House of Eratosthenes

So I was thinking back on this post, which I was actually requested to put together & blog so that a discussion would ensue, about this recent forced cultural disdain against women who happen to have man-appeal. It is clearly a resentment against cosmetics; it has little or nothing to do with substance. But it arouses my ire because, for forty years now, I’ve heard feminists tell me that everyone needs to think and live the way the feminists tell them to, because their way is the right way; over those forty years, they’ve gone from insisting women can have everything and don’t need to choose anything, nor should they have to — to, you can’t be invested with real authority, as a woman, if you happen to look good. So the inconsistency bothers me a lot. But also, it leads to an elite layer of female leaders, one that is somewhat detached from the rest of society and yet, in many cases, making highly influential decisions about how the rest of society should live. The decisions they make, then, are consistently wrong.

And, I’ll just say it, okay? Men can get offended by things too; yeah that’s shocking, to some, I know. And no matter how you cut it, it’s offensive to say there must be something wrong in a candidate for one of these positions of real power, just because you and people of your sex might happen to like her, that all by itself makes her unqualified. We need to keep looking until we find someone you wouldn’t want to be around. Yes, that is offensive, breathtakingly so. Just because nobody strings the words together in sequence, doesn’t mean that isn’t the intent, or that that isn’t the message that comes across.

Gorgeous Women But my primary objection is to the second of those three; that is where the damage is being done. The women selected are making bad decisions. And I hasten to add, as I always must, that I don’t mean to suggest by this that only beautiful women are capable of making good ones. What I mean to suggest is that when a woman or a man arrives from a culture which displays this hostility toward good-looking women, and they manage to hijack some selection process and steer it toward a homelier candidate…the aftermath is bad. It ends up being just another portal through which real authority can be seized, and wielded, by someone who shouldn’t have it. When a decision process that works by random selection can beat them by several points of probability, time after time, something’s hosed. And that’s what we’ve seen go down. My prior challenge continues to go unmet: Kagan. Sotomayor. Secretary of State Clinton. Name one good decision. Just one.

It occurs to me that phrases like “it’s always the ugly girl’s turn in the limelight” might be good for drawing attention to the matter — and this is overdue — but, apart from the undesirable consequences of alienating a few people who might otherwise by sympathetic to the observation, it misstates the true nature of the problem. The problem doesn’t really have to do with genetic blessings, or lack thereof. Or intellect, or lack thereof. It’s cultural. We have this culture that starts off with a good message: You shouldn’t value a woman’s leadership abilities based on her appearances. And then it imposes this viewpoint, at these crucial junctions where it might matter, in overly simplistic terms. Pretty, bad. Ugly, good.

But the cultural push is not to accept ugly women, or to reject beautiful ones. The desire has to do with intent. The hostility is against women who have made a priority out of their looks. It doesn’t have to do with the achievement, it has to do with the effort; the achievement is just a symptom.

But it’s unhealthy, because say what you want about beautiful women, an achievement is an achievement. Achievements should be rewarded, not punished.

Blogger friend Teri has a post up which links to a report about a study, which in turn reveals more about this than I think might have been intended. The study is not about ugly women, it’s about parental investment, reproductive strategy, and the traits that men might find to be attractive in available women. Thought this was telling:

To figure out which sorts of women might be deemed most receptive to a sexual advance or most vulnerable to male pressure or coercion, they asked a large group of students (103 men and 91 women) to nominate some “specific actions, cues, body postures, attitudes, and personality characteristics” that might indicate receptivity or vulnerability. These could be psychological in nature (e.g., signs of low self-esteem, low intelligence, or recklessness), or they might be more contextual (e.g., fatigue, intoxication, separation from family and friends). A third category includes signs that the woman is physically weak, and thus more easily overpowered by a male (e.g., she’s slow-footed or small in stature). According to the authors, rape constitutes one extreme end of the “exploitation” spectrum—cheesy pickup lines the other.

By asking students for the relevant cues, the experimenters reasoned, they’d keep their own ideas about what makes a woman “exploitable” from coloring their study. When all was said and done, the regular folks in the lab had come up with a list of 88 signs that—in their expert undergraduate opinions—a woman might be an especially good target for a man who wanted to score. Here’s a sampling of what they came up with: “lip lick/bite,” “over-shoulder look,” “sleepy,” “intoxicated,” “tight clothing,” “fat,” “short,” “unintelligent,” “punk,” “attention-seeking,” and “touching breast.” [bold emphasis mine]

The experimenters were concerned about keeping their own ideas from coloring the study…and yet…they had no problem coming up with categories for these cosmetic attributes. Psychological, contextual, and signs that the woman is physically weak.

Hmmm. I don’t know. I have seen the comments from many women, and heard them in face-to-face conversations, that there are a lot of men who crave weakness in their women, including physical weakness. I suppose I shouldn’t judge this perception if I haven’t actually been a woman trying to find a suitable male mate. Many among those complaining, have certainly come out and said so. But then again, it seems to me the people who harbor this preconception don’t spend a lot of time trying to get the male perspective on it. Frankly, it comes off looking like there’s another side to the story that’s being left out. Guys abandoned you because you’re strong? You didn’t, maybe, chase them off?

I’m a guy with some stories to tell about finding the right woman; I’ve talked to other guys who have stories to tell about finding the right woman; weakness, including physical weakness, doesn’t rate very highly on the list of things we started out trying to find, or that we ended up trying to find. As a practical matter, I’m having a tough time trying to think how that could enter into it unless the man plans to force yourself on your companion. And, you know, I’m skeptical on the idea that this would be representative of the typical male.

