Yeah but think about, why does that societal expectation exist? Because that is what typically attracts men. And since the vast majority of the time they expect men to approach them, they need to be somewhat attractive.
I have to disagree. Throughout history, the bigger the woman the better. In many cultures, the size of your wife (aka - the heavier they were) represented the status of a man's wealth. If she was skinny, you were considered poor and unhealthy...someone who did not have enough money to eat properly, and did not have enough riches to provide for your family in general. They were the bottom of the food chain...pun intended. lol.
If a woman was plump, and what we now consider obese, you were a noble, and royalty even. Someone with an overweight spouse was seen to be as incredibly rich, topping the charts on social status. Men would often try to have the "fattest" wife, in order to show their wealth and power to society.
So in the past...what was attractive to men often changed, depending on the period of time. Once again, showing that women feel the need to bend to the will of men. Which I'm not saying that as a negative thing to the male population at all...it's instinct. We, as women, obviously have a natural animal instinct within us to want to reproduce. In order to do that, we need a male. In order to attract a male we need to find what actually does attract them...
If you realize that, then you realize that media and society, which has typically in history been run by men, have shaped the way men are attracted to women and thus shaping how we feel we should look in order to grab a man's attention.
So yes, there is pressure that we put on ourselves to look a certain way, but ultimately it's because the majority of men, and what THEY find attractive is where the pressure of physical appearance stems from.
