Leave It to The Daily Show to Put Real Perspective on the "Dad Bod" Double Standard
Dads everywhere may be unbuttoning their pants and celebrating the newfound fondness for the "dad bod" — a term that is being used to describe men's bodies that are a "nice balance between a beer gut and working out" as a result of going to the gym once or twice a week and consuming mass quantities of pizza and beer on the weekend — but let's call the trend what it really is — sexism.
Actually, let's let The Daily Show's senior women's issues correspondent, Kristen Schaal, do it for us. In a hilariously sarcastic segment on last night's show, Kristen pointed out that men's protruding bellies are being celebrated with the same enthusiasm that postpartum women are critiqued for how quickly they drop their pregnancy pounds. She started the segment by saying:
"What a great day for men! It's time society finally accepted that a man's body changes when he has kids. He spent nine months eating too much because his pregnant wife is stressing him out, and then there's a scream-y baby at home, so he's got to get out for pizza and beer as much as he can! It's just biology, Jon."
When the show's host, Jon Stewart, points out that this may be an opportunity for society to have more realistic expectations for new moms, Kristen showed off a string of reports on celebrity "Momshells" like Jennifer Lopez, Scarlett Johansson, Kate Middleton, Beyoncé, and more, where reporters marveled at their "mom bods" "just three months after giving birth!"
Watch the entire segment above and prepare to laugh — we promise you won't regret it!