford women a more inclusive perception of who is physically attractive.”

For the study, the researchers, led by Viren Swami of the University of Westminster in London, showed a set of photographs to 129 women who said they were feminists and 132 who said they were not. The photographs were of 10 women, faces concealed and wearing tight gray clothing, who ranged in body mass index from emaciated to obese.

The study participants were asked to identify the thinnest and heaviest women they considered “physically attractive.” They were also asked to say which woman they thought was most attractive.

Feminists and nonfeminists tended to agree on which woman was the most attractive. But that woman was described by the researchers as somewhat underweight, suggesting that even feminists cannot fully avoid societal pressures to be thin.