how Japanese men and women think of women’s body types

Japanese artist and Twitter user Suremi has caught our eyes on multiple times with her illustrated and insightful looks at women’s lives in modern Japan. In the past, she’s shared her thoughts on the types of photos Japanese girls can’t help sharing on social media, and also on the gaps between ideals and reality for everything from how a woman sneezes to what kind of lingerie she wears.

Recently, Suremi tried her hand at capturing a male perspective as well, with an illustration showing the differences in opinion that men and women have about women’s bodies.

Sumire’s drawing focuses on the physiques of two women, with the one at the bottom left being more slender than the one at the top left. Starting with the less slender of the two, a man and women give their opinions of her build as follows:

Man: “No way. She’s fat. I bet she smells bad too.”

Woman: “I don’t think she’s fat. That’s what you call ‘plump.’ She’s cute. I wouldn’t want my body to be like that, but she’s cute.”

Moving on to the more slender woman:

Man: “Her body is a turn off. She’s too bony. No way. I’d worry about her health.”

Woman: “She’s cute. I wish my body were like that. It must be nice. She’s cute. Starting tomorrow, I think I’m going to go on a diet.”

For their parts, the heavier woman in the illustration is thinking “Guys like girls with this much meat on their bones, right? I don’t really want to lose any weight,” while the skinnier one’s inner monologue reads “Being slender is cute. I want to lose more weight.”

Suremi also created a rough chart in which she marks the range of body fat that she feels men and women think is attractive or desirable in a woman’s body, marked with red lines and showing a much narrower range in men’s opinions. “What guys call plump, women think is a normal body, and so what women think of as plump is fat in guys’ opinion,” underlining that two people can look at the same subject and yet see very different things.