You're right to say we should scroll down, because she's not particulary pretty in the 1st set of photos, but is in the rest.
Oh ick! Tyler Durden? Now I feel like I need a shower.
You see how that girl from the Levi ad disappears when she turns sideways? That's a sweet trick.
Apparently, I'm in the minority because I think the woman in the Levis ad is sickly looking. The Jessica Biel pictures were ok, but she needs to eat something too.
That's why I called skinny girl "pretty" since that usually confines the discussion to someone's face. (In fact, her face is beautiful, but she's definitely twiggy.)
i'm going to attribute those jessica beil pics to wonderoos, because theres no way a real ass is that awesome.
I think she just has a big arch in her back. And maybe some wonderoos.
8 - perhaps a butt implant by Dr. 90210. (that's a nice picture BTW)
Yeah, she stands with her hips back. Somehow she avoided learning the "don't look at my ass" tucked-butt stance, lucky woman. But it doesn't hurt that, god bless her, she's carrying some weight on them as well.
And anyone who wants to diss What Would Tyler Durden Do? first has to convince me that this post isn't awesome.
I bet Seal gets more model-play per album sold than any working musician today.
Ogged is covering all bases -- one skinny, one not. That way we won't be able to figure out his real preferences. Cagy.
Whoa, that's like a SWAY-back for real.
Based on a TV show I watched last night (also on that topic: Agassi!!!!!!11111!!!!One!) , I am compelled to ask: Does spousal privilege in general prevent the non-defendant spouse (nds) from being called to testify as to knowledge of the defendant spouse's criminal activity (not of the spousal or child abuse-type) which nds had prior to the marriage? Under the Federal Rules? Under California rules? If no one feels like doing research for me, I may do it myself.
I used to know the answer to this. There are actually two different privileges at work.
IANAL, but I'd be surprised if marriage converted previously available information to unavailable information.
IIRC - two privileges, one allows a spouse to refuse to testify against the other, but this privilege is held by the spouse who is refusing to testify (i.e., the spouse charged with the crime has no legal say in the matter); the other prevents a spouse from testifying as to what the other said, this privilege is held by the accused.
The first, I believe, applies to testifying about anything (pre or post marriage), the second applies only to marital communications (e.g., if they ask the spouse about what he/she saw the other spouse do, they can testify to that).
Spousal privilege prevents (with exceptions) one spouse from being called in a criminal trial against the other spouse.
Marital privilege prevents the spouse from being forced to testify as to confidential marital communications in a criminal or civil trial.
My question is as to exceptions to spousal.
So the answer is that under Federal and (far more broadly) under California law, the nds would not have to, but could choose to, testify. So whart ugh said. I'm pretty sure this means one character on the show lied to the other, since that character A told character B that B no longer needed to have any worries about A's potential testimony, when in fact B only has no worries if B doesn't piss off A.
But a spouse could always choose to waive spousal privilege and testify, couldn't s/he? How is the law different depending on if the knowledge predates the marriage?
Oh -- I see -- somehow I skipped over 21 before.
It turns out to be irrelevant legally, except for maybe in a federal civil trial, like forfeiture. But it's very relevant to the show, since these two characters have married at an extraordinarily early stage in their relationship only because B suggested it as a way to solve A's problems with trusting B not to eventually use B's knowledge of A's criminality against A. I'd be far more clear, but I assume that there might be other commenters who watch this show and haven't seen the relevant episode.
Did you have to turn this thread into law school? Don't you get enough law school outside of this thread? Some people come here to escape that stuff.
1: Huh. I think she looks prettiest in that first set of photos.
11: I was thinking that she does seem particularly aware of her ass, but...
8: ...that big arch probably adds to the look.
Conclusion: That is a wondrous ass.
I'm not back in law school for the year until tomorrow. I'm fiending for a fix, man.
The Levis girl has a pretty face, but not especially remarkable. I do like her hair, though.
Although I don't watch the show, I think the woman off of Vanished (the one who is kidnapped) is gorgeous.
The Levis model needs to have Jessica Biel buy her a sandwich, but yes: pretty and hot, respectively.
The Levis model looks a little pubescent to me. Is that hot these days?
Does anyone else find these threads creepy?
33: Which part: the Biel discussion or the spousal privilege issue?
w/d: were you watching The Sopranos? I seem to remember an episode where Adriana went to a lawyer to ask whether marrying Christopher would get her off the hook with the FBI people.
Does anyone else find these threads creepy?
I know plenty of people do, which seems a little strange to me, since just about every conversation I've ever had with every male friend is, I don't know, 20-40% just like this.
Ok, slight hyperbole, but in my experience, this is what guys talk about.
There may be a polite fiction issue here, ogged.
I thought this was the anti-polite fiction blog?
Black people can't swim!
Unless they're Cullen Jones.
37: I find those kinds of conversations fairly creepy too, among other things.
Ok, slight hyperbole, but in my experience, this is what guys talk about.
Maybe this is why it's so easy to fall back into male friendships.
37 -- I keep hearing this statement all my life -- "this is what guys talk about" -- but almost all of the "who's hott" discussions I have participated in since high school junior high school, have been on the internet -- I must hang out with a different crowd or something.
I think you're right that something like this happened on Sopranos, but I've seen every Sopranos already.
There may be a polite fiction issue here, ogged
Is the polite fiction the notion that males aren't supposed to talk about this in public/mixed company, or is it the notion that males are expected to have these sorts of conversations as forthright demonstrations of their unquestioned heterosexual maleness?
45 -- That's interesting, because that's what a large number of my guy friends tell me too, and they don't have any reason to lie to me. God knows they don't make a habit of hiding other, different, unsavory behaviors from me.
Maybe this is why it's so easy to fall back into male friendships
Is this generally considered the case with male friendships? I generally think of my old male friends the way I think of myself from a few years ago (as in, "how could I/he have been such an idiot"), while I have a much easier time reconnecting with old female friends.
The polite fiction would be that guys aren't always discussing whether women are physically attractive. (I think it's not entirely a fiction; I don't think I spend that much time on it. Ogged knew I would say that.) Which would be why not to talk about it in public/mixed company, because it shatters the polite fiction. (And my answer to 40 would be no, but it's not my blog.)
45 -- are you suggesting that I'm just saying 45 for the sake of my feminist cred? Cause if so, that's not what's going on.
I picture ogged and his friends having these conversations while cruising slowly down the road in a beamer, pointing out the women on the street as they talk about them.
I think it's not entirely a fiction; I don't think I spend that much time on it. Ogged knew I would say that.
At least you're polite.
I rarely have "who's hot" conversations with my male friends. I have two friends who are both incorrigible lechers so if I am drinking with them it does come up more often but, tbh, most of the 'hotness' conversations I've had I've had with women.
Look people, ogged just recently lost part of a rib, a region of the male body known to contain significant amounts of vital essence. He's feeling unmanned, and needs to do some public ass-ogling to reassure himself that he's still got some spunk left in the tank.
Or maybe the polite fiction is just that Ogged isn't always checking women out. In which case 40 is accurate.
Discussions of actresses on family-oriented WB shows are infrequent for me as well.
It kills me that I've heard of Ms. Biel even though I've never even considered seeing a single movie she's been in and from the photos sort of wondered if she was the woman in Lost. And now, not only have I heard of her, I have an opinion about her ass.
Ogged is right, in my experience.
he's still got some spunk left in the tank
ATM.
Reading more carefully, 47 is good too.
54 - I picture ogged and his friends having these conversations while cruising slowly down the road in a beamer, pointing out the women on the street as they talk about them.
A beamer or an el camino?
64: Weiner feels obligated to uphold, however perfunctorily, the grand old traditions of unfogged; he's just punchin' the clock.
Like this: You know what's unnecessary? Your mom.
I picture ogged and his friends having these conversations while cruising slowly down the road in a beamer, pointing out the women on the street as they talk about them.
Not a beemer, because I don't hang out with Iranians, but of course I've done this. Seriously, some of you other guys haven't? Let me guess, you were off somewhere listening to Sufjan Stevens?
ttaM said, most of the 'hotness' conversations I've had I've had with women.
In my experience, women talk about this subject a lot. Too much, in my view. And my women friends are very likely to add a physical description when you ask what a third, non-present, party is like. I wasn't asking for a physical description, I was asking what she was like.
I spend very little time discussing the hotness of people who aren't either within visual range or expected to be shortly. Shortly might be as much as a day or two. The driving around thing happens, though much less since I've lived in New York.
I think my "who's hot" conversations happen with my male and female friends with equal frequency; the subjects of the conversations, to be honest, probably skew female by about 70/30.
When I was in high school, the girls in my carpool used to play "That's your boyfriend!" which was basically a diss-fest. It's been a while, though.
Seriously, some of you other guys haven't?
It's not just driving the road, it happens basically anywhere and everywhere.
70: I think the percentage goes down as you age, but those conversations are pretty common. Among groups of friends that don't have those explicit conversations, it's there as subtext.
When I was in high school, the girls in my carpool used to play "That's your boyfriend!" which was basically a diss-fest. It's been a while, though.
We had a similar game, except it was "that's you in 15 years". Kids can be cruel.
Like this: You know what's unnecessary? Your mom.
But, but, Unfogged bills itself as "An Eclectic Web Magazine for YOUR MOM"!
Seriously, this is what guys do. Enlightened guys just don't let it happen at work, or if it does happen at work it's very discreet and doesn't impact anyone's performance reviews, etc.
Seriously, some of you other guys haven't? Let me guess, you were off somewhere listening to Sufjan Stevens?
I've found myself in the middle of plenty of guys-ogling-women conversations, and they've always seemed like desperate and overbearing exercises in masculine posturing conducted by gender-issue-laden obsessives with something to prove.
Not that that label could possibly apply to anyone here, of course.
79 - Very true!
80 - See 79. Although, we all know guys who are like how you describe, they're not the majority.
I dispute the attributions of desperateness and overbearingness.
desperate and overbearing exercises in masculine posturing
Like I said, ogged just lost half a rib! It's part of his rehabilitation process!!
ogged, 54 was a joke. Of course most guys do this all the time, but... you? Stop trying to act like you're "one of the boys."
I've found myself in the middle of plenty of guys-ogling-women conversations, and they've always seemed like desperate and overbearing exercises in masculine posturing conducted by gender-issue-laden obsessives with something to prove.
You should totally not hang out with those guys.
I'll grant stras that there are offensive ways to do this, and I've heard conversations like this that made me want to punch the guys, but usually I'm not bothered.
You should totally not hang out with those guys.
See 51.
You should totally not hang out with those guys.
This is true. When done properly, ogling and discussing of the sort I describe in 79 is not something of which the subjects are ever aware, and it's not discussed in desperation.
86 - I think the difference is whether animated guys in question are "excited" and respectful in their tone by what they see versus derogatory in their tone.
83: Man, I gotta lay off those damn exclamation points.
I never used to use them till I started grading student papers, and then the unadorned "good work" just didn't seem perky and encouraging enough.
87: Yeah, this could just be a different strokes, different folks kind of thing. I tend to think of these types of discussions as similar to conversational candy: easy, pointless, and enjoyable, and possibly bad for you if you consume too much. Same with political discussions, gender discussions, and, frankly, most conversations that aren't rooted in some specific decision to be made.
92.--Yeah, unless someone's going off the island, there's no point in discussing relative hotness.
but Jessica Biel is looking great lately
And I sure hope she gets a part in that new Laugh-In remake.
91: They were unavailable. And if they had been available, I probably would have had to use rubber cement to make them adhere. Apparently licking postage stamps and stickers is disgusting to the average Chinese citizen. The post offices always had a station with little pots of glue to use to seal your envelopes and attach the stamps. The counter was always covered in thick strands of stray rubber cement, and it was common for lots of envelopes to get stuck to each other in the mailbox.
So, even if available, stars would have been a lot of trouble. Plus, having the students' papers all stuck together might have given some of them the wrong idea about how enthusiastic I was with their writing.
95: You were in China?
Sorry to get back to the objectivizing, but, yo, ogged, I think Jessica Biel's lips are no strangers to teh botox.
I relinquish any higher ground I may once have held.
I think Jessica Biel's lips are no strangers to teh botox.
Is there some tell?
I thought botox was foreheads, not lips. Bizarrely plump lips are collagen injections.
It's the upper lip's contours I'm suspicious of.
Dammit, 96, I specifically decided not to post that.
99.--Oh yeah. I knew I shouldn't have let my women's magazines subscriptions lapse back in 1998!
Eh. And I should say that I don't find this sort of conversation very creepy, just a little, and just when it goes on for too long. Nothing wrong with ogling attractive people, it's the sort of desultory 'shopping' tone that strikes me weirdly.
This gives me a special feeling.
I think you need to work harder to makew a convo about celebs hottness creepy compared to one about people nearby or esp. colleagues.
I like her sweater-vest in the linked photo. It's not every woman who looks hot in a sweater-vest. And with that last bit of objectivizing, I'm outta here!
Is there some tell?
On most white women (actually, I suppose most non-black women) the top contour of the upper lip is three concave-upward curves -- a long swoop from the corner of the mouth to under the nose, a short curve under the nose, and then another long swoop down to the other corner. When you plump the top lip out with collagen, the two outer curves go from concave-up to concave-down, producing a shape that's common on black women, but much less common on non-surgically enhanced non-black women.
I think you're probably right about the lips, JM. Here's a picture from seven years ago, and though she has nice lips, they (especially the top lip) aren't as full as they are now.
I think the difference is whether animated guys in question are "excited" and respectful in their tone by what they see versus derogatory in their tone.
I think they start getting decidedly creepy when the subjects in question are held up to an imagined ideal of Hotness and critiqued against that. Thus, "she's very pretty" or "she's really hot" turns into "she looks sickly" or "she needs to eat more" (which I'll note has become the new "she needs to lose weight." Notice how as one has become less acceptable in Liberal, Enlightened circles, the other has become increasingly common).
12: He may occasionally write a decent post, but he's a complete misogynist nightmare. I actually banned him from my place.
As to the "hot chick" thread frequency, well, it's Ogged, after all. Of course people have those kind of conversations, but obviously different topics resonate differently in different contexts.
On most white women (actually, I suppose most non-black women) the top contour of the upper lip is three concave-upward curves -- a long swoop from the corner of the mouth to under the nose, a short curve under the nose, and then another long swoop down to the other corner. When you plump the top lip out with collagen, the two outer curves go from concave-up to concave-down, producing a shape that's common on black women, but much less common on non-surgically enhanced non-black women.
Based solely on the fact that you, of all people, know that, I'm willing to concede that men are oppressive bastards, and I apologize for my gender.
I think they start getting decidedly creepy when the subjects in question are held up to an imagined ideal of Hotness and critiqued against that.
Yeah, that's the 'shopping' tone that I find weird. "OMG she's so hottt!!1!!" isn't particularly creepy, "She'd be perfect if she just took off/put on some weight, and dyed her hair, I dunno... chestnut?" is. It starts sounding like people are wondering if the couch they're looking at comes in camel.
Ok, slight hyperbole, but in my experience, this is what guys talk about.
I don't think I've ever really had a conversation with my male friends about the hotness of anyone (though I have sometimes with some female friends), although the last time I was in Berlin I was constantly pointing out the attractive women I and the friend with whom I was staying passed. That got old after a while, though.
Yeah, that's the 'shopping' tone that I find weird. /i>
That strikes me as not very different from the way people talk about, for example, the dating scene (or "dating market," even).
I actually banned him from my place.
I doubt very much that the person who writes WWTDD was commenting anywhere. How do you know they were the same person?
Maybe she means she banned him in the same sense that I've banned Jerry Falwell from my house? You know, sort of preemptively.
I think they start getting decidedly creepy when the subjects in question are held up to an imagined ideal of Hotness and critiqued against that.
Yeah, this can be uncomfortable, but I think it's often just a way to debate varying conceptions of The Hot, and to talk about one's preferences. "I like a nice, tight ass, like Rachel Wacholder's." "Rachel Wacholder?! She has a boy's ass. No, she doesn't have an ass, she needs to eat! Jessica Biel has an ass...." Like that.
115: If memory serves, there was a link back? But it was a while ago, I could be wrong, in which case I regret slandering your friend, even though his blog kind of icks me out.
Well, insofar as the job of the guy at WWTDD (I think it's a commercial enterprise, not just some guy's hobby) is to write something funny about non-events in celebrity world, I think he's brilliant.
