Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm

[Laisrean]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3429903.stm

This is sickening! :rant:

[Fairywolf]

That is wrong! But as it is another culture I can't say but so much. I don't know how they think but I am sure glad I don't livee there.

[Purrcatnip]

ugh ugh.. sickening and saddening..

[Calzaer]

Quick question:

More or less sickening than our own society's overemphasis on skinnieness (which leads people to starve rather than gorge)?

[Chibi-Fallon]

It's not that much different from girls starving themsevles here when you think about it. I suppose they aren't technically "forced", but the similarity is still there.
I mean here, we tell people that they won't get married if they *are* fat, and there it was just the oppisite. Both have health risks.
They were just more direct about it. I mean we have "fat camp" don't we? Sure we don't *say* thin=beauty and we say that you should love yourself. But anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together knows that's the underlying message.

[Darkstaff]

Quick question:

More or less sickening than our own society's overemphasis on skinnieness (which leads people to starve rather than gorge)?

Good point ^^ !

[Calzaer]

Of course, just so we're clear, I'm not counting the "forced" aspect for the moment. That makes it more complicated (our culture doesn't "force" women to be thin, but one could say our culture "coerces" women to be thin, and then we have to draw a line between the two, and then it gets fuzzy, and then all the worms break out of the can and squirm down to the sandy stream bank where we'll never catch them).

[LittleRhiannon]

I think the "skinny is the only way to be pretty" hype is sowly recedeing though. I've actually been made fun of for being skinny :rolleyes: I guess people can never be moderate.

The fact that they have farms where they just...force feed people...thats sick. What kind of parent would make their kid do that? Though I think it's good that some of the men said that they liked women to just be natural. It looks like places like that won't last too much longer.

[Hoot]

Sounds unhealthy to me, too, but it's as many of you have pointed out - just a different kind of unhealthy than we're used to. I suppose the part of the article that really disturbed me was at the end, when the woman who ran the force-feeding "camp" said it was great for 10 year-old girls to start having babies!

[LittleRhiannon]

Sounds unhealthy to me, too, but it's as many of you have pointed out - just a different kind of unhealthy than we're used to. I suppose the part of the article that really disturbed me was at the end, when the woman who ran the force-feeding "camp" said it was great for 10 year-old girls to start having babies!

That line seemed just 'thrown in there'. I couldn't tell if she was just randomly stating that she's seen this, or if she aproved of it, or what.

[Hoot]

It sounded to me as if she liked the idea:

I asked her if she ever felt cruel, beating and force feeding children?

"No! It's not cruel to make girls fat!" she said.

"Me, I've seen 10-year old girls give birth. I tell you, 10 years old!

"Once they are fat and beautiful they can serve their men well, once they are fat they can be married."

[Djiril]

Quick question:

More or less sickening than our own society's overemphasis on skinnieness (which leads people to starve rather than gorge)?
Neither, they're both horribly unhealthy and limit what women can do.
How do these extremes ever get to be ideals in the first place?