As we think there can't be any more ways to demoralize women, here comes another one onweibo.com. Someone with entirely too much time on their hands had created another means to measure if girls are slim "enough" – the “I have an A4 waist” (我有A4腰) challenge, a topic that accrued a swift 30 million hits and more than 34,500 comments by 9am, March 16.

The completely vapid definition of an A4 Waist courtesy of Baidu Baike

The "A4 waist" page first appeared via Baidu Baike before attracting the gaze of many a bored lady wanting to show off their non-assets online.

The method is described as thus: put a piece of A4 piece of paper vertical on your belly, if the width of your waist no more than the sheet, then congrats, you are qualified to be called “A4 waist” and you can now die happy, that is until the crushing reality of gravity and what having children will do to your body, sets in. Unsurprisingly, the challenge kickstarted a sleuth of people posting pictures of themselves attempting to claim title of Ultimate Stick (can you see my eyes rolling?).

Even the high school students join this meme

This follows a number of other body bets that have cropped up online over the past year or so, including the belly button challenge, which called for women to stretch their hand around their waist and touch their belly button, in a show of nothingness.

Unbeknownst to these young women, some doctors argued that if you can touch the belly button it means you might have Marfan Syndrome. Ouch.

Holding coins on your collarbone (really?)

That’s not all, there have also been attempts to hold coins on collarbones, put pens under breasts, and jam Q-Tips in dimples.

Putting a pen under your breasts, and see if it doesn’t drop (OMG)

Is your dimple deep enough to hold a Q-tip

It's hard to believe that this is what we've mustered to create in the 21st century, B.S. feats to measure people by, especially women. Instead of boycotting these trends, we see women time and time again them as the norm and wilfully promoting them via social media. Arghhhh ... Perhaps the Beijinger should lead the army next time with the:

• Youtiao challenge: the woman must pass a stick of deep-fried batter through the gap in her legs without crushing it;
• Chopstick challenge: a woman's arms must not be any wider than a roll of 20 chopsticks;
• Pomelo challenge: a woman's head must not be any bigger than a pomelo;
• Mantou challenge: a woman's skin must be as white as mantou.

Feel free to submit your attempts below, but we hope for your sake that you have much more important business to be getting on with. Watching Emma Watson’s speech at the UN’s He For She campaign could be a good start.

by:Tracy Wang(thebeijinger)