I'm mostly impressed with how damn elegant she looks in those pictures ogged linked to. She's got that 1930s-actress type look going.
Hard to believe her big starring role to this point was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake.
And re: 108, a picture of her from 7 years ago would make her what, 16? Are lips a done deal by that point?
Not getting fuller and poutier after that point without technological assistance, no.
Are lips a done deal by that point?
I don't think lips keep growing.
Lily Aldridge for Levis. Ho hum. To paraphrase Cheers, "It's not widely known, but she's famous."
What is she famous for? Is she a "name" model?
LB, it really disturbs me that you know anything about this stuff. Please cancel your subscription to Cosmo immediately.
"I like a nice, tight ass, like Rachel Wacholder's." "Rachel Wacholder?! She has a boy's ass. No, she doesn't have an ass, she needs to eat! Jessica Biel has an ass...." Like that.
But these discussions almost never take place in subjective terms ("I like X, I like Y"). They take place in objective, prescriptive/proscriptive terms ("X is hot, so-and-so should do Y to be more hot," etc.). It's a far more possessive and creepier way to discuss beauty. It's not about showing appreciation for what you think is beautiful; it's about pointing out deficiencies and deviations from an objective standard of beauty.
107, 127: What? I look at people. I have well formed thoughts on collagen-lips because they look weird to me: they started showing up sometime in the 90's, and all of a sudden half the actresses I was looking at looked as though they'd been punched in the mouth.
Seriously, that top-lip shape isn't something you see on women who aren't in media, which means that it's artificial.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Levi's ad. They're for "slim fit" jeans, you see....
"I like a nice, tight ass" is not something I can actually imagine any real person saying.
But these discussions almost never take place in subjective terms ("I like X, I like Y").
Because that would be boring. No one says, "I quite enjoy The Wire." They say, "The Wire is the best tv show ever."
But The Wire isn't a person. See why it's creepy?
Deadwood is the best tv show ever.
Deadwood was the best show ever, slol.*
*It wasn't, but still, it was very good. Still cancelled, though.
To add to 129: collagened lips also look weird because sometimes the top lip ends up the same size or even larger than the bottom lip.
By the way, skinny jeans are a fashion atrocity.
It's not about showing appreciation for what you think is beautiful; it's about pointing out deficiencies and deviations from an objective standard of beauty.
Depends on the conversation, and also how you read it. Like I say, I take the pointing out of deviations to be a way of discussing the standard itself. If we all thought like LB, with her three upward concave curves, maybe we could discuss it in those terms, but most people think "I like so-and-so's such-and-such, not someone else's such-and-such."
Deadwood was the best tv show ever and it concluded with a "slolernr" shout-out.
"I like a nice, tight ass" is not something I can actually imagine any real person saying.
I'm telling you, different crowd.
"You're really fun" is more objectionable than "I had a really good time with you"?
"S/he's really fun" is more objectionable than "I had a great time with him/her"?
136 gets it exactly right.
138 - And what was this slolernr shout out?
133: People talk that way about all human attributes, not just attractiveness. "X is a genius." "Y is the best hockey player ever."
138 - And what was this slolernr shout out?
You're telling me you didn't notice Al apostrophizing the Chief, talking about "the original slow learners"?
It's not creepy with unconditional approval, so much -- it gets creepy as a tone for pointing out flaws.
And now what's going to be on HBO this Sunday?
A whole bunch of Lucky Louie, which I gave up on after the first episode, I think.
I thought of you at precisely that moment, slol.
120. You can't forget Stealth, a masterpiece in the category of Movies to Watch When You Come Home Drunk at 3am.
But The Wire isn't a person. See why it's creepy?
Not really. But I'm soulless, suspect that most human relationships are relationships of convenience, and worry much more about the harms people cause by overestimating their concern about others than the harms they cause by underestimating it. So you probably shouldn't go by me.
Like I say, I take the pointing out of deviations to be a way of discussing the standard itself.
I'm not sure how you can discuss a standard, and deviations from such, without implicitly or explicitly critiquing the subject for failing to meet that standard. And in fact most of these discussions I've seen, here and elsewhere, include any number of fairly demeaning characterizations of fairly beautiful people by any number of loveless male geeks who would presumably not turn their noses up at Rachel Wacholder's boylike ass in person.
I thought of you at precisely that moment, slol.
Woo!
You're telling me you didn't notice Al apostrophizing the Chief
I've trained myself to look away before Al starts doing that to himself.
And in fact most of these discussions I've seen, here and elsewhere, include any number of fairly demeaning characterizations of fairly beautiful people by any number of loveless male geeks who would presumably not turn their noses up at Rachel Wacholder's boylike ass in person.
That's sounds suspiciously like, "You're not sufficiently worthy to make such criticism," sj. Which is probably roughly true, and may be why Wacholder's not putting much stock in such discussions.
I'm not sure how you can discuss a standard, and deviations from such, without implicitly or explicitly critiquing the subject for failing to meet that standard
You can't. Price of doing business.
who would presumably not turn their noses up at Rachel Wacholder's boylike ass in person
Exactly, which is a clue that they're really talking about the standard.
A whole bunch of Lucky Louie
Jeez, I don't even know what that is.
That's sounds suspiciously like, "You're not sufficiently worthy to make such criticism," sj
The point is that there's a cultural presumption that being male makes one worthy to make such criticism.
You can't. Price of doing business.
Then maybe you shouldn't.
But a common trope in such conversations, in my experience, is that when someone starts applying such standards to people out of their league someone else will say something like, "Yeah, like you'd turn her down."
Then maybe you shouldn't.
Why?
And 158 is right. It's so common that I think it basically goes without saying, even though someone pretty much always says it.
I don't entirely agree with LB's reasons, but I agree with her that the "so and so is hot" conversation is tiresome and annoying. I think, though, that it's more because the attractiveness (or not) of female celebrities is something every person on earth has an opinion on. And it's treated, unlike convos about which guys are hot, as if it were an important topic. Great hockey players is something hockey fans talk about; so and so is really smart is something people talk about in the context of praising a specific person; and when one talks about attractive men, one doesn't get into minutae about lip shape, plastic surgery, precise curve of ass, or so on. And I mean, really: yes, talking about who is and isn't attractive is in and of itself fine, but this whole assessing women thing is hardly culturally neutral. Sucks for straight boys, but the fact is you can't do the comparing hot chicks thing without, on some level, sounding like an ass.
I also personally think that part of what's tiresome about it is that so many supposedly attractive women really look very similar. It's a bit barbieish.
The point is that there's a cultural presumption that being male makes one worthy to make such criticism.
I don't know if I agree with this, not fully anyway. Women judge other women's appearances all the time too; often times much more critically and judgemntally. Usually, when men talk about women's hotness we fixate on the positives.
The point is that there's a cultural presumption that being male makes one worthy to make such criticism.
My assumption is that "worthy" doesn't much enter into it. I would think worthiness enters into it only to the extent that you expect others to respect your opinion and act in some way on the basis of it. I don't, and I doubt the majority of participants do, either. As to maleness: several people have pointed out that women are nearly as likely to critique a woman's look as a man is, so I'm not sure that maleness enters into it, either.
You probably mutilated barbies as a child too, didn't you, B?
Erm: because even that criticism takes the framework, that (whoever the impossibly beautiful subject being criticised is) is flawed and less desirable than she could be; and the evaluator isn't ridiculous because he's wrong, he's ridiculous because not only can't he afford anything more valuable than she is, he can't even afford her. She's still a consumer good.
That criticism doesn't argue with the creepy commodification of the woman involved, just mocks the speaker for his comparatively low status.
You're telling me you didn't notice Al apostrophizing the Chief, talking about "the original slow learners"?
I'm sure I would have noticed that, if I watched Deadwood.
Sucks for straight boys, but the fact is you can't do the comparing hot chicks thing without, on some level, sounding like an ass.
Which is why we don't do it around women. See Ogged's comments way upthread. It's a "guy thing". But, you are right, it does get old, even amongst ourselves.
I also personally think that part of what's tiresome about it is that so many supposedly attractive women really look very similar.
This I don't agree with. There's lots of different flavors of attractive women. It's just that certain ones get all the press.
128: If you think these sorts of conversations take place in strange "objective, prescriptive/proscriptive terms," compare it to the other equivalent guy conversations: sports, movies, music, etc. The "objective" arguments about things that are clearly subjective "who's the best guitarist," "what was the best acting job this year," "who is more clutch Papi or Larry Bird," "who was a better center, Shaq or Wilt?" is the hallmark of this sort of guy conversation. I don't do the "hotness" conversation as much, but I sure have been involved in a lot of the other ones, and they always have this tone.
She's still a consumer good.
I'm not really sure to whom you're responding, LB. But this strikes me as pretty much the standard way we discuss almost everything in the US. She is a consumer good. So is he. That, I take it, is the whole point of the romance genre fiction--the shopping and acquiring experience.
158 is a response to 156. 164 looks like a different criticism, which on the surface says that noting flaws in some impossibly beautiful subject is inherently bad. But there must be ways to discuss someone's flaws without commodifying the, right?
But we're all, in part, objects that are looked at. I'd be disturbed if I got the sense that someone couldn't see other people as anything other than objects (or, in the case of serial killers like B, victims), but it's definitely one way of relating and evaluating and talking about people. I've also had discussions about attractiveness that incorporate personality, but again, I think that's a way of talking about personality, not about the people used as examples.
164 wasn't as clear as it should have been, and, you know, while I agree with sj I don't stay up at night worrying about this. Go on assessing women all you like.
But to put 164 in a different way: when you look at some woman, impossibly beautiful or not, and start assessing her based on deviations from THE OBJECTIVE STANDARD OF BEAUTY™, what you're saying is, on some level, no one with a choice would be attracted to her. There's better out there, and she doesn't measure up. You might want her if that was all you could get (and considering who you are, that probably is all you can get) but you are objectively right to be dissatisfied with the prospect.
And that's a fucked up way to look at a person.
(Not saying this is how any of you view real women, not saying it's a huge deal, yes, I have pre-emptively lightened up, but that's why it comes off to me as creepy.)
Tim's worldwearier-than-thou act isn't doing much for me.
the "so and so is hot" conversation is tiresome and annoying.
This, definitely, in the same way that a conversation about who would win a Gandalf-Megatron deathmatch is tiresome and annoying.
I've had these typpes of convos maybe twice in my life. Thrice with this thread, I guess.
You know, celeb blogs have overwhelmingly female readers according to the blogads surevey.
Celeb blogs comments tend to often have a misogynist undercurrent, and be genereally creepy and offputting. Wonder if that's not mostly women too.
But Gandalf would totally win! He's been to hell and back!
a conversation about who would win a Gandalf-Megatron deathmatch is tiresome and annoying
I dunno, that sounds like a pretty awesome discussion.
Before or after Orson Welles ate Megatron?
173: The social and cultural ramifications of widespread objectification of Gandalf and Megatron are probably more limited, though.
And you're crazy. Gandalf would kick Megatron's ass.
Does anyone know much about the Transformers? They seem to be different than from when I was teenager -- much more cosmic interstellar warfare, etc, and it doesn't really work for me. There's something odd about a robot that's fighting plantary-system-spanning battles, and yet camoflauges itself as a Dodge Viper.
Tim's worldwearier-than-thou act isn't doing much for me.
I'm not intending to come across that way. What I'm saying, not well, is that everyone behaves this way, as what appears to be a matter of mechanical fact. We may not all focus on attractiveness, but we all rate people against some "objective" standard when we talk about others, or make decisions about others. I'm not sure what the other option is.
And you're crazy. Gandalf would kick Megatron's ass.
No way. Gandalf would be all, Wait a sec while I deputize some hobbits, and Megatron would shoot him in the head.
159: Yeah, and the so-and-so is pretty thing also goes without saying, but pretty much always gets said, too.
What bugs me about the whole "yeah, like you'd turn her down" thing, though, is that the implication is "well, she's not exactly perfect, but I'll take what I can get." Which is a crappy thing to overhear boys saying about very pretty girls. I mean, who the fuck wants to think, "well, my boyfriend doesn't really think I'm all that, but he'll put up with my obvious failures to look like Rachel Wacholder because hey, I'm the best he can do." But that's the inevitable conclusion one draws from these kinds of discussions. I mean, I look at these pictures of Jessica Biel to see why everyone is saying "wow, what an ass," and I think, yes, it has a nice shape; I wonder if she has cellulite? And if her ass would be considered so magnificent in person, if you could see the cellulite, or if it jiggled too much? I mean, my butt looks fine in clothes, too...
Which is maybe the answer to a question long ago asked about why some guys pride themselves on liking "unattractive" women. Most of the things that are considered unattractive in celebrities, or even in obscure women whose pictures we look at for these discussions, are things that virtually all women have: sag in some places, bulge in others, cellulite, whatever.
And these discussions seldom sound, as LB is saying, like "omg, can you believe how amazingly gorgeous this woman is?" I mean, if you saw someone who looked that polished and well-turned out and flawlessly complected in real life, you'd boggle. But we discuss these things as if in fact these people, who look better than 90-something percent of us, were the average. Partly, no doubt, because we're so bombarded with (edited, airbrushed) images of women who are really astonishingly attractive by any reasonable standard. It's like our scales are all miscalibrated, or something.
Collectively, these conversations seem to imply that the women we actually *know*, who we think, in fact, are extremely beautiful/pretty/cute/whatever, are, at best, only sort of okay.
what you're saying is, on some level, no one with a choice would be attracted to her
I think this is just wrong, LB. See w/d's 158. When I've had these conversations, and I've had a lot of them, there's always the belief, usually made explicit, that everyone being discussed is fabulously beautiful and anyone would thank his lucky stars to be with any of them. Part of the fun is saying that manifestly beautiful people are "ugly," and having your friends say "You're on crack." That's not the point of the exercise, but it's part of the fun. People like to dispute about matters of taste, and they really like to talk about members of the sex to which they're attracted, so....
who would win a Gandalf-Megatron deathmatch
The answer is neither, by the way.
Comments like 184 are just intensely alienating. I don't understand why that's fun at all.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/showdown
That's awesome. But I object to the inclusion of Abraham Lincoln, and the exclusion of George Washington makes the conclusion dubious.
It's a Mexican thing, SJ. You wouldn't understand.
Women judge other women's appearances all the time too; often times much more critically and judgemntally.
This whole, "but women do it too, and they're meaner!" thing is really naive, guys. Of course we do it. We're the objects of it, and so we're sizing each other up constantly: is she prettier than me? Her ass looks funny--what is it about those jeans that causes that? Wow, she has pretty hair--wonder how she gets it to fluff just so? What a pretty girl--is she wearing makeup, or is her skin really like that? God, that bra doesn't fit her--doesn't she know that she's bulging out the top? When you are basically self-conscious about your own appearance most of the time, you're going to be hyperconscious of otoher people's appearance, too. It's like the problem one has, after grad school, of being almost unable to read without a pen in your hand. Once you've learned the task of critically evaluating your own appearance from someone else's point of view, of thinking of yourself in public as an object to be seen, then yeah: that's how you're going to look at everyone else.
Which is probably why women do, often, overreact to these conversations that men have. We're so conscious about our *own* appearance that when we hear you guys assessing someone else (another woman), we assume that you do that to *us* when we're not listening. And jeez, if some of these guys think that that gorgeous Levis girl, who is way more beautiful than I will ever be, isn't all that pretty because she's kinda thin, I wonder what the fuck they think of *me*.
DrB says Collectively, these conversations seem to imply that the women we actually *know*, who we think, in fact, are extremely beautiful/pretty/cute/whatever, are, at best, only sort of okay.
This is flat out untrue... I don't know what I could say to emphasize this more!
Which is maybe the answer to a question long ago asked about why some guys pride themselves on liking "unattractive" women.
"Unattractive" according to some mythical and unattainable ideals? Most of us are attracted to much less "attractive" women than the purported ideal and those of us that "pride ourselves on it" is to assure women we like REAL women better. The airbrushed women are nice to look at, but they're not real and we know it.
Why do women swoon over Brad Pitt or George Clooney? I'm sure they look different, and more real, in real life and wouldn't be seen as any less attractive for it.
Collectively, these conversations seem to imply that the women we actually *know*, who we think, in fact, are extremely beautiful/pretty/cute/whatever, are, at best, only sort of okay.
This is not the intent in the conversations I've had. I think ogged's 184 gets it exactly right.
