Thank you, everyone, for your considered responses. I'm grateful for YLF. It's the only place I know on the internet where members are both open-minded and open (in terms of sharing thoughts and experiences) enough that I could ask this question.
Nadya, thank you for the link. It was educational. Also, I had no idea that advertising open positions by gender was once the norm.
Kaelyn, interesting point of view. Do people really have a "right to feel good" and a "right to have clothing they like"? I can buy the first one, it sort of goes with our pursuit of happiness. I could even buy the second one as long as it didn't involve placing the responsibility for producing said clothing on someone else.
Chewy, I'm sorry you found my post offensive. I didn't intend for it to be and I tried very hard to choose the right words to convey that. I do not assume that "plus sized women were once average sized women". What I know is that we were all born as little babies, generally under 10 lbs. Everyone's growth, however much of it there is, is then fueled by food. Some people are fed foods that don't work for their bodies. When this is obvious, with symptoms like instant vomiting and diarrhea, it is usually quickly corrected by elimination of the offending food. When the connection is less obvious, with perhaps the only symptom being that the kid (or adult) is overweight, the elimination is harder to make and often not even considered. Maybe because obesity is not considered a symptom of food sensitivity. I think it should be. Because then we could divorce the emotional/shame thing from this and treat the underlying issue.
Angie, I'm trying to wrap my head around what you said and what I'm coming up against is the fashion/fashionable part. Who decides what is fashionable? Is it the fashion industry itself? Is it consumers voting with their money? (Again, I'm not being flippant, just feeling a little dense and trying to figure out where these puzzle pieces go, so if there is a thread about this already, please point me to it.) Because what I'm thinking is that it goes beyond clothes, no? So there is a fashionable figure - the neat hourglass these days and in this society, but different elsewhere and at other times in history, right? From that point of view, it makes sense that most fashionable clothes would be designed for this figure and everybody else gets just the basics. I'm not saying it's fair, just that logically the argument works. So who can change things so that fashionable includes everyone? And would it then still be fashionable? Because it seems to me that the whole premise of fashion is exclusivity.
Aziraphale, thank you. I didn't mean to make it sound like obesity is shameful. Far from it. What I am questioning is why so many people consider obesity a given, rather than treating it as a symptom. Yes, there are people who are heavy on purpose and happy about it, but it seems like for every one of them, there's a hundred of those who have all sorts of emotional baggage about it. Wouldn't it be better for this second group to figure out what it is that's causing their obesity? (I'm an INTJ and a nurse so for me, it all comes down to logic, symptoms, interventions, and everybody being healthy because my main shtick is prevention.) Those pictures from a hundred years ago actually support my theory that what people eat matters. Because those plump working class people may have been eating foods that for them were like wheat is for me.
You made a point about people trying to make ends meet and not having enough time to scrutinize their diet. Maybe this should not be left for so late in life. Maybe it should be taught in schools - nutrition, cooking, that kind of stuff. I mean, when is the last time a non-math major used what they learned about sine, cosine, and tangent? (I know I hadn't given it a single thought for at least a decade and a half, until my sister's step-kid needed help with his homework.) Maybe that time would be better spent on life skills.
Suz, thank you for the paradigm shift. Social change. I can get with that. It takes a lot of people to get that to happen. So what can we skinny people do to help this come about? How do we help?
Xtabay, yes, I agree that"looking good in your clothes should be something that's reasonably attainable for all bodies". I'm not sure that RTW is the answer though. Maybe if it's seen as what it really is, namely ready-to-alter, we can get closer.
Ledonna, thank you for sharing your experiences so openly and eloquently.
ElCee, hmm, ok, that was a new one for me. I usually shop Lands' End and L.L.Bean where the regular sizes go to 18 and plus sizes start at 38" waist. Even on Nordstrom, regular sizes seem to include 12 and 14 (I checked Eileen Fisher, Tory Burch, and Tahari sizing charts but I'm not sure how representative they are of other brands sold there). I get the shoe thing. My feet are narrow and low volume, and few companies cater to that.
Gaylene, thank you. You have a good point about benefit to one vs. benefit to many.
Anna, yes, I live in a bubble. We all have our own. The only way out that I can think of is to ask questions, listen, and try to understand. Not just accept, but truly understand.
Rachy, I was hoping you would chime in Whose standard, exactly.