But I think we’re looking, here, at a post-mortem on the selection of women who don’t look good to men. If I were so privileged as to see a line-up of photographs of these women who made the cut, I could be more sure about it. But the researchers made a list of these 88 signs…taking these steps to keep their own ideas out of it, but you know, I’m gonna take it as a given that there was very little mind-blowing change in direction or perception here. They asked students. Students in colleges…with, probably, a wide assortment of curriculum offerings that end in the word “studies.” They asked a group of 194 students with a very slight male majority, in a college, what a strong, capable woman who can take care of herself, looks like.

I previously had mentioned Megyn Kelly as one of the gorgeous ones, who I think comes off as strong and able to handle things. I’m gonna take it as a given that the strong and capable women-pictures, ultimately selected, didn’t look much like Megyn Kelly.

I meant to comment on your last post, but couldn’t come up with real coherence, and another commenter noted one of the major themes in that with age often comes power and with age, for women, comes unattractiveness.

I am probably not one to judge, but your examples of ugly women are all older liberal women, so their politics probably doesn’t help their attractiveness factor. But if Sotomayer were a good conservative could you not find her attractive for a middle aged woman? Or Sebelius? Even Hilary isn’t really so bad in my opinion. (though she has had some hilarious photos)

I think your premise is off a bit. Megyn Kelly is gorgeous, and young. She has tons of potential and if she wants to run something I bet she could. Fox news hit one out of the park with her and probably hires with that in mind, hence the Fox News Gal Type.

Men who want to get laid will look for those who are also wanting to get laid. This can come with the tight clothes and cleavage – ala Fox, or it can come with a little pudge and lower self esteem depending upon your own looks and alpha male status.

The whole thing is about judging your chances for what it is that you want.

Feminists, just like other groups of people, have a uniform and part of that is not caring how attractive they are because attracting others is not their cause de celebre. No make up, short hair, comfortable shoes. As women get older this look gets uglier unless she has a sparkle that is irresistible. (Judy Dench? Again – as a hetero woman, I may not be the one to point out attractiveness in other women, but I think she’s lovely) Feminists as they get older can also get bitter and that adds to the ugliness.

Men will too, but those bitter men who don’t care how they look don’t wield power because power for men includes such self esteem that bitterness would never enter the equation.

rambling now. good posts, but I don’t think we agree.
- tgoon | 05/25/2012 @ 07:13
over those forty years, they’ve gone from insisting women can have everything and don’t need to choose anything, nor should they have to.

Like the crusty old mechanic said: There’s your problem right there.

Beauty (sex appeal, attractiveness, not being a horrible shrew, whatever) is, like everything else in this sick sad world, an economic good. It requires investment— every hour spent on the stairmaster or in the salon is an hour less spent reading Chaucer, factoring quadratics, or Taking Back the Night. This is not some external imposition from an all-powerful “Patriarchy” (and if they’re so freakin’ powerful, why can’t they get the Wymyn’s Studies departments to shut the hell up?), but a rational economic decision.

[Inevitably, of course, someone will come along and scream that I’m being horribly sexist for claiming that the airheaded pursuit of a fleeting beauty standard is rational. Heh. That’s the first infallible indicator you’re dealing with a leftist — the inability to comprehend that “rational” doesn’t always entail “correct.” The airheaded pursuit of an ephemeral beauty standard may in fact be the wrong decision, lifetime-earning-potential-wise, but it’s perfectly reasonable in context].

After forty years’ marination in feminism, modern American women seem not to understand the simple economic principle of tradeoffs, and that there are in fact only 24 hours in any given day. Witness the fact that they’re still screeching over the so-called “wage gap” — people who grasp basic economics realize that taking yourself out of the income stream for a few years to raise kids does tend to lower your lifetime earnings relative to someone who not only stays in his job, but ends up pulling a lot of overtime to compensate for your maternity leave. Basic math is not some males-only club secret.

Ironically, it’s men who provide the clearest example of this. Whatever you may think of the “Game” or “Pickup” community — and they’re pretty risible, in my view — they do illustrate the economic nature of the transaction in the way that only Asperger-y beta nerds can. In case you’re not familiar with the phenomenon, these are the dudes who spend countless hours breaking down male-female interactions Moneyball-style, isolating the most effective gestures and postures and phrases “alpha males” use to talk to girls.

In other words, they spend far, far more time than women themselves do in pursuit of that same airheaded, ephemeral beauty standard. And since success is defined entirely by the number and hotness of the girls the “player” (they actually use that term, like it’s a video game) scores, they are much further in thrall to the whole thing than the ditziest sorority chick. It’s literally a lifestyle — Google it if you don’t believe me (but be prepared for one hell of a freakshow). If they’re not working a day job to support their Game, they’re out playing. Simple economics.

Sarah Palin — just to stick to the commonest example — was fortunately blessed with great genetics, in much the same way Sandy Koufax, say, was blessed with great genetics. She’s able to get better beauty results with less effort than lots of folks, just like Koufax could get more on his fastball with less effort than most folks. In both cases, this freed them up to devote more time to other things — energy policy; a breaking ball. They’re lucky and good, AND insanely disciplined.

But I guess we’re supposed to hate them for this. Yay feminism.
- Severian | 05/25/2012 @ 07:37

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