Just to reinforce the first part of 191: I not infrequently marvel at the attractiveness of women I'm friends with, and wonder if I'd think they're as hot if I didn't know them.
184: It's wrong to you; okay, in good faith, I'll accept that. But I don't think you're understanding what LB is saying, which is that "she's pretty, but. . ." is something that those of us who think of ourselves as being, like her, objects to be assessed, hear as "that woman who is much prettier than anyone I actually know in real life, is still not pretty enough." It's not a question of being "wrong"; that is, in fact, how this sort of conversation comes across, that's the effect of it on women.
Not in and of itself this one single conversation, no; but since convos like this happen constantly and all the time (and obviously *not* just when women aren't around--after all, this convo is public, and as many have pointed out, women do it too. It's not like we're stupid and you're keeping some secret from us), then any one particular instance ends up being--and this sucks for guys, I freely admit; why shouldn't you be able to appreciate pretty women?--another piece of evidence that really, women who look like me and my sisters and my friends are just, yuck.
191: Yeah, but B. isn't talking about what you guys think. She's talking about what (lots of) you say. Often. Constantly. And regardless of your actual beliefs, or even of the contradictory things that you say other times, a lot of what you say is "that impossibly hot woman over there? Objectively, not quite good enough." Which makes us, mildly, nervous and insecure.
Why do women swoon over Brad Pitt or George Clooney? I'm sure they look different, and more real, in real life and wouldn't be seen as any less attractive for it.
Because they're attractive. Women, in our culture, don't put nearly the attention men do into analyzing their sex objects as insufficiently perfect.
190 - Fair point. Hencewhy, most considerate males don't oggle in front of women. But, like somebody said above, it's not just "beauty" that gets judged, so why is judging somebody's appaerance such a horrible thing? If I said "so-so" celebrity is an idiot. He/she doesn't even know who the vice president is, then that's "funny". But, if you say "so-so" celebrity is way too thin (or fat), then you're a sexist pig. How come?
if some of these guys think that that gorgeous Levis girl, who is way more beautiful than I will ever be, isn't all that pretty because she's kinda thin, I wonder what the fuck they think of *me*
Look, I understand this point, but it rests on a fundamental misperception. Guys (at least all the ones I know) use quite different standards in evaluating celebrities and strangers than in evaluating people they know. In conversations to which I've been a party, when people blur this distinction, they're pretty immediately browbeaten, and guys who blur the distinction regularly are bad guys who the rest of us don't hang out with. That's the truth, Ruth.
And again, I really don't think it's even the same kind of evaluation: I think the celebrity talk is about the standard, but the people we know talk is about the people.
Women, in our culture, don't put nearly the attention men do into analyzing their sex objects as insufficiently perfect.
Well, you've only just been put in a position to really do so in the last thirty years. Give yourselves time. Rome wasn't built in a day.
, and guys who blur the distinction regularly are bad guys who the rest of us don't hang out with.
They're not even bad guys; they're sad guys. Fantacists, really, because such blurring just isn't credible.
195 - But, celebritries are 2D to us. We see them on a flat TV, movie, or computer screen. We're judging the beauty they "project" in only 2 dimensions, whereas a woman in real life is 3D and can be much more "attractive" to us than a glitzy image on a screen is. A woman on screen must be 150% better looking than a real life woman that we can see, smell, hear, and know from different angles. Real life women with some cellulite? Hot. Fake 2D woman with cellulite? Not as much. It's not even comparing apples-to-apples.
194 - see my other comment. Why is judging the attribute of "beauty" of females so dammning but judging any other attribite isn't as bad?
197: Like I said, I believe you; but what you don't seem to be acknowledging is that that impression that we get is neither insane nor nice. I mean, we can't read your minds. We don't know that "eh, she's a bit droopy" when applied to Scarlett Johanssen (or whoever) isn't even going to come up when you look at your girlfriend.
In other words, thinking you can make it okay by just *saying* "that's a fundamental misperception, I don't think of you that way, honey, really, you're beautiful!" is, itself, a fundamental misperception. We have feelings, and we're simply not capable (any more than any other human being) of hearing this sort of thing all the time without *feeling* bad, and thinking, "well, he says that he thinks I'm beautiful, but I know I'm nowhere near as beautiful as that woman over there who he thinks is "too" X, Y, or Z, so he's just saying that to make me feel better." Which is a shitty way to feel. I think that the expectation that we should be able to hear this kind of convo constantly without feeling bad is completely unreasonable; it's like expecting us to be some libertarian wet dream of a perfectly rational agent, or something.
But, if you say "so-so" celebrity is way too thin (or fat), then you're a sexist pig. How come?
One reason is that, in the media world we live in, celebrities aren't particularly different from the rest of us on the intellectual axis. Some are smart, some are dumb, some well-informed, some otherwise. So commenting negatively about a celebrity's intellect isn't a sweeping condemnation of the bulk of ordinary people.
On the other hand, women present in the media are wildly, wildly likely to be astonishingly beautiful compared to the average woman. I'm reasonably pretty, but next to anyone who has a job involving standing in front of a camera, I'm incomparably less attractive. When you say (professionally pretty woman X) doesn't meet your standards, you're saying that 95% of the women around you fall hopelessly, abjectly short.
If our media environment focused more on televised high-stakes math games, and you had a habit of sitting in a bar full of high-school graduates saying "Geezus, what a moron," whenever any of the geniuses on TV bobbled a question that neither you nor anyone else in the room would have had a hope in hell of figuring out, they might get a little tense with you as well.
Are we talking this Megatron or the old one?
201: Celebrities are 2D to everyone. But we're not assessing the women under discussion in this thread as celebrities; we're assessing them as women. I'm a woman. I identify with these objects we're assessing on some level. So when you're looking at a 2D object, I'm looking at a representation of someone like me. There's a quality of differentiation there that you can make, but that I can't. I mean, how hard is that to understand?
202: Exactly. Look, I'm not asking you guys to stop, and it's not a central worry in my life. But this sort of conversation does make women listening feel like crap about themselves on some small level, and saying that it shouldn't doesn't change that.
A agree with 197 insofar as it describes intent, but look: even if in one case you are describing "the standard" and in the other you are describing "the people", your critiques of beautiful celebrities for failing to attain "the standard" are going to have he inevitable effect of making "the people" feel that much further away from "the standard". Which makes them insecure, and understandably so.
It is interesting that, as many people have pointed out, girls do this too, but they do it to other women, and not nearly so often about "dreamy" guys. I don't think you hear many conversations where girl [a] says
"[x] is sooo dreamy!" and girl [b] says "No! His shoulders are slightly too narrow. He should really do some more shoulder presses" (especially when talking about a guy who is more fit and muscular, even across the shoulders, than 99% of the male population). Guys say those things about women.
I once sent a certain mysterious coblogger a version of 185 with all the action heroes replaced with the various 'matt' commenters at a certain other blog, who were legion.
Since nobody else seems willing to perform the unsavory but necessary task, I'd just like to take this opportunity to say, "Oh, come on."
Are we talking this Megatron or the old one?
The old one, before penis insecurity turned him into Galvatron.
202 - I don't know, B. Some women, like my wife for instance, are unphased about guys oggling at Playboy models, for example, because they know "they're not real". So, she doesn't compare herself to them and think she's any less. Same for me. I don't look anything like a "male model" but it doesn't phase me one bit (for better or worse). If somebody thinks I'm fat, ugly, and disgusting, then that's THEIR problem, truly. I don't internalize it and say "I'm ugly and worthless because somebody doesn't find me attractive or I don't look like Brad Pitt". Now, in my teens or 20s, I worried about my appearance and what people thought of it, but now in my mid-30s, who gives a fuck, really? Judge me on my character. And, if you still don't like me, then fuck you. That's your problem. :-)
I think that the expectation that we should be able to hear this kind of convo constantly without feeling bad is completely unreasonable
I'm not sure I "expect" anyone not to feel bad, but at some point we all make our peace with not being fantabulousy whatever. The not-nice way to say this is that the people who don't make their peace with it are humorless bitches, if they're women, and macho assholes, if they're men.
I see my comment came way too late, and had already been better-said by the ladies. Oh well, such is life.
Unvarnished statement: what actually feels worst about this conversation to me is that Ogged and TD seem to expect LB and me to understand *their* point of view. Like I'm supposed to put aside the way that these kinds of conversations make me feel in order to empathize with you guys. But I don't see you empathizing with what LB and I are saying; your responses seem to be, if anything, completely incredulous, like it's incomprehensible to you that, as women, we wouldn't just assume (or see as neutral) the idea that *those* women are in a different class than we are, and that therefore we're not supposed to think that how you assess them has anything to do with how you assess us. Um, gee, thanks. It's always comforting to hear that one's in some kind of subcaste junior league.
In googling around for Megatron, why am I not completely shocked to come across this?
Bizarrely, I've often thought it was nice, or at least inoffensive, to say that X celebrity isn't that hot, in front of women I actually know. It's a way of saying, I prefer real life to glossy magazine pictures, and I know that the person in the magazine, like all people, has flaws.
Pointing out the flaws in great detail, I could see how that would be annoying, or insulting, and at the very least, might make the speaker look mean-spirited.
But just to say, "I think that model is too skinny (assuming this is apropos of something, and not just announced)," that could be a way of saying "I prefer real women, and don't particularly enjoy being bombarded with these images." And assuming you didn't, yourself, pick out that image and shove it in someone's face, I don't see why it would necessarily be taken any other way.
Or at least I didn't see how it would be taken any other way previously.
Ogged and TD seem to expect LB and me to understand *their* point of view
Well, yeah. I mean, I love you B, but you're definitely on the "humorless bitch" side of the spectrum; it's not like I don't know other women, and it's not like they wouldn't tell me if they were bothered.
207 - but by your analogy, when I watch a football game, I identify with the players some because I used to play. But, if some bonehead says player X is horrible (no objective measure for this either, just as there isn't for beauty), and when I think to myself I could never run that fast or be that strong or be that good and this person is bashing that player, it doesn't make me feel any less?
I'm not trying to discredit your feelings, believe me. I'm just trying to understand why women internalize this beauty thing so much but they don't other qualities.
you had a habit of sitting in a bar full of high-school graduates saying "Geezus, what a moron," whenever any of the geniuses on TV bobbled a question that neither you nor anyone else in the room would have had a hope in hell of figuring out, they might get a little tense with you as well.
You should go to a sports bar. That's exactly what happens, and everybody understands that when we call Tim Duncan "soft," we mean soft by NBA standards.
Stras, ew. I thought the description in 205 was a joke.
Same for me. I don't look anything like a "male model" but it doesn't phase me one bit (for better or worse). If somebody thinks I'm fat, ugly, and disgusting, then that's THEIR problem, truly. I don't internalize it and say "I'm ugly and worthless because somebody doesn't find me attractive or I don't look like Brad Pitt". Now, in my teens or 20s, I worried about my appearance and what people thought of it, but now in my mid-30s, who gives a fuck, really? Judge me on my character. And, if you still don't like me, then fuck you. That's your problem. :-)
TD, you're a man. And actually, I'm disinclined to accept the testimony of any man w/r/t a woman's state of mind about her attractiveness and her relationship to a beauty standard, even if that woman is his wife. She may not want to discuss certain feelings with you, affect bravado, have grown out of something she felt when she was younger, etc.
To say "I don't let this bother me; that's their problem" in the midst of a conversation that's fundamentally sociological drastically misses the point.
Compare: "If someone calls me nigger/dyke/fag/spic, that's their problem! ;-) "
Humorless bitch? Geez ogged, you might be jeopardizing your chances.
Also, where is the humor here (that B and other humorless bitches are missing)? "Oversensitive" I could see, I guess; "humorless" I don't get at all.
I mean, I love you B, but you're definitely on the "humorless bitch" side of the spectrum; it's not like I don't know other women, and it's not like they wouldn't tell me if they were bothered.
Or it could be that the women you know don't want you to call them humorless bitches.
219 - I hear that stuff, and I wince a little even as I KNOW that I'm prettier than average and that lots of men really and truly love the shapes of the women in their lives. Because would they love me more if I just looked more like her? Which I could maybe do if I stopped eating? Then I remember that I don't want to that bad. But the whole interaction cost me a momentary pang, which I didn't have to have. (It does this to me, and I'm more confident than most.)
215: But nonetheless appreciated.
213, 214: Oh, come on. It's not that we're getting cranky about recognizing that we're imperfect next to the professionally pretty people. It's that we're getting cranky about endless conversations about how professionally pretty women are not good enough, whether or not we're supposed to remember that we don't get graded on the same scale that they are.
216: Yep. With this kind of reaction, is it any wonder that TD's wife is 'absolutely unfazed' by this sort of thing? Oh, she might be, but obviously she wouldn't get a lot of sympathy if she brought it up.
DrB, what 218 said for one.
As for "Ogged and TD seem to expect LB and me to understand *their* point of view"
I apologize for this. I guess in some, dillusional way I'm trying to help you not internalize this beauty issue so much (and, recall I've seen your picture. I know you're very good looking). And I am sympathetic to what you and LB are saying, really. If emoticons were allowded, you'd know that. It's just not coming across very well since I'm trying to hit the topic head-on.
I would like a t-shirt that says "Humorless Bitch", because in this, as in other matters, I am a humorless bitch.
I love you B, but you're definitely on the "humorless bitch" side of the spectrum; it's not like I don't know other women, and it's not like they wouldn't tell me if they were bothered.
In all honesty, that hurts. I play along with this shit all the time; I join in on the hot or not threads, I'm not particularly threatened by the idea that Scarlett Johanssen is gorgeous, I agree that Jessica Biel has a fabulous butt and that the Levis girl is very pretty indeed. I'm not sitting here saying, "god, but she's so skinny."
What I am doing is saying, okay; if we meet you halfway, if we concede (as LB has repeatedly done) that it's perfectly okay for you guys to play the "hot or not" game, if we play along (as I've repeatedly done) or laugh when it comes up, why can't you meet us halfway and acknowledge that we're not, in fact, being "humorless bitches" by asking that, in response, you recognize that on some level this kind of thing makes us feel bad? We're not even saying don't play the game; we're just saying throw us a bone and admit that it's not the most innocent or fair game in town.
I can't speak for your other women friends or what they're thinking. I don't know them. I do know that it's a lot harder for me to say this kind of thing in person than it is on a computer screen. And that I might not say this kind of thing in person if I thought that the person I were saying it to, who I really liked, would think I were a humorless bitch if I did.
Or it could be that the women you know don't want you to call them humorless bitches.
Or to slap them around. Yeah.
You are so Isle of Toads.
I'm just trying to understand why women internalize this beauty thing so much but they don't other qualities.
Women, much more than men, are taught that their worth as human beings depends heavily on how attractive they are. I read a poll once in which some obscene percentage of women (a majority) said they'd rather be dumb than fat. I can't remember the source; it might have been from a women's mag, which would bias the sample a little.
In other other matters, I am a humorful bitch. Let us all acknowledge that the oggedian position is untenable, and turn to other matters.
223 - Compare: "If someone calls me nigger/dyke/fag/spic, that's their problem! ;-) "
On some level, yes. If you're interested in peace of mind, you have to know you can't change some people who don't want changed.
231: Ogged, why is your only comeback to accuse me of being another commenter? You've done this, what, four or five times by now?
we're just saying throw us a bone and admit that it's not the most innocent or fair game in town
I totally admit this, as long as it's not attached to a "therefore you must stop." Also, Megan's "momentary pang" is noted. I think that's true. I think guys feel that too when celebrity dudes are said to be hot. Yeah, absolutely, these conversations make people just a bit more insecure. But, well, I like 'em.
And apologies for hurting your feelings. I didn't, in fact, call you a humorless bitch, and I don't think you are, but you are more sensitive to this stuff than most of the women I know, and I said that in a too-dramatic way.
I'm not sure I "expect" anyone not to feel bad, but at some point we all make our peace with not being fantabulousy whatever.
Don't buy that. None of us ever make peace with it; we just get too tired to care.
Ogged, why is your only comeback to accuse me of being another commenter?
Because IOT was so hostile to me that it had become a joke; I couldn't take the criticism seriously anymore.
the oggedian position is untenable
Ogged is missing a rib. He can assume positions the rest of us can't.
234: So if you ran into a bunch of people complaining about being the subject of racial and homophobic slurs on the internet, you would a) ask them why it bothered them so much and b) encourage them not to be bothered, because it wasn't their problem? That would be their response?
