[mikrl]

>Mass media did a number on them

IMO the same can be said for every generation of women that came of age from the 1990s until today, but yea heroin chic and size zero culture really hit Gen X women.

In fact it’s so bad, that even male zoomers are falling victim to the social media powered mass culture these days; there is really no escape for anyone anymore.

[Mezzie]

Gen X women in particular had to deal with all the pressure of mass media and fake pictures, etc. at a vulnerable age before there was much push back. Of course Millennials and Gen Z are pressured, but there's also substantial pushback to and discussion of that pressure in a way there really wasn't in 1993. And things are a bit more fragmented now in that the monoculture has a little less sway so it's more possible to find a niche of people who agree with your aesthetic/presentation choices. Gen X also had the misfortune of being the first generation to deal with a more sexually permissive/post pill society and so things like continually looking attractive are more 'important' than for Boomer or Silent Gen women. The older Boomers and Silent Gen women I see don't like their bodies but they also don't feel like they should look 20 at 60+ because a lot of their examples growing up were still women in their lives + the cultural ideal was to get married young and keep the same man. The Gen Xers had the double whammy of 'be sexually liberated and by the way in order to do that, we're going to tell you to look 16 forever' without the counterbalance of any body positivity at all.