Watch the people who watch people. An attractive woman can turn heads. Women just under ideal bodyfat% will get second looks. Put them in the same clothes as the obesity crowd, the tights and tanktops, and they'll get third and fourth looks, outright staring. The higher bodyfat% women... Not as much. Some. But only some.
Beyond being "pushed" though (which I'm sure is happening on at least some levels), there's also the element of implied mental state. Buffy the Vampire Slayer up there in picture 1 clearly takes care of herself. Her body signals independence. Which, I mean, is kinda the point of Buffy. Well-off men would like a woman who can entertain herself, who while devoted, is also an active agent in life. The picture group 2 women, by contrast, signal that they need help. They're NOT independent, they're a submissive caste, presenting an animalistic mating ritual in hopes of being bred by a dominant example (I don't care if they think it's not that, that is exactly what that is in every other species of animal). Men want what they can't have: In the 80s, that meant a woman who could actually take care of herself and not need her husband to be the title's namesake and literally husband her life. In the 2020s, that means the reverse, a woman who needs some (or a lot of) husbandry, directing her life in a more positive direction.
Or in other words, when society was sane and in-control, men wanted good women so they could keep interacting with the sane society without worry. With an insane society, men want a woman they can fix, so there's at least something they can feel they have a positive impact on in society.
Watch the people who watch people. An attractive woman can turn heads. Women just under ideal bodyfat% will get second looks. Put them in the same clothes as the obesity crowd, the tights and tanktops, and they'll get third and fourth looks, outright staring. The higher bodyfat% women... Not as much. Some. But only some.
Beyond being "pushed" though (which I'm sure is happening on at least some levels), there's also the element of implied mental state. Buffy the Vampire Slayer up there in picture 1 clearly takes care of herself. Her body signals independence. Which, I mean, is kinda the point of Buffy. Well-off men would like a woman who can entertain herself, who while devoted, is also an active agent in life. The picture group 2 women, by contrast, signal that they need help. They're NOT independent, they're a submissive caste, presenting an animalistic mating ritual in hopes of being bred by a dominant example (I don't care if they think it's not that, that is exactly what that is in every other species of animal). Men want what they can't have: In the 80s, that meant a woman who could actually take care of herself and not need her husband to be the title's namesake and literally husband her life. In the 2020s, that means the reverse, a woman who needs some (or a lot of) husbandry, directing her life in a more positive direction.
Or in other words, when society was sane and in-control, men wanted good women so they could keep interacting with the sane society without worry. With an insane society, men want a woman they can fix, so there's at least something they can feel they have a positive impact on in society.