That's pretty apolitical, and it's pretty inadequate to say we should all just worry about ourselves. Of course, we should worry about ourselves, but we should also worry about society, and the way words and actions affect us and other people. Cheerfully deciding we don't care doesn't do anything for others, first of all, and on some level, it doesn't do anything for us on the level that we will always care.
Ogged, why is your only comeback to accuse me of being another commenter?
"Only" is bizarre, has ogged not attempted to engage anything you've said in this thread? Also, it's not clear how it's an accusation in any conventional sense. Finally, because it's funny.
That would be their response?
"their" s/b "your"
Because IOT was so hostile to me that it had become a joke
How much hostility towards you - as opposed to some idea or other you happen to be espousing at any given time - have I demonstrated? Every time you pull off this "you're so-and-so" nonsense it just strikes me as deeply paranoid and touchy, as if there's no reason someone could disagree with you unless they were secretly out to get you.
some obscene percentage of women (a majority) said they'd rather be dumb than fat
What's wrong with believing that? I think I might believe that, depending on what we mean by "dumb" and "fat."
228: I don't want you to help me. I want you to hear to what I am saying.
224: Actually no. I loved Ogged too; otherwise I wouldn't be bothered.
229: Dear god, I love SB so much.
231: Or maybe it's that the women you know have a little bit of Stockholm syndrome and would argue to the grave that this kind of thing doesn't bother them one whit. But really, does any man who is close to a woman think that she *never* worries that she's too fat/too thin/too out of shape/too whatever? Do none of the women you know who you think are really beautiful *ever* say, "oh no, I'm not; my nose is too big/I need to get in shape/I've got cellulite/I'm too short"?
I'm just trying to understand why women internalize this beauty thing so much but they don't other qualities.
Because other people are freaks about it. When my weight swung by twenty pounds twice a year (for nationals in the fall and states in the spring) I could tell my weight as accurately by the way people treated me as by weighing myself. When people thought I was prettier, they wanted to talk to me and clerks gave me free shit and people waved me to the front of the line. Teachers thought I was smarter. My perceived value was inarguably higher when I was thinner and prettier.
No, SJ, I engage your points when you engage mine, but when you say something uncharitable, like your 225, it makes me wonder. Mainly, if you are Isle of Toads, I just wish you'd admit it, so I can stop wondering.
227 - 216: Yep. With this kind of reaction, is it any wonder that TD's wife is 'absolutely unfazed' by this sort of thing? Oh, she might be, but obviously she wouldn't get a lot of sympathy if she brought it up.
Untrue. You're making an assumption that I'm some insensitive ogre who doesn't care about my wife's feelings. Definitely not true. Truth be told, it's always been me who felt "guilty" looking at Playboy or porn because I didn't want her to have the precise feelings you ladies are expressing. But, over time, I finally believed her when she said it doesn't phase her. The fact that she was raised by her DAD instead of her mom, and had a brother with lots of friends (and no sisters) no doubt caused her to be de-sensitized.
So, again, I'm not trying to discredit your feelings. I'm just trying to figure out where they stem from (which is now pretty clear) and if there's no hope of more women not taking it personally?
I don't want you to help me. I want you to hear to what I am saying.
This is such A Deborah Tannen moment.
So if you ran into a bunch of people complaining about being the subject of racial and homophobic slurs on the internet, you would a) ask them why it bothered them so much and b) encourage them not to be bothered, because it wasn't their problem? That would be their response?
Cripes, I hate this move. Slurs are, in fact, meant as "slurs." Discussions of attractiveness are something different. I assume we all felt there was a difference between the "humourless bitch" reference and discussions of a celebrities attractiveness.
clerks gave me free shit
Oh man, when I was dating the crazy blonde (who had been a ballet prodigy and still retained that build, and was indeed very, very pretty), I was amazed by the amount of stuff people just handed to her to free. Really, all the time.
236: Ogged, you're setting up a straw man. No one has said you ought not have these conversations here. LB specifically said multiple times that you're perfectly entitled and she doesn't mind that much. Neither do I.
And I do appreciate both the acknowledgement of the effect of such convos, and the apology. The former was all I wanted; the latter was completely unnecessary, but thank you.
(In all honesty, I think I'm way less sensitive to this stuff that most women. I actually think that I am attractive, and I've never so much as considered dieting. I think I am, perhaps *because* I'm not terribly sensitive about my appearance, maybe more honest than some about how this stuff feels.)
Or maybe it's that the women you know have a little bit of Stockholm syndrome and would argue to the grave that this kind of thing doesn't bother them one whit.
No no, nothing like that. I've had girlfriends who reacted much more angrily than you ever have. Those are humorless bitches. I've had girlfriends who joined in, but also made it clear that there was a limit to how much they wanted to hear about how hot other women were, and that's perfectly reasonable. And I've had girlfriends who rolled their eyes, which sends a pretty clear "ok, but watch yourself" message; also totally reasonable.
but when you say something uncharitable, like your 225, it makes me wonder
I was responding to the use of "humorless bitch," which I found pretty ucharitable myself.
Mainly, if you are Isle of Toads, I just wish you'd admit it, so I can stop wondering
I've said I'm not, haven't I? I'm pretty sure I said I wasn't the first time you asked, which is why the persistent linking of me to a previous commenter is decidedly paranoid and unfriendly. As far as I can tell, the only linkage you've suggested is (1) a perceived hostility towards you and (2) the notion that "jones" sorta, kinda rhymes with "toads," which I think is kind of a stretch.
No one has said you ought not have these conversations here.
Ok, true, but calling them "creepy" might have a chilling effect, no?
recall I've seen your picture
Jesus, where's everyone seeing everyone else's picture all of a sudden? And why don't I get to see any?
I've said I'm not, haven't I?
But IOT was so hostile that I'm sure he'd lie!
persistent linking of me to a previous commenter is decidedly paranoid and unfriendly
Ok, you're right, I'll stop. Unless you make me mad, in which case it'll be right back in with the IOT stuff.
Ok, true, but calling them "creepy" might have a chilling effect, no?
As a compromise, I propose you post the hot-or-not threads to the Being and Time blog.
Ok, true, but calling them "creepy" might have a chilling effect, no?
That seems like a stretch as an argument, ogged. And I like your ass.
I've said I'm not, haven't I?
That's *exactly* what Isle of Toads would say!
To be fair, I pretty much implied, if not outright said, that these sorts of conversations were Bad and should Stop.
253: Okay, so your girlfriends pretty much were all bothered by this sort of thing. Does it bother you, at all, to realize that on some level by playing the hot or not game, you're making women just like your girlfriends feel kinda bad? That someone else's hot or not game made women you loved feel bad?
(That said, I do not, personally, expect people to try to achieve moral perfection.)
For the record, guys, the "humorless bitch" thing was meant as a joke, and I know it, and I knew it then. If you're objecting to it on your own behalf, fine; if you're doing so on mine, there's no need.
By the way, I think calling them hot-or-not threads is unfair, as they're usually is-so-hot threads.
Calling them "creepy" might have a chilling effect. I think you're man enough to deal with a little chill, if LB and I are woman enough to deal with worrying about our flabby asses. Deal?
161: Yeah, but you're in college, and we should discount for that.
Cripes, I hate this move. Slurs are, in fact, meant as "slurs." Discussions of attractiveness are something different. I assume we all felt there was a difference between the "humourless bitch" reference and discussions of a celebrities attractiveness.
SCMT, you're missing my point. My point is not that the content of the two categories of statement is the same. My point is that "don't worry about what other people think" is an inadequate response to someone who's saying that something bothers them, if that thing is part of a larger social phenomenon. So I took a more extreme example to show that this response is, in fact, inadequate.
is-so-hot threads
Being-so-hot threads.
246: You know her. I don't.
if there's no hope of more women not taking it personally?
Really, no.
And ogged?
didn't, in fact, call you a humorless bitch, and I don't think you are, but you are more sensitive to this stuff than most of the women I know
Or more willing to take the shit you get for bringing it up?
To start a fight, I was reading Pandagon the other day (ooo, scary mean feminists), and Marcotte made a point about the "Strong, secure women don't mind being badly treated by men. They walk away, or fight back, but they don't let ill-treatment bother them, because they're fiercely independent" thing as an idea that makes it harder for women to protest sexism.
Sure. If I were a truly autonomous individual, having a hard time finding comfortable shoes, and being told that someone infinitely more beautiful than I am doesn't measure up to the standard of beauty, and getting called a humorless bitch, all in fun, for talking about it, wouldn't bother me. A stronger person, perhaps more truly feminist than I, would sail on unworried by pitiful social norms. Admitting that this stuff gets to me at all is a confession of weakness.
Fine. I'm weak. I'm a snivelling whiner who wants to take all the fun out of your life by not being willing to hide the fact that this bothers me, and not being strong enough to be genuinely unbothered by it. But it still does bother me some.
264: Gah! I knew it was coming, and still: Gah!
Does it bother you, at all, to realize that on some level by playing the hot or not game, you're making women just like your girlfriends feel kinda bad?
Sure it does, and it bothers me when I do it in front of my girlfriends, but not enough that I think I should stop; it's just too much what's on my mind, and what seems to be on the mind of a lot of people that I talk to. So we keep it in check, depending on where we are, but I don't want to act like it's a secret.
But.. but... Unfogged is where I go to see people flirting with creepiness -- I read these threads and it seems to me like people are being pretty uninhibited and adopting poses they would not strike in their normal consciousness, to see what it feels like and critique themselves and the poses. And remarking about how the pose is a little creepy is totally part of that discussion, I don't see how it would be perceived as censorship. But I guess different people are relating to Unfogged differently -- I had sort of been assuming you folks were all in for to a greater or lesser degree similar reasons.
Um, while I was writing that, the conversation cooled down some. I feel moderately silly now.
245 - I do hear you, really. Again, I don't discredit your, or any other woman's, feelings. I'm just curious to understand more why they happen compared to other attributes. It's really sad to me.
246 - so beauty is cool when it works in your favor but otherwise not? Guys get judged based on how much money we have or don't, right? A guy that wears expensive clothes gets treated much better than a guy that doesn't. So, how come we don't get offended if a woman comments on how rich Donald Trump is? On some level, the fact that she is attracted to money is attractive to us because it's something we can strive, compete, or achieve for, and we think she has high standards. But, if that's all she cares about, then we brand her shallow and very unattractive (no matter what her "beauty" rating is on the collective social beauty scale). So, I can see how guys that incessantly comment on women's looks or care about that above all else, including their intellect, that that could be seen as pitiful. But, as somebody said above, this is "sad". Why should you care what a loser like that says?
I don't mean that people shouldn't say that it's creepy, or even that it should stop, just that I disagree.
Proposed rollover text: "Unfogged: An eclectic web magazine which flirts with creepiness"
TD, didn't we just have that discussion in another thread?
So, how come we don't get offended if a woman comments on how rich Donald Trump is? On some level, the fact that she is attracted to money is attractive to us because it's something we can strive, compete, or achieve for, and we think she has high standards.
Because THERE ARE NO FREAKING CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOW HOT DONALD TRUMP'S MONEY MAKES HIM. There particularly aren't any conversations about how Trump doesn't have quite enough money -- he just doesn't measure up to the smoking hotness of Bill Gates. No women talk about this. Ever.
You know who's fat? David Ortiz.
Take that, baa!
280: Hey, the man has an irregular heartbeat. Ease up.
the man has an irregular heartbeat
And cancer.
Ya know, Matt Damon's in danger of losing his neck if he keeps lifting those weights. He's lunkheadedly fratboy-looking already, and he really shouldn't push it any further.
And, hey, Johnny Depp! Yes, you're very very pretty, and I appreciate that you diet to keep up your teenaged-waif image, but you've really got to start working out a bit more seriously because those pirate pants make your ass look all kinds of saggy. Watch out for that old-man ass, Johnny!
Oh, Vince mother-fucking Vaughn? There's a limit to how sexy hungover eyes can look, and it's usually about thirty, thirty-five years old. And lose some weight already! You're just starting to look tubby, man! (And, no, working out your pecs doesn't compensate for your pillowing belly. Thanks for asking.)
Leonardo! That gangly-legged thing isn't working so well for you, now that you have jowls. What the fuck is up with that? You're Orson Welles above the neck and Jimmy Stewart below the neck. Do try to age uniformly, you're giving us girls whiplash looking you up and down.
Orlando Bloom, the ditz from Down Under? Yes, dear, you have a chin. Now put it away and start acting with some other part of your body. As for the rest of him, meh. Seen one skate-rat surfer-boy, seen 'em all.
See, JM's 283 just makes me feel better. Now, if she were going on about how hot those guys were, because of their cheekbones or whatever, I'd probably feel insecure. I guess that's a point against the is-so-hot threads, but so it goes.
Women: "Those types of conversations show what you're thinking, and makes us feel bad."
Guys: "But that's not what we're thinking when we have these conversations."
Women: "Maybe, maybe not, but we're going to be hurt anyways."
In other news, big shout out to Apo for that link in #104.
I find these attractiveness threads kind of weird.
I personally don't see the great value of attractiveness, except insofar as it helps get a person laid. Ask yourself: am I able to attract people that I myself am attracted to? If the answer is "yes," then I don't see what the problem is. Unless you think your partner is lying to you or "settling", which would indeed suck rocks.
(though on preview I see that attractive women get free things in stores. Which is I guess would be nice.)
When I think about the people I know with what I consider to be good lives, or who are much loved, or successful, they often aren't the most attractive people I know. So what's the value of attractiveness? Sure, a bunch of yobbos on a blog might discuss you and drive a a lot of traffic to your Flickr account, but other than that?
284: You know, how you react to someone turning the tables for a moment doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. The problem is the steady drumbeat, not each individual insult.
My point is that "don't worry about what other people think" is an inadequate response to someone who's saying that something bothers them, if that thing is part of a larger social phenomenon.
Yeah, I agree with that point. I guess part of what's curious to me about this discussion is that, IIRC, most of the recent "she's-so-hot" threads turn into something else fairly quickly. Absent some disagreement, there's not much to say. So w/d brings up spousal privilege, or the conversation turns to male-female interpersonal relationships around this subject. Or we make fun of ogged.
276: But you admitted upthread that you acknowledge that it's upsetting to women? How is that not creepy *from the point of view of women*?
I think we're getting hung up on the question of whether X or Y statement is objectively true, or simply representing one person's viewpoint. Do you mean, you disagree that it's creepy as a matter of fact, or that you disagree that it's creepy as a matter of opinion?
Women: "Those types of conversations show what you're thinking, and makes us feel bad."
Guys: "But that's not what we're thinking when we have these conversations."
Women: "Maybe, maybe not, but we're going to be hurt anyways."
Women: "Hey, smacking me like that hurts!"
Guys: "I don't mean to hurt you when I smack you. The goal isn't to cause pain, I just do it because I find it satisfying."
Women: "But it really does still hurt."
Oh, I certainly wouldn't kick Johnny Depp out of bed, despite his sagging ass.
how you react to someone turning the tables for a moment doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot
That's not how I meant it; I was just interested that her dissing celebs made me feel better, but praising them makes me feel insecure. Instead of staring with "See," I probably should have started with "Interestingly" or some such.
283: It's true, Leonardo does have jowls. Disturbing.
293: But LB's point is that it doesn't make you feel as bad b/c you're not subject to it basically 24/7 in the same way we are.
you admitted upthread that you acknowledge that it's upsetting to women? How is that not creepy *from the point of view of women*?
Just because I don't think "upsetting" and "creepy" are the same.
Okay, then you should make it clear that you're disagreeing with the word choice rather than the more general sentiment behind the word choice, which I think is that convos like this are, on some level, bothersome.
274 -246 - so beauty is cool when it works in your favor but otherwise not?
I hope not. I try to dissociate myself from it whether I'm looking good or bad, which changes periodically.
So, I can see how guys that incessantly comment on women's looks or care about that above all else, including their intellect, that that could be seen as pitiful. But, as somebody said above, this is "sad". Why should you care what a loser like that says?
Because losers comment about it incessantly and great guys comment about it from time to time, so I hear it fairly often. Each time I hear it, it burns a small measure of confidence to remember that I don't care.
But LB's point is that it doesn't make you feel as bad b/c you're not subject to it basically 24/7 in the same way we are
Yeah, I get that, I was just interested in the other distinction for a moment.
