A gender-neutral atrocity
My brother sent me this blog post from Time, in which Brian Moylan argues that the concept of the dad bod “continues to reinforce inequality about what is acceptable for men and women.” As you have no good reason to know, a dad bod is when you are kind of fat but not really. The term comes from this 500-word humorous essay by McKenzie Pearson, a sophomore at Clemson University. Pearson writes:
“The dad bod is a nice balance between a beer gut and working out. The dad bod says, ‘I go to the gym occasionally, but I also drink heavily on the weekends and enjoy eating eight slices of pizza at a time.’ It’s not an overweight guy, but it isn’t one with washboard abs, either.”
She goes on to enumerate reasons women like a dad bod, including looking pretty my comparison. Annie Dillard it ain’t; Pearson’s essay is lighthearted and relentlessly slight, which might explain why it went viral. It might also be because it feeds the internet outrage machine. Six weeks after Pearson published her essay, Quartz declares that “the viral dad bod phenomenon is male privilege masquerading as empowerment.”