Oh, Vince mother-fucking Vaughn? There's a limit to how sexy hungover eyes can look, and it's usually about thirty, thirty-five years old. And lose some weight already! You're just starting to look tubby, man! (And, no, working out your pecs doesn't compensate for your pillowing belly. Thanks for asking.
Cripes, is this true. I can barely look at him in movies anymore. Total shame.
I don't want you to help me. I want you to hear to what I am saying.
I too, have thirsted.
Yeah, Vince looks downright unhealthy sometimes. Somebody take that man on a run!
I was just interested that her dissing celebs made me feel better, but praising them makes me feel insecure.
Yeah. What's going on there is that you haven't heard pretty male celebs described as defining a norm of male attractiveness. There are pretty male actors, and ugly male actors, and all sorts of normal looking men in the media, and we don't spend a lot of time, comparatively, discussing their appearance.
So complimenting a very pretty man reminds you that you aren't in the top eighth of a percent of male prettiness in the universe. A minor ego hit. Insulting a very pretty man just doesn't make sense, because you haven't been trained to accept him as just barely (or not quite) achieving the objective standard of prettiness -- without that objective standard baseline, it doesn't work.
299: It is an interesting distinction. Although, of course, there are times when women *do* feel better about tearing down other women, especially celebrities. But I'd argue that this doesn't mean that the constant drumbeat--which is part of why one feels better about other people's failures sometimes--isn't, on the whole, more damaging than not.
One of the things I like and envy about men is their ability not to worry about this sort of thing. Even though I resent and object to that ability, as well, at least when it's asserted as a norm to which women should aspire or a right that men have to dismiss the fact that women as a class don't have the same freedom.
I also question Vince's taste in women.
I get what can be really offensive about these kinds of conversation, but I guess I would put it differently. So often these fault-finding expeditions are simply transparent exercises in misogyny -- guys who resent women for failing to give them that to which they feel entitled respond by trying to make all women feel physically inadequate and ashamed. I really don't detect any of that here, though. Maybe there's just no way to take the cruelty out of it this kind of talk.
Here's the thing. Un
In support of LB's 303, I think Vince Vaughan is hot. I kind of like his tubbiness and general air of suboptimal health. It's interesting.
The "constant drumbeat" of criticizing the looks of famous (or not-famous) women looks comes both from envious men and from envious women. I've certainly heard a lot more from women in my life.
You shouldn't criticize men in general for it; you should criticize everyone in the world who isn't you.
I submit that washboard abs are a beauty norm just as well established as any norms for women. If you went on about paunchy male celebs, all the guys here would wince a little.
Ned, we've dealt with why women do it upthread. And I don't think anyone here has, in fact, criticized "men in general," like, ever.
305: That's so wrong.
It's weird, because Vince is one of the few Man-sized men in Hollywood. I expected him to be a very big star, but he's clearly fallen into the sidekick slot. I don't know if the weight preceded the fall, or is a result of the fall.
309, by the way, isn't meant as a play in misery poker, I'm just musing here.
Johnny Depp is the objective standard of masculine prettiness, which is why I'm so concerned about his ass.
And David Bowie, lovely David Bowie, aging so well otherwise, what the hell did you do to your teeth? Are those dentures? Implants? I never thought I'd have to say it, Ziggy, but this shows a failure of aesthetic imagination on your part.
305: That's so wrong.
That's your way of saying it made you laugh, right? See, I speak Guy.
307: Ugh. You are part of the problem, B. And I say that as someone who is much, much less attractive than Vince, even in his current condition.
Vince Vaughn is as fat as a bath toy. He's got pasty skin, a wino's paunch and encircled eyes, and sorry, his hairline is receding. A woman with an analogous physical deficiencies would never be considered a sex symbol. She'd have a hard time even breaking into the movies. But Vince Vaughn? His looks are considered to be fine, which is all that is expected or required of a man.
309: No. Because Vince Vaughn is, by the standards of our society, 'good enough'. He can be in movies, he can be in movies where he has sex with hot women. If you look as good as Vince Vaughn, you're acceptable. Your looks may not be your strong point, but you're okay.
If any of these women you critique puts on ten pounds, she stops working and disappears -- she's too hideous to be seen.
Look, there are bigger things to worry about, but insisting that guys have it just as hard (or, you know, anything like as hard) on this dimension is nonsense.
Vince Vaughn is as fat as a bath toy. He's got pasty skin, a wino's paunch and encircled eyes, and sorry, his hairline is receding. A woman with analogous physical deficiencies would never be considered a sex symbol. She'd have a hard time even breaking into the movies. But Vince Vaughn? His looks are considered to be fine, which is all that is expected or required of a man.
I think Vince Vaughan is hot. I kind of like his tubbiness and general air of suboptimal health. It's interesting.
I would say, "oh, ack, you're welcome to him," but then I remember that he's making buckets of money, which is of course always +10 attractive points.
I kind of like his tubbiness and general air of suboptimal health.
Then I would make your knees go weak, B.
279 - ok, then that begs the question of why is it so common for too many people to think how "hot" (whether it's beauty = hot or attribute X = hot) somebody is matters to their overall social value? Actually, this is very true when you're 15, but not when you're 35. Anyway, somebody might be attractive or "hot" because they possess attribute X, but when you aggregate all their qualities across the board, they're really not overall? It's like somebody can be attractive or charming (male or female) and still be a major loser. So, I'm not understanding why physical attractiveness is being considered here to be so highly correlated with perceived social value? Surely, other qualities matter much, much more after you know somebody longer than 15 minutes.
284 - I agree with Ogged!
298 - good comment. I like that.
304 - good comment as well. And, once more, I feel sorry for this being the case in our society.
307 - because yu see him as more "real"? Like when we say we like seeing women on screen with some real curves?
314 - Johnny Depp is the objective standard of masculine prettiness? Really? He's so narrow.
Seriously, though: don't we all agree that with the exception of the inhumanly gorgeous Johnny Depp, character actors are usually more attractive than the leading men types?
And really, isn't part of why we all love Johnny so much that he actually pursues character-type roles rather than being oh, say, Orlando Bloom?
Please stop saying this. Not helping.
But, clearly, there are male stars in Hollywood who should not be considered attractive yet are. There are similar women, but, off the top of my head, most of them are simply women who have aged remarkably well. I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
324 - not according to 279. Women never say that. ;-)
I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
Funny, that.
326: Because how physically attractive a woman is does impact her social value. This isn't just something we choose to care about or not, TD, and your continually saying that we should just not worry about it is annoying.
328 - I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
328 was to 318. And I agree, LB. The only exception I can think of is Rosalind Russell.
I think Vince Vaughan is hot. I kind of like his tubbiness and general air of suboptimal health.
Woohoo!
I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
I'm sorry, but that's totally wrong. If you want to see a show cast with standard beauties, watch Entourage. It's totally disorienting, because almost every woman on that show is a standard beauty. Most actresses are pretty or cute, but definitely quirky in lots of normal ways. Again, I'm making a minor correction here, not claiming that there aren't stringent beauty standards for actresses, or that those standards aren't much more stringent than the standards for men.
I'd probably sooner cut off an arm than sleep with Donald Trump, if that helps people calculate. If there really were no other option, I might even cut off my own arm.
316 is exactly right. We need to eliminate this terrible double standard by getting rid of all remotely unattractive leading men and adding some good character-actor women to the Hollywood payrolls.
I refuse to allow any guy with a body worse than Brad Pitt in Fight Club to be sold to me as a sex object, and it's about damn time that women helped me out in this.
I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
Well of course there's the rather chubby young Elizabeth Taylor...
279 - ok, then that begs the question of why is it so common for too many people to think how "hot" (whether it's beauty = hot or attribute X = hot) somebody is matters to their overall social value? Actually, this is very true when you're 15, but not when you're 35. Anyway, somebody might be attractive or "hot" because they possess attribute X, but when you aggregate all their qualities across the board, they're really not overall? It's like somebody can be attractive or charming (male or female) and still be a major loser. So, I'm not understanding why physical attractiveness is being considered here to be so highly correlated with perceived social value? Surely, other qualities matter much, much more after you know somebody longer than 15 minutes.
TD, this is muddled. Everyone here knows there are more important things than being attractive, except Ogged, I guess, because he'd rather be dumb than fat. However, on a visceral level, women deeply value feeling attractive because we are taught that that's the most important thing about us. This is not the only thing we are ever taught; some people make efforts to tell us the opposite, but in magazine pages, on television commercials, in children's books that describe the appearance and attractiveness of little girls more frequently than little boys, in the different ways we are treated when we dress different ways, there are extremely powerful messages telling us we're nothing if we aren't pretty. Do you not understand that this happens? Or are you saying it shouldn't? Or that we should just not be bothered by it.
As I've said before, the third response is inadequate.
I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
Actually, now that I think of it, you see something like this quite a bit on TV these days. I'm not sure it's non-standard beauty, but there are a lot of shows on which the less pretty person is the object of fan-devotion. Alyson Hannigan springs to mind. A little bit, Veronica Mars. And Cloe on Smallville. It's not quite the same thing, but it's something similar.
Oh, come on, people. Sarah Jessica Parker, for one. So non-standard that she isn't pretty at all. Joan Cusack. I can name more.
I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking.
You have to go back to the seventies to answer this. Sissy Spacek. Shelley Duvall. Lily Tomlin was cast as John Travolta's love interest in some movie whose name I forget and I'm too lazy to Google.
331 - I can't debate that with you because you're too good, but grant me at least that it matters more in some professions (i.e. celebrities where their appearance is their livelihood) than it does in others (i.e. business executive). That is, while being attractive might help a woman in business (as it does a man), it's not nearly as important as other attributes.
and your continually saying that we should just not worry about it is annoying.
If I said I felt upset that you keep calling me annoying would it matter to you? I'm not telling you to just stop worring about it (you can't help it if that's how you feel, right?) I'm trying to agree it's "wrong" that this even happens to women (in a rounadabout, bumbling way).
The "dumb vs. fat" question is just more interesting than y'all are admitting.
I think I should point out that 338 is not really sarcastic. If people are being payed to be pretty, I think they should be unbelievable, especially given the amount they are paid. If people are being paid to act, well, that's another story and attractiveness is a much lower consideration.
Admittedly female beauty is considered overly important by society as a whole, but I think it's almost as terrible that guys get cut so much slack. Male hotness should be objectified on more than Abercrombie & Fitch billboards and gay-oriented advertising.
Sonja Sohn, as Greggs. I agree that her acting could use some work, and I haven't seen her post-Wire career take off. But, hey, I was thinking about ogged's post as I saw another Season 1 episode with my recent convert last night.
340 - Do you not understand that this happens? Or are you saying it shouldn't? Or that we should just not be bothered by it.
I understand it happens and I'm unequivocally saying it shouldn't!
I wish the 3rd were true also, but apparantly me expressing this wish, along with challenging, exactly, why the feelings arise, is "annoying" to some.
Apo, all you're doing is finding the exceptions that prove the rule. The more so as you've asserted that SJP isn't pretty at all. Come on.
Jesus, apo. You can say that Sarah Jessica Parker is unappealing to you, but to say that she's not still very, very pretty is nuts.
You guys are looking at minor variations within the rigid standards of "very, very, prettiness" and calling that quirky. Sure, whatever. But it's entirely different from the laxness of the standards that allows Vince Vaughn to be a star.
I've met a bunch of you. I can think of a couple of candidates for 'better looking than Vince Vaughn. If a Hollywood casting director were picking for straight attractiveness, you'd get the part over VV.' Of the women reading the blog, I would bet you my next paycheck (not a serious bet, given that there's no way to check the outcome) that no one would get a part as more attractive, by Hollywood standards, than SJP.
Character-actor is one of those old Hollywood categories I'd be happy to see the end of, frankly.
you've asserted that SJP isn't pretty at all. Come on
Not to get into another one of these, but she's not, and I defy you to find a guy who thinks she is.
There are dozens of big name actresses who are non-standard beauties. Do you really want us to try and name them?
The "dumb vs. fat" question is just more interesting than y'all are admitting.
I recently argued with a friend about whether it would be better to be beautiful or funny. I was arguing for funny, on the grounds that beauty is only temporary but funny is forever, Steve Martin's career notwithstanding.
The "dumb vs. fat" question is just more interesting than y'all are admitting.
Not on this blog. On a bet, everyone here would rather overhear someone that they respected call them unattractive than stupid. 95% of the threads are paens to various types of intelligence, usually verbal. It's the first thing lurkers admit to worrying about. Or the second, where the first is w-lfs-n.
351--Don't say this. In my mind all of the unfogged women are ridiculously hott--like, crazy supermodel hott.
to say that she's not still very, very pretty is nuts.
I don't know a single guy who finds her pretty. Nice body, sure, but pretty? Only other women seem to find her pretty. Here's my criterion: would she stand out in my office? No, she wouldn't.
349: I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings by calling you annoying. But it's frustrating that you're trying to figure out why women's appearance matters when the answer to that is obvious. Women's appearance matters because sexism exists. Your musing on how illogical it all is is beside the point; of course it's illogical. Nonetheless, it is true.
I don't know that I would trade an additional 20 lbs. for 10 more IQ points, but I know for certain I wouldn't accept a reduction.
I've met a bunch of you...
In my mind all of the unfogged women are...
Yeah, no fair referring to those incidental emanations of our 47 year-old balding selves.
Nice body, sure, but pretty?
It's a damn close to perfect body. That's the point, apo. You can look at someone who is that close to flawless and say, eh, her face doesn't do it for me -- of course her body's perfect, it's in the rules that I never have to look at a woman who isn't flawless.
353 - Not to get into another one of these, but she's not, and I defy you to find a guy who thinks she is.
I'm with Ogged on this one as well. She's not at all. To me she's a "character actress" not a "hot actress".
... but this is not saying anything about her overall likebality or value as a person or even the attractiveness (nor espeically overall value) of anybody that even remotely looks like her...
361 con't:
That is, represented in the media.
It's a damn close to perfect body.
Sorry, also silly. Don't know any guys who would agree with that either. Seriously, pick another example; she's like the paradigmatic "big star we all know is fugly" person.
I don't know a single guy who finds her pretty. Nice body, sure, but pretty? Only other women seem to find her pretty.
The 2nd sentence is precisely the key. A nice face is vital to a woman actually being pretty or beautiful or anything apart from "she has a great body". Sarah Jessica Parker's face is just mediocre in my opinion, though she's not losing any sleep over that.
That's the point, apo.
No, it isn't the point, LB. Pretty is a wholly separate category from nice body. Pretty is from the neck up.
"big star we all know is fugly"
Don't buy that. She's not great looking, maybe, but she's not ugly. Look, ogged, sucks to be you, but the women are right on this. I can't think of a single tubby female that gets treated as a sex object.
I think things are changing, but unfortunately, they're changing to be harsher: now men really are starting to be scrutinized for their weight, etc.
I think SJP is pretty--but I'm pretty expansive with that word. One very nice feature (e.g., SJP's eyes) and everything else acceptable, and I'll often say pretty.
Oh for god's sake, boys. If SJP is "fugly," then I don't see how you can argue that you're not holding completely unreasonable standards of beauty. Gosh, she has a long face and an underbite. How hideous.
The main exception among young actresses is Kate Winslet, especially because she often appears naked despite having a very non-Hollywood body. But the story of her whole career has been about how she's an exception, how she has struggled to be judged on talent, to expand notions of attractiveness, and of how as much as she tries to buck the system, at some points she just has to diet to get work.
Similarly, Brad Pitt has--well, had--a pretty good body, and his bone structure is good enough--when well-lit, you know--but, seriously, what's up with his skin? I mean, sure, if he were a real person I knew, I'd probably think him hot enough and to spare, but as an actor, with those acne scars? Seriously, if the dermatologist can't fix that...well, I'm just amazed he managed to scrape up those heartthrob roles. It doesn't surprise me at all that he's been working with arty directors, where he doesn't get shunted into character-actor roles. Because, really, that skin?
370: Exactly. And Kate Winslet is by no stretch of anyone's imagination anything even beginning to approach "fat." A woman with a body like that should never have to diet, it's insane.
I can't think of a single tubby female that gets treated as a sex object.
Queen Latifah, baby. And that woman is pretty, pretty, pretty.
The "dumb vs. fat" question is just more interesting than y'all are admitting.
Lord help those of us who are both. But you get over it.
I think the mystery commenter in 340 frames the issue well, but misses what stirs up so much debate in these threads.
Do you not understand that this happens? Or are you saying it shouldn't? Or that we should just not be bothered by it.
I think pretty much everyone here agrees that the answers are yes, we understand it happens, no, it should not happen and no, it is insufficient to say "get over it." However, what I hear LizardBreath, Bitch Ph.D. and others saying is that this is one more example of the terrible things that men inflict on women (and if I misheard, and you do not agree that this is simply another example of partriarcihal oppression, I would love to be corrected). I think this seriously misframes the problem, and this misframing is the cause of much of the debate here.
I think that the overemphasis of women's beauty (men get it other ways, but let's be real, here, the heavy expectations are on women) is a bad thing that we, men and women do. We, men and women both, should try to cut it out, because it hurts women. But every time you try to frame it as "this is a bad thing you guys do," you are going to run into the sorts of objections that have arisen here.
364: I guarantee you that there's not a woman reading this whose body is anywhere near as good as SJP's by Hollywood standards. If that's fugly, than all of us are revolting.
Now, I'm not going to argue with you that a reasonable person might not find one or more of us more attractive than SJP. Sure. Perfectly possible.
But if there's an objective standard of beauty out there, she's closer to it than any of us. The media sets that standard, and SJP comes pretty close -- all the rest of us are way the hell far off. So when you critique Levi's girl as too skinny, and nitpick Biel's ass, and do this from the perspective of an objective standard of beauty that we're all measured by how closely we approach, that means that if SJP is fugly, I'm lucky people don't step on me when I crawl out from under my rock.
I think things are changing, but unfortunately, they're changing to be harsher: now men really are starting to be scrutinized for their weight, etc.
Hey, nothing wrong with that. Gyms could use the business.
On a slightly serious note, I think obscene male standards of attractiveness are healthier than the equally stringent ones for women. Whereas the female standard of beauty seems to (incorrectly, imo) get reduced to "be thin, really thin", it fosters eating disorders and other dangerous behaviors in the pursuit of that beauty. Male standards of physical beauty are typically for the very well-defined but not obscenely over-muscled bodies that can only be obtained from eating healthily and working out routinely without excessively bulking up.
Queen Latifah is gorgeous. I love how she treats herself as a sex object and everyone else realizes it too.
I thought we all agreed that there were stringent standards for actresses? I was just disputing that there were no non-standard beauties among major actresses.
370: and how once a magazine, without her consent, digitally stretched her to make her taller and thinner than she was.
373: If more of these threads talked about the hotness of women like Queen Latifah (which I agree--beautiful and pretty both), we wouldn't even *have* these kinds of discussions.
Of course, you'd also be required to talk about how incomprehensible it is to you that she isn't regularly cast as the love object in mainstream dramas.
373: She's thick, not tubby, Apo. I imagine her having a flat stomach, for example. Lots of women like that.
374:
I'm so devastingly, devastingly sorry that having my feelings hurt oppresses you. I'll resume a ladylike silence now rather than saying anything that might be thought to reflect badly on men.
Again, pretty has nothing to do with body shape.
But if there's an objective standard of beauty out there, she's closer to it than any of us.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement.
374: Idealist, saying something is an example of patriarchal oppression is not misframing the problem. Everyone you listed acknowledges that women do it too, because, gasp, women participate in the patriarchy and their own oppression.
That specific comment was to TD, who has not yet indicated that he understands that "don't let it bother you" is insufficient, and has generally, IMO, not communicated clearly.
I'm so devastingly, devastingly sorry that having my feelings hurt oppresses you. I'll resume a ladylike silence now rather than saying anything that might be though to reflect badly on men.
If that is the best you have to say for your position, you probably should.
Or, slightly less sarcastically, is it not apparent to you that framing arguments in terms of "this is a bad thing that men do to us and we are powerless to stop it" is wrong as a matter of fact, is ineffective rhetorically and, what is much much worse, perpetuates the notion that women are powerless and lack the agency to change things, except by whining about how their feelings are hurt.
what I hear LizardBreath, Bitch Ph.D. and others saying is that this is one more example of the terrible things that men inflict on women (and if I misheard, and you do not agree that this is simply another example of partriarcihal oppression, I would love to be corrected). . . . every time you try to frame it as "this is a bad thing you guys do," you are going to run into the sorts of objections that have arisen here.
Idealist: I believe that if you've read the thread you will see me, for one, specifically saying that women and men do this. I even said that women probably do it more. That does not, however, mean that when you guys do it it's perfectly okay. It *is* a bad thing you guys do. That doesn't mean that *only* guys do it.
If I have to explain to one more defensive man that when we talk about "patriarchal oppression" or sexism or wtfever we are not attributing responsibility to every single man, as an individual--and especially not to you personally, honey--I might just start hating men after all.
that means that if SJP is fugly, I'm lucky people don't step on me when I crawl out from under my rock.
Not really, from what the commenters on her have said I'd expect you to have a prettier face than her. To a number of guys I know, the hotness of a women comes primarily from the face and only secondarily from the body. SJP's face is just too thin and her nose is a bit screwy for me to consider her hot. That's why she's less good-looking to me than most of my female friends, even if her body may be better.
As ogged said, she's an odd example. I can think of considerably more actresses with pretty faces and unattractive bodies than vice-versa.
is it not apparent to you that framing arguments in terms of "this is a bad thing that men do to us and we are powerless to stop it" is wrong as a matter of fact, is ineffective rhetorically and, what is much much worse, perpetuates the notion that women are powerless and lack the agency to change things, except by whining about how their feelings are hurt.
Is it not apparent to you that none of the women here have, or would, frame any argument in this way, ever?
358 - and I'm sorry too for hurting your feelings, if I've come off as sounding brash and unsympathetic. Here's a hug. If you knew me in person, you'd know I was much less callous than I appear here feelings are put more aside so you can zoom into the deep rooted issues.
So, allow me to say really loudly, "IT SUCKS ASS THAT WOMEN ARE BOMBARDED WITH IMAGES OF IDEAL BEAUTY STANDARDS FROM BASICALLY BIRTH AND THAT THEY THEN TURN AROUND AND INTERNALIZE THESE MESSAGES WHEN JUDGING THEIR OWN SELF-WORTH AND THAT SHALLOW MEN ADD FUEL TO THE FIRE BY BRAGGING ABOUT HOW "HOT" WOMAN X IS". I don't know what else to say because we men do appreciate beauty (by OUR OWN standards; granted, most of us men simply inherit the default template standard from society and drift away from it depending), and we like to discuss things that are stimulating, but we don't want to hurt women's feelings. Every woman is much more than her appearance and no two women have the exact same features anyway. Woman A could be blonde, big boobs, nice hips and be "hot". Woman B could be blonde, big boobs, nice hips and be "not". Every woman's beauty truly is "judged" on a case-by-case basis in the eyes of the man looking at her. But, this is neither here nor there to the large issue of what you, LB, and others have said earlier. You can't read our minds to really know when we say woman A is and woman B is not.
361 - see, I disagree with that too. She's not anywhere close to "perfect body" to me. In fact, I'd say she has a better face than she does body. But, this is just me.
If I have to explain to one more defensive man that when we talk about "patriarchal oppression" or sexism or wtfever we are not attributing responsibility to every single man, as an individual--and especially not to you personally, honey--I might just start hating men after all.
Yeah, but, B, let's be honest--this is as reasonable a reaction as LB's reaction above. It is framed as a male problem, and that does seem strange when you see and hear women violating the apparent taboo all of the time.
framing arguments in terms of "this is a bad thing that men do to us and we are powerless to stop it" is wrong as a matter of fact, is ineffective rhetorically and, what is much much worse, perpetuates the notion that women are powerless and lack the agency to change things, except by whining about how their feelings are hurt.
What comment does your quoted text refer to? Oh. Nothing specific, it just felt that way?
This really sounds like you're telling us to shut up about it. If we were strong enough, we'd make it stop, so saying it's a problem is a confession of weakness and that makes us unfeminist whiners. To which, you know, bite me.
If I'm taking what you said the wrong way, try restating in a manner that doesn't make me want to hit you with a golf club.
377 - Queen Latifah is gorgeous. I love how she treats herself as a sex object and everyone else realizes it too.
This is part of what I ellude to in 390. Two women with identical appearances, but one is "sexy" or "hot" and the other is not. Hotness is much more than just looks. It's attitude, sexual energy, etc. This is why it's just not fair for women to compare themselves based on apperance alone!!
I know everyone has moved on, but I've been looking at pictures of SJP, and I have to admit that she's not fugly, she's just totally normal, as in average, looking. A good example. But when she gets done up, she looks like a freak. Another argument for no make-up.
>I'm just trying to understand why women internalize this beauty thing so much but they don't other qualities.
>Because other people are freaks about it. When my weight swung by twenty pounds twice a year (for nationals in the fall and states in the spring) I could tell my weight as accurately by the way people treated me as by weighing myself. When people thought I was prettier, they wanted to talk to me and clerks gave me free shit and people waved me to the front of the line. Teachers thought I was smarter. My perceived value was inarguably higher when I was thinner and prettier.
I think this is true. Men make a big deal about women's attractiveness.
This isn't really reinforced by discusssions between men of the attractiveness of real life women. There isn't alot of that going on. Men in particular don't commonly discuss physical flaws of real life women.
It is framed as a male problem, and that does seem strange when you see and hear women violating the apparent taboo all of the time.
It's framed as a male problem because even when women are doing it, they're doing it in terms of what men are supposed to find attractive. While it's absolutely true that women participate in the process, the judgment being made is whether a straight man would find her fuckable. So even when women do it, it's still about 'the male gaze'.
391: I do admit that it's a reasonable reaction pretty much all the fucking time. I'm extremely patient with guys who get defensive about sexism. What I'm not patient with is being lectured to about how their defensiveness is my fault because of things I did not, in fact, say.
That said, and in a calmer tone, I was actually thinking the same thing earlier: that women's anger over the beauty standard is not unlike men's anger over the emerging "don't be a sexist pig" standard. (In case that sounds sarcastic, it isn't; I honestly do think that when we say "don't be a sexist pig," as we were in effect, if not in so many words, saying much earlier in this thread.) Of course guys get defensive.
But there is quite a double standard operating, in that when women get upset over, say, beauty issues, the middle ground is that it's okay to talk about how attractive actresses are, as long as you recognize that it's a little problematic--and of course, we're expected to understand (as I said way way upthread) how guys feel about this stuff.
Whereas, when guys get upset over women talking about sexism, the middle ground is that it's okay to talk about sexism as long as you make sure to reassure the boys that you're talking about systems, not individuals--and of course, we're expected to understand how guys feel about this stuff.
these sorts of discussions always seem really weird to me, becuase "media women images" don't seem to have some sort of unattainable beauty. thats what makes criticisms so easy. yeah, they're usually in makeup and something other than sweats, and have good lighting. but these women usually look about the same level of attractiveness as the more attractive females i know. they're above average, but not in some completely different league.
397 - is a fair point. I can see how that is true, DrB.
This really sounds like you're telling us to shut up about it.
Nope.
What comment does your quoted text refer to?
Go on assessing women all you like.
you guys think. She's talking about what (lots of) you say. Often. Constantly.
When you say (professionally pretty woman X) doesn't meet your standards, you're saying that
To start a fight, I was reading Pandagon the other day (ooo, scary mean feminists), and Marcotte made a point about the "Strong, secure women don't mind being badly treated by men.
No women talk about this. Ever.
Women: "Hey, smacking me like that hurts!"
Guys: "I don't mean to hurt you when I smack you. The goal isn't to cause pain, I just do it because I find it satisfying."
It's framed as a male problem because even when women are doing it, they're doing it in terms of what men are supposed to find attractive. While it's absolutely true that women participate in the process, the judgment being made is whether a straight man would find her fuckable. So even when women do it, it's still about 'the male gaze'.
Let's start with these. Do you really contend that you were not framing the argument as this is about something men do to women rather than something we do that hurts everyone, but mostly women.
You haven't yet passed the 'golf club' test, particularly not with the last rhetorical question.
even when women are doing it, they're doing it in terms of what men are supposed to find attractive
Even when women are doing it, most of the time they're talking about women. So men and women discuss whether women are pretty most of the time when that conversation comes up. Women sometimes also talk about when men are pretty. (Straight) Men rarely talk about when men are pretty. No matter who is talking, the bulk of the conversation is still about women's looks, and we agreed that it takes a toll to hear that conversation.
all you're doing is finding the exceptions that prove the rule
Glenn Close
Meryl Streep
Whoopi Goldberg
Rosie O'Donnell
Ellen deGeneres
Kathy Bates
Frances McDormand
Really, I can name many more. Now, I think most of these women are quite pretty—Streep, particularly—but none of them are "standard" beauties, and none of them would be that far off the median in my office. Admittedly, I work with a lot of pretty women, but still. All of them get plenty of work.
394: Exactly. Except that I'd maintain she's still nowhere near average: she has beautiful eyes and is quite thin and looks very intelligent, I think. I would say she's as attractive as I am, give or take depending on personal preference, and I think that I'm more attractive than average. (Which, since you've met me, you can decide for yourself if that constitutes me being honest and trying to avoid neurosis, or if I'm as vain as I claim to be.)
If a woman like that counts as "not pretty at all," then maybe I should be more neurotic about my own looks. But I'm glad that the "fugly" comment has been withdrawn, and god knows I hope it stands as evidence for the argument that these "hot or not" threads (and I damn well will call them that) are distressing.
Not, of course, that I don't think you should have them. But I admit I wouldn't mind a little more realism of the "actually, SJP is perfectly fine looking" variety.
Whereas, when guys get upset over women talking about sexism, the middle ground is that it's okay to talk about sexism as long as you make sure to reassure the boys that you're talking about systems, not individuals--and of course, we're expected to understand how guys feel about this stuff.
Well, in the middle ground on the attractiveness debate, the boys are trying to reassure the women that we're only talking about images, not real women. These reassurances aren't very well received on either side of the debate.
Well, thank you to LizardBreath, BitchPhD, and the other female commentors too. You've challenged my thinking today and gave me lot to ponder. I also admit I identify with pretty much all the male commentors today and can thus see I'm sexist in this area. But, hopefully, maybe a little less so thanks to this coversation. And with that, I must get going back to work. Thanks all!
I would just point out that we now know that ogged is King Julien XIII.
Woman! Ya nice
Sweet Fantastic
Big Ship Pon De Ocean That A Big Titanic
Woman! Ya Nice Sweet Energetic
Big Ship Pon De Ocean That A Big Titanic
Woman! Ya nice
Sweet Fantastic Big Ship Pon De Ocean That A Big Titanic
Woman! Ya nice
Sweet Fantastic
Big Ship Pon De Ocean That A Big Titanic
WOMAN!
Woman Ya Cute And You Don’t Need No Make-Up
Original Cute Body You A Mek Man Mud Up
Woman Ya Cute And You Don’t Need No Make-Up
Original Cute Body You A Mek Man Mud Up
Eyeliner - Pon Ya Face
A Mek Man Mud Up
Nose Powder - Pon Ya Face
A Mek Man Mud Up
Pluck Ya Eyebrow
Pon Ya
Pon Ya Face A Mek Man Mud Up
403: I think every one of those women is somewhere on the scale of attractive/pretty/beautiful/gorgeous (in particular, I've always thought Whoopi Goldbert is a real beauty). But admit it, Apo: they are generally all considered ugly or weird-looking.
In general I find most comments or conversations about physical attractiveness inane. I mean, there's nothing wrong with an occasional "Ooh, check her out", or "Celebrity X is really pretty", but I get bored when it becomes some sort of constant refrain or topic of extended discussion.
Yes, I notice that the train conductor has a big nose, or that that reporter is really handsome, but really, who the fuck cares? I just want them to be good at their jobs, I don't see the need to go around all day pointing out people's physical attractiveness or lack thereof.
But whatever, lots of people seem to enjoy it. But what really annoys me is when I see people doing this in front of or for the benefit of kids. You can just see those little boys and girls internalizing fucked-up norms of human worth.
406: That's because the guys are talking about, say, Jessica Biel's ass. And Jessica Biel is, in fact, a woman. They are not talking about the skill of the photographer, the lighting, the angle, or indeed anything that I would think of as being about "the image" as such.
I notice that the train conductor has a big nose, or that that reporter is really handsome, but really, who the fuck cares?
Well, I do. I'm trying to honestly guage my feelings here, and I think that if we were to exclude someone soulmate-ish or totally-same-wavelength-ish, I'd rather hang out with someone beautiful and of middling intelligence than someone very smart and of average looks.
i'd rather hang out with someone really fucking cool than someone either smart or pretty, unless there was either money to be made, or sex to be had, respectively.
412: Really! Wow. I'm totally the opposite. Even allowing for your apparently seriously discounted sense of what constitutes "average."
But admit it, Apo: they are generally all considered ugly or weird-looking.
I don't think they are generally considered "ugly." Perhaps "weird-looking," but since the original statement I was responding to was "I'm trying to think of a female actress who has a sort of non-standard beauty, and, at the moment, I'm blanking," I'm not sure what it is I'm supposed to be admitting.
412: Well then, society has really fucked you up, and it's up to enlightened folk such as me to try and save you.
But anyway, how often do you "hang out" with train conducters? Or reporters? Why bother commenting on what they look like? Think of the children, ogged.
407 - Comity! Does that mean this thread is killed? (PleaseOhPleaseOhPlease)
Really, the issue is that talking about how attractive specific women are is a not-small part of male conversation, and that it understandably irritates, offends, or demoralizes women. So men should probably just try to be more discrete.
"Discreet." And also, perhaps, men might try to think about how much their assessment of specific women's attractiveness is itself a manifestation of sexism, as well as a perfectly okay expression of sexuality.
406: That's because the guys are talking about, say, Jessica Biel's ass. And Jessica Biel is, in fact, a woman. They are not talking about the skill of the photographer, the lighting, the angle, or indeed anything that I would think of as being about "the image" as such.
But to a great extent, Jessica Biel is only an image. She might as well be the incredibly well-rendered fevered dream of a horny virginal adolescent artist for all it matters in my life. Women who are well-paid and nationally known for their looks and their looks alone are judged as images, not as people.
In fact, a lot of the discussion in these things does hinge upon the skill of the photographer, the angle, the make-up and everything else as exhibited by ogged's 394. SJP looked "fugly" in one picture but then "normal" in another. Clearly she did not change, but the settings did. So all the other people working their asses off to make a star or model look good are implied in any mention of "she's hot" or "her butt is too tiny" or anything else.
Well, ogged, I just want to state that I'd much rather hang out with notchy, pointy-headed, spindly armed you than with, say, Matthew McConaughudhy (sp?).
420: The point is that knowing all that, intellectually, does not in any way substantively mitigate the cumulative emotional and psychological effect of hearing women constantly assessed according to ridiculous standards.
And also, perhaps, men might try to think about how much their assessment of specific women's attractiveness is itself a manifestation of sexism, as well as a perfectly okay expression of sexuality.
I might have, if you hadn't corrected my spelling. But not anymore.
I'd rather hang out with someone beautiful and of middling intelligence than someone very smart and of average looks.
So awesome. But I think you're a relatively rare bird, and I'm personally thankful for that.
Matthew McConoiughehee has eyes that are too close together.
"Discreet."
Hey, no need to correct SCMT. He was just subtly reinforcing that men need to be less continuous in their hotness discussion.
423: Hey, Ben's in Germany. Someone has to keep the standards up. We can settle for average looks, but no way we're going to allow less-than-perfect spelling around here.
421: But would you rather hang out with Ogged or with Jessica Biel?
For the girls/gay boys: Ogged, or Johnny Depp?
I think we all know what the answers here will be, people.
343 is right. I think it's ridiculous to say Joan Cusack or Sarah Jessica Parker aren't beautiful...but I've seen several Shelley Duvall movies, and in each one I've been actively surprised that she was a successful movie actress. I think she was less pretty, in her prime, than almost any woman I know.
As for the "constant drumbeat" thing, we have to realize that the standardization of beauty has been really astonishing in the past few decades. Probably any of the 300 "hottest" famous women in Hollywood would have been in the top 5 in 1960. There are just so many women nowadays who have the goal of being famous and have the means to, starting at age 12, make themselves look perfect (sometimes in addition to actually having talent).
And these women are all compared to each other, not to any mortal woman. It's a sort of arms race. I hate to say it, but a woman whose image is not regularly airbrushed should not even think that these idealized women are being compared to her. They aren't, they're being compared to each other.
This is also true of men, but men have succeeded in not caring, for the most part.
For the girls/gay boys: Ogged, or Johnny Depp?
This comparison just isn't fair. Johnny Depp is probably cooler than and as smart as anyone in here without even considering his appearance.
Matthew McBlahblahhey, on the other hand, seems of middling intelligence at best.
I agree with SCMT's 418. While I know that a lot of my guy friends sit around and have conversations like this, I'm not usually around to hear them because they don't have them in front of girls. The standards of the guys commenting on Jessica Biel's ass on this site probably aren't that different than the standards of my guy friends I don't hear have these conversations but hearing the talk is a little different. I know I was kind of insecure about meeting everyone at the first NYC meetup considering it was just a few days after a discussion on how fat Rachel Wacholder had gotten. God, by that standard, I figured you guys would be throwing stones.
>how much their assessment of specific women's attractiveness is itself a manifestation of sexism
Can you explain what this means? Is the manifestation of sexism:
a) how often one assesses (for ogged: every hour on the half-hour)
b) the specific result of the assessment (Sarah Jessica Parker: not that cute)
c) the process by which the assessment procceds (e.g., by comparing her to barbie)
d) the decision to assess this woman at this time (e.g., when she has been promoted and you have not)
discussion on how fat Rachel Wacholder had gotten
That was a joke. It was posted on "piss off the commenters day."
And also, perhaps, men might try to think about how much their assessment of specific women's attractiveness is itself a manifestation of sexism, as well as a perfectly okay expression of sexuality.
Men should definitely do that. Women too. As has been said, our whole culture places undue emphasis on physical attractiveness in general, but especially on women's attractiveness. Men or women engaging in regular and extended conversations about specific women's attractiveness reinforces that, and such people should therefore be chided and frowned upon. Or called ugly.
And whle I would much rather sleep with Biel than with ogged, I'm pretty sure ogged would be more fun tohang out with. But then maybe I'm just assuming that pretty=shallow and deformed=nice personality.
I have learned something in this thread. I already accepted that being held to an unnatural standard of beauty is something women have a right to complain about, but men don't. However, I now realize that when women get angry at men on this issue, they aren't blaming men in general for objectifying them; they are just angry at men who think it isn't an issue.
The trick, bphd, is that none of those things are manifestations of sexism! Although d) is a manifestation of envy, and (perhaps) misogyny.
To follow up 436: Many times in my life I have heard women say "God damn it, why are men always forcing us to wear high hells and look all pretty?" Men are justified in getting defensive at this.
However, the women in this thread have more accurately diagnosed the source of societal pressure, as a patriarchal system reinforced by both men and women. Therefore, I am not justified in being defensive.
Well, it wasn't funny
The hell it wasn't. I'm looking at the emails Labs and I exchanged that day, and we were very amused. Further, at one point I worried that it would be too obvious and thought about not doing it for that reason. Ha! Haha!
435: "it wasn't funny" s/b "I didn't get it"
436: 90% of the way there. The remaining 10% is that not all women think alike; some women probably do blame men in general.
Those women are, of course, wrong to do so. But I'm sure that all men will be able to empathize with women who take things that aren't aimed at them personally.
440: ""it wasn't funny" s/b "I didn't get it"" s/b "I didn't get it."
443: """it wasn't funny" s/b "I didn't get it"" s/b "I didn't get it."" s/b "Oh apo, you're the bestest"
430: It's when you and LB start worrying about this shit that I get concerned. (I mention you two specifically because y'all seem among the least susceptible to this sort of thing, both as regards worrying about it and as regards your own "complicit behavior in accord with the patriarchy" or something. (I'm probably not saying this well; I mean that I assume you two seem most removed from this sort of world.)) Anyway, sorry or something.
In one of ogged's famously convenient "Overheard" posts, he heard an old man say that there was nothing good to say about a trophy wife. I think that probably reflects the way most of us think about these things. Physical attractiveness really isn't among the top ten things I think about in a date or a significant other. I don't think it is for most guys, really. (This might be more true as "date" becomes more or less synonymous for "checking for a significant other," but that happens pretty quickly.) And in the great scheme of things, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the women of Unfogged are well out of at least my league.
Also, people who like people are the luckiest people of all. And kumbaya.
Are you ranking me on a standard of cleverness? Hope not!
In all seriousness, I think one problem here is that yes, we do rank people, and yes it is hurtful and cruel. And per Idealist's comment that got attacked above, we can conclude that the ranking of women against the standard of beauty is yet more hurtful and cruel than other comparisons (against the standard of "good mother" or against the standard of "good feminist" to take examples from the much loved Caitlin Flanagan and Laura Hirshman) without concluding that the evildoer is "the patriarchy" (as opposed to say, "us") This just seems to be making an unnecessary (and tendentious) ideological claim.
kumbaya
Okay, who're you kidding, Tim. Everyone knows that's a derisive French Tunisian term for an ugly woman.
And of course there's kumbayah. According to ethnomusicologist Thomas Miller, the song we know began as a Gullah spiritual. Some recordings of it were made in the 1920s, but no doubt it goes back earlier. Published versions began appearing in the 1930s. It's believed an American missionary couple taught the song to the locals in Angola, where its origins were forgotten. The song was then rediscovered in Angola and brought back here in time for the folksinging revival of the 50s and 60s. People might have thought the Gullahs talked funny, but we owe them a vote of thanks. Can you imagine sitting around the campfire singing, "Oh, Lord, come by here"?
we can conclude that the ranking of women against the standard of beauty is yet more hurtful and cruel than other comparisons (against the standard of "good mother" or against the standard of "good feminist" to take examples from the much loved Caitlin Flanagan and Laura Hirshman) without concluding that the evildoer is "the patriarchy" (as opposed to say, "us")
Well, duh. But if someone who is trying to work through these issues is getting stuck on the "patrarchy vs. me personally" thing, saying "the question of fault or cause is really not that important, and it's unanswerable anyway" isn't really very much help, now, is it?
But hey, whenever you want to take over teaching feminism 101, you just let me know. I could sure use a vacation.
Although before you start teaching the course, I think you might want to reexamine your certainty that A-D have nothing to do with sexism.
Laura Hirshman
Like "Lord van den Mort".
No one cares about "patriarchy" vs. "me personally" -- or at least I don't. I do care about the bogus reification of the ways in which society goes wrong into "the patriarchy," and the resulting idea that the solution these problems is ideological as opposed to (you'll love this) humanistic. Does that get to be in feminism 101, or is that just 'first wave' feminism 101?
I can't believe I just read this whole thread.
It's amazing that after decades and decades of feminism, etc., people still don't fucking get it. I'm attending the most liberal seminary in the world, for instance -- a hotbed of identity politics. And yet even there, I know for a fact that my status as a young white male helps me. There might be scholarships that are only for particular identity groups, but in this particular seminary and in the education world in general, being a white male is a really, really great place to be -- and education is the area where the much-hated "political correctness" has had the most room to have its influence.
For people to act like we're all just individual agents who have been spontaneously dropping into a world that was created earlier this morning is really appalling. I don't think my critical intelligence is "sharpened" by talking to such people -- if anything, I'm just reminded that sexism, classism, etc., really do exist, in the complex and subtle forms that feminists have always said they exist in.
447, 448: I hate you both. As I understand it, there is at least some overlap in your fields. So I will generalize: I hate everyone in your field(s).
I thought everyone knew "kumbaya" meant "come by here".
Although before you start teaching the course, I think you might want to reexamine your certainty that A-D have nothing to do with sexism.
Given how I have seen those exact circumstances quite often among the gay male scene, A-D certainly can exist without any sexism. Personally, it has always amazed me that women aren't as harsh on men as gay men are.
Also, if not finding sarah jessica parker that cure is sexism, humanism is all we can hope for.
452: You weren't around in the thread earlier. People who care about the patriarchy vs. me personally were. If you want to have some input on what'll be on the syllabus, you have to attend the meetings.
453: My comment wasn't intended to criticize my educational institution, but to show that sexist (and racist) structures continue to exercise their influence even in places that are very consciously trying to work against them.
baa really needs to take a break from Unfogged comment threads and actually read a fucking book that discusses these issues, rather than relying on the stereotypes bandied about by conservative commentators.
I thought everyone knew "kumbaya" meant "come by here"
In Virginia they sing it, "Ma-ca-ca, lord, ma-ca-ca."
This belongs on sb's joke-explaining blog.
403: wait, I'm not trying to be rude, and I hope this doesn't come off wrong, but who has ever held up Kathy Bates or Rosie O'Donnell as Hollywood beauties (even of a "non-traditional" sort)? I don't recall them ever being cast as beautiful, but I could be forgetting.
Also, I'd rather be fat than dumb, but I think that's mostly because I really do believe I could trim down. But I've never had trouble losing weight, so I'm probably just lacking imagination.
Also: would I rather be surrounded with beauty or intelligence? If it's women, I pick beauty. If it's other dudes, I pick intelligence. I think that sounds sexist in ways I'm not intending, but it's the truth. I really like to be around beautiful women. (I'm assuming here that all other factors, like friendliness, are being held constant across the beauty/intelligence spectrum, which may not be true as a statistical matter in real life.)
456: Huh. So if I want a get-out-of-sexism-free-card, I can just live around gay people? I had no idea. Where are these gated gay communities that are completely isolated from the larger culture? Because I might have to rethink my move to California.
If it's women, I pick beauty. If it's other dudes, I pick intelligence. I think that sounds sexist in ways I'm not intending, but it's the truth.
I love you for admitting this, even though the fact of its truth (and surely not just for you) makes me want to cry.
The thing is, one would think that the duplication of the same phenomenon in gay culture would count as evidence that it's a male problem in origin, with some variation on Stockholm syndrome explaining women's complicity. But instead, the focus is on the fact that women aren't the only victims here -- which I guess they're not, but that doesn't make the men any less the perpetrators or make the system of beauty exist any less for the benefit of men.
a fucking book that discusses these issues
Recommendations, Angry One?
465: For someone like baa, any of them will do!
462: I honestly don't even know what you're trying to get at here, unless you think that gay men criticizing other men's bodies is just their latent heterosexual sexism exposing itself (which admittedly could make for a great thesis).
What I meant was that the following hallmarks of cattily or crassly criticizing someone's appearance are observed just as much in gay culture with men talking about men as they are in straight culture with men talking about women:
a) how often one assesses (for ogged: every hour on the half-hour)
b) the specific result of the assessment (Sarah Jessica Parker: not that cute)
c) the process by which the assessment procceds (e.g., by comparing her to barbie)
d) the decision to assess this woman at this time (e.g., when she has been promoted and you have not)
Gay men aren't being sexist when they criticize another man's appearance, no matter how crudely they do so. Thus these behaviors on their own do not necessitate sexism, which I took to be baa's point.
On reflection, I'm having trouble seeing how any response to B's and LB's points other than, "Sorry 'bout that" is at all appropriate from the men.
Also, what Kotsko said.
do girls not prefer being around attractive guys (for some other values that composites as 'attractiveness-to-girls)?
(That is, what Kotsko said in 453, which was his last comment when I started typing mine. Sheesh!)
The thing is, one would think that the duplication of the same phenomenon in gay culture would count as evidence that it's a male problem in origin
Absolutely Adam, I agree on this. This is why I've actually just been puzzled as to why women aren't as nasty about men's appearance. It seems like a bizarre gender difference to exist.
Personally, I don't see a huge problem with the harsh appearance standards. I'm just put off by the double standard between the genders, and the tendency for harsh female standards of beauty to be more inherently unhealthy than equally harsh male standards (as I said in 376).
Women: "Hey, smacking me like that hurts!"
Guys: "I don't mean to hurt you when I smack you. The goal isn't to cause pain, I just do it because I find it satisfying."
Women: "But it really does still hurt."
Because a conversation about the beauty of female celebrities is just like beating women.
Whatever.
Kotsko, if I take a break from the threads, I'm not doing the required reading. I can't win. Seriously though, if there's a book that you think will convince me that comparing people to cruel standards isn't a hallmark of the human condition and is instead a hallmark of sexism that can be answered by Your Favorite Politics, I will read it. You have a real claim on four hours of my time.
Bphd, is the claim that gay men only make cruel comparisons to standards about beauty because they are conditioned by male--female sexism? JAC is reading me exactly as I intended. No one (I hope) is denying that sexism exists, beacuse, obviously. Rather it's that the types of (cruel) comparison to standards under discussion are distinct analytically from sexism.
My two cents: criticizing Jessica Biel for her alleged microdeficiencies shouldn't make our friends, lovers, etc. think "gee, how's he look at ME," because Jessica Biel has *no* claim on us except as some sort of ideal beauty. It's not like she can act, etc., etc. She just has a really hot ass. When that goes, she goes.
Whereas our real-life friends have (I assume) many other worthwhile qualities, such that we would never dream of trading them for Jessica Biel, no not even for one night or fraction thereof. (Well, ok, we would *dream* about it, but that's all.)
As BitchPhD points out, these celebs are mostly interchangeable. They're famous for being hot, and that's it.
I find that stars who appeal to us because of their personalities, say Drew Barrymore, don't come in for the same micro-scan. "Oh, Drew, you're putting on weight," we may think when we see the cover of People, but not in the "fuckin' dog" kind of way we'd react to Jessica Biel with a pot-belly. We see Drew (or Your Preferred Celebrity Here) in a different light, much more like we see our friends.
(Sorry if this point's been made, but I kind of wore out somewhere in the 200's. Pussy that I am.)
471: Huh. That's interesting, because I have no idea what thread Kotsko read, as his reaction seems unconnected to the thread I read.
Tim:
Mostly, this: It's amazing that after decades and decades of feminism, etc., people still don't fucking get it.
And also, this: I can't believe I just read this whole thread.
In an alternate, snarkier universe, my response to 462 should've been:
Where are these gated gay communities that are completely isolated from the larger culture? Because I might have to rethink my move to California.
Well if you breeders hadn't already fucked up the Castro District, I could suggest there.
467: It still originates in men critiquing the appearance of potential sex objects to make sure that they live up to male preferences (rather than, say, the physical health of the person, etc.). Women "cattily" duplicate the same kinds of critiques of other women because of their identification with the male oppressor ("Stockholm syndrome"). In gay culture it seems somehow "equalizing" because men are sex objects -- but they are still very much sex objects for other men. There's a reason that Jackmormon's comments are so funny and incongruous.
468: I'm mainly familiar with the main literature in feminist theology, which may not work so well here -- Bitch can help supplement this with "secular" sources:
Rosemary Radford Ruether, The Radical Kingdom
-----, Sexism and God-Talk
-----, Gaia and God
Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex
----, Beyond God the Father
----, Gyn/ecology
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her
Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is
Dolores Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness
Jacqueline Grant, Black Woman's Jesus, White Woman's Christ
Ruether is the most formative of the mainstream of the field; Daly is something of a foil for most later figures.
You know, if we're talking about movies, the standard for men is "manly" or "suavity" and that standard is, if anything, even more rigorous than the standard of beauty for women. Lots of actresses are pretty enough to be the lead in a movie, but how many credible leading men are there? Twenty? And that's worldwide.
And, now that I think about it, beauty for women and manliness for men are two major themes on the this site, at least when I'm posting, and I don't think I'm any easier on the men, myself included, when I talk about those.
467: Did I say that these behaviors, in isolation, are sexist? Because once again, I'm pretty sure that I said more than once upthread that *in and of themselves* most of the things that count as sexist in the context of the actual world we live in would theoretically be neutral.
Book recommendations. The Second Sex. The Beauty Myth. Backlash. Vindication of the Rights of Women. Mrs. Dalloway. Mill's Subjection of Women. hooks's Feminism is for Everyone. Or, you know, go on Amazon and do a search.
The Beauty Myth.
Blows, IIRC. Choose one of the other ones, baa.
Was Adam Sandler ever cute? Ok, maybe when he was thirty-ish and skinny, he could slip under the wire as "funny and almost cute," but even then, his alleged talent was getting him what his looks should have made impossible. But now, it's as though having once shrugged their shoulders over Sandler's lack of sex appeal, the studio execs have just ignored his decline into yobhood. If he ever had a chin, it's gone. If he ever reached a normal weight after skinny, he's now chubby. He's no longer an ingenu, people!
Whether or not you're easier on the men isn't the point. Right? We covered this, right?
And the rigorous definition of what is and isn't manly is something I'm pretty firmly on record saying is seriously fucked up, and seriously an example of why sexism is bad for boys too.
In answer to Baa's "why is critiquing women's appearance particularly sexist, in and of itself" I recommend, of the books above, The Second Sex.
JM, please do Jim Carrey. I would, but I've got to get dinner on.
Rather it's that the types of (cruel) comparison to standards under discussion are distinct analytically from sexism.
But I can sort of imagine an argument that asks why we make such comparisons, and why we are in a position to so pervasively make such comparisons, and hypothesizes that it's the outsize control of resources that men have long had. Or, basically, "He who has the gold makes the rules, and rules are going to systematically favor him."
Backlash
Really good. I bought it in hardcover, back when I didn't buy hardcovers.
467: It still originates in men critiquing the appearance of potential sex objects to make sure that they live up to male preferences (rather than, say, the physical health of the person, etc.).
Well yeah, hence my 472. I can see it as a male issue. I'm just confused as to why women aren't equally critical of their sex objects. As I said, it seems odd for the two genders to have innately different tolerances for physical appearance.
Rather it's that the types of (cruel) comparison to standards under discussion are distinct analytically from sexism.
This, you see, would be the hypothesis that the world was created some time this morning that Adam mentioned above.
B, I just mean that there are standards for both men and women, and I think baa's point is humans always have standards, and will always measure themselves and others against those standards. That, by itself, isn't even sexist, let alone patriarchal. He (and I) are looking for a book to show us where the patriarchy comes in.
Strangely, when Jim Carrey is not talking, posing, moving, acting, or emoting, I think he's kind of okay-looking. Sure, pasty as all fuck, with a hulking big adam's apple and a grody, blackheddy nose, but really not all that bad.
Incidentally, this whole "gay men objectify other gay men" thing explains pretty well why feminists talk in terms of "patriarchy" -- broadly, the rule of men -- rather than just "sexism." The real problem, as we have seen again and again and again on this thread, is that women really aren't the issue. The male view of what is going on in a "is-so-hot" conversation is assumed to be normative; women's reactions are deviant (and informed by some outside force, whether their stupid emotions or their feminist indoctrination).
Men still have hegemony in basically everything, still have a stranglehold on the terms of debate for everything, still run the show -- and now we get the added bonus that those stupid "feminists" are slandered for holding views that they mostly don't actually hold. You can probably find some far out radical feminist who thinks men are just intrinsically evil -- like the later Mary Daly, for instance -- but they're not in the mainstream. By and large, feminist thinkers have recognized the real complexity of the situation, even if their proposed solutions didn't always "work" or if their ideas were corrected by later generations. Feminism is really hard to do. There's no preexisting model. There's no guarantee that it will "work" -- and of course we get the peanut gallery blaming every social evil on the feminists. It is really an uphill battle all the way, and it makes me -- yes -- angry to see how dismissive people are and how little they really understand, even with ample resources available to inform them.
I'm just confused as to why women aren't equally critical of their sex objects.
Wait, other women aren't? Sure, my comments here have been exaggerated, but it's not as though I hadn't thought all of these things before this conversation.
#483 and #485
Carey and Sandler in particular aren't very good examples as their primary draw at the box office is other men.
Wait, other women aren't? Sure, my comments here have been exaggerated, but it's not as though I hadn't thought all of these things before this conversation.
I hear this kind of stuff from my wife and any number of female friends all the time. I pretend not to care, but that night I'll cry myself to sleep for not measuring up to their idealized notions of male beauty.
ummm.
I know a good cock jock. Wanna hear?
Wait, other women aren't? Sure, my comments here have been exaggerated, but it's not as though I hadn't thought all of these things before this conversation.
I imagine other women couldn't be, or else they wouldn't complain about men having unreasonable standards. They'd reflect to the last time they said something similar about a guy and then start a thread about doughy Vince Vaughn or scrawny Johnny Depp.
FWIW, I've never participated in male discussions of celebrity beauty, and always found them exceedingly boring.
I think that whether male criticism of celebrities' beauty is hurtful to women depends a lot on what kind of criticism it is. For instance, how many women are as thin as the Levi's commercial actress? A few percent? Criticising her for being too thin isn't really holding anyone up to an unrealistic ideal. And when I say that I think Angelina Jolie is fugly because of her huge lips and huge breasts and unearthly hip size, I don't think that's doing anything besides mocking the ridiculous Hollywood standard of beauty in favor of a standard that the real women in my life generally come much closer to. Is this hurtful to women? Is it even believable? (It's really what I think.)
Now, I'm not saying that most conversation about celebs is actually like this. It's probably in the minority. But I don't think it's that uncommon. Also, I'm sorry to all women about the conversations that uphold unrealistic beauty standards.
I overhear this all the time: "Kotsko's too skinny, and he should get a haircut more often than 'quarterly,' but ... that passion!" (Ogged calls it "anger" because he doesn't know how to cope with his attraction.)
Yet if I were a woman, I'd be called a "skinny bitch."
oh you do? Great. It goes like this:
I came upon a wild boar just yesterday during the course of my noontime stroll . . .
The Second Sex is awesome It is odd that there isn't a full translation available (and that there are still footnotes from some 1950's american professor assuring everyone that although certain things may be a problem in france, things are trotally different in the US). The anecdote about pissing on caterpillars on page 209 still cracks me up.
And the Boar said to me, "that Jessica Biel's ok, but I'll bet she's got cellulite on her otherwise beautiful rump" . . .
Exceedingly boring and also very uncomfortable. It's like, how can you criticise these people for being somewhat less blindly attractive than other actresses? It doesn't make sense.
And I said to the Boar, "why chum, what's all this, Boar's can't talk, and besides, there's a saying among us humans that those without pecuniary assets are not allowed great decisionmaking abilities, and moreover, you, sir, smell most foul, and cast a rather porkish figure besides."
490 - (Genuinely wondering why measuring women against a beauty standard is worse than measuring men against a manliness standard.)
Is is because looks are such a stupid measure? Beauty doesn't make the woman who wears it better at anything or more capable. It just exists, if she got lucky at birth. In fact, looks mostly just gratify the (most likely) man sleeping with her.
But if you're leading man type manly, you are in charge and you get to boss people and effect change and shape your environment.
Beauty for women => good for the man sleeping with her.
Manliness for men => good for the man being manly.
And you see, Mr. Boar, why Mr. Boar was being boorish! Ha ha! Ho ho!
Read the Mill. I do not think it means what you think it does. Indeed, I would probably use it as 'Exhibit A' in the case for why feminism as originally construed is not the same as what bitchphd calls feminism. I read Backlash a *long* time ago, don't remember much except that she seemed to get Allan Bloom more or less wrong. So, The Second Sex it is.
You don't have to treat this thread as something for your edification, Ogged. Maybe it's just a simple system of rewards and punishments. You want to talk about how hot Jessica Biel is? Ok, but the price is 346 comments about feminism.
I wasn't really wondering, Megan, I was just saying that there's an equally stringent Hollywood standard for men. But I don't buy your account of why one is worse than the other. Beautiful women get to boss people around too, in their own way; it's great for them.
Who'd of thunk that a 21st century American woman might understand feminism differently than a nineteenth century British man?
This is one of those conversations that reminds me that I'm just not a red-blooded American male. Notice beauty, hell yes. Feel compelled to discuss it with other men, not so much.
The awesome thing about the excessive length of this thread is that no one seems to have noticed my rank hypocrisy in joining in on the "hot or not" conversation, basically acting just like the women have complained about men acting, and then turning around with a torrent of self-righteousness the likes of which have never been seen.
In my defense, my motivation in saying the Levi's woman wasn't all that pretty was just to disagree with Ogged. (Though I'm not Isle of Toads.)
I think this thread has been great; I'm not sure why other people are annoyed. I think it's been the most civil and enlightening feminism discussion we've had on this site. Probably because Jessica Biel's hotness transcends ideological divisions.
I wasn't really wondering, Megan, I was just saying that there's an equally stringent Hollywood standard for men. But I don't buy your account of why one is worse than the other. Beautiful women get to boss people around too, in their own way; it's great for them.
This is just unmitigated nonsense. Beauty is only useful for manipulating other people -- it's got no direct value. To the extent that a woman has power through beauty, she's completely dependent.
To the extent that a woman has power through beauty, she's completely dependent
I don't understand what you mean by this, or by "direct value." Does manliness have direct value?
isn't 'power' refered to just more indirect ways of manipulating other people? or are you talking about guys with big guns? those seem more like 'guy movie' stereotypes than the sort that show up in romantic comedies.
Beauty is only useful for manipulating other people -- it's got no direct value. To the extent that a woman has power through beauty, she's completely dependent.
Not getting on the George Clooney pity-party bus, but isn't this true of most sorts of power?
Ok, but the price is 346 comments about feminism.
This is America damnit, and I demand guilt free discussions of celebrity ass.
I do think that this thread has blown your proposed paparazzi rule for establishing true beauty out of the water, ogged.
Well yeah, 'cause if you're manly, you can be all McGyver and arrange your physical world the way you like it, and you can boss your male sidekicks and you can win at sports and charm the ladies. If you're pretty, you just sit there until someone notices and brings you a drink.
Holy shit, people, The Second Sex is over 700 pages long. Seriously, I don't care if orphans are dying, I don't care about anything that much. Recommend another one. And maybe something more recent. Who are the academic feminist bigshots nowadays?
Comparing the Levi's ads:
Female version: woman singing. Can't quite tell where it begins (is that a museum or just a corridor with windows?), then: a park, a library (I think), streets. Jeans are "skinny." Actress is shown only from the front or side (walking right).
Male version: man singing. Starts in an apartment (most likely, because guy's just done getting dressed), then: highway, where he climbs a fence; basketball courts; construction site; maybe a park (walking on a railing?); jumps off of a newstand; streets. Jeans are "slim." Actor is shown from front, side (walking left), and back.
Conclusion: There should be a version where the couple has to contend with this guy.
I haven't read the last 100 or so comments but I would like to note that this thread, on which Ogged is getting taken to task for upholding unrealistic standards of beauty, is on a post where he says celebrities should be evaluated based on their candid "real" photos instead of airbrushed "unrealistically idealized" photos. And with that, I leave this thread and go bask in the kittens.
Someone who's manly is manly because he's strong (useful for lifting stuff). He's manly because he's sensible and courageous under pressure (useful if you're in a stressful situation). The qualities that make up manliness are qualities that are practically useful in themselves.
Beauty is only useful because some man who has the capacity to do things on his own will do things for you. You're depending on his capacities.
isn't this true of most sorts of power?
Wait, I'm getting a flash of something some three-first-named German wrote about this. No, it's gone.
I wasn't really wondering, Megan, I was just saying that there's an equally stringent Hollywood standard for men. But I don't buy your account of why one is worse than the other. Beautiful women get to boss people around too, in their own way; it's great for them.
I was thinking the exact same thing!
I don't understand what you mean by this, or by "direct value." Does manliness have direct value?
I was thinking the exact same thing again!
I do think that this thread has blown your proposed paparazzi rule for establishing true beauty out of the water, ogged.
The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free the slaves, JM.
523 - Like you've got anything better to do with your time?
Ooo, Megan said my 526 in 522, and was funny rather than humorless. I should work on that.
526 - is describing something much different than "powerful" in a social context, though.
Someone who's manly is manly because he's strong (useful for lifting stuff). He's manly because he's sensible and courageous under pressure (useful if you're in a stressful situation)
You're a sucker for manliness, then, because all manliness means to me is that someone has a deep voice, serious manner, and presence of command and/or ability to charm. For all I know, the guy who seems manly will wet his pants if he sees a mouse.
And maybe something more recent. Who are the academic feminist bigshots nowadays?
You know, the basic stuff is older -- current academic feminism tends toward the fine points, IME. The Second Sex is very readable, and given that you inflicted Being And Time on the rest of us, I think you should suffer through it.
The parallel with "manliness" is misleading us here. Generally, the kinds of power that are available to women are qualitatively different from those available to men.
Although it's slowly changing, women largely have access to forms of power that are parasitic on male power. Men have access to money, office, and coersive force -- an obviously more powerful form of power. Even women who get "real" power have had to have it granted to them by men -- which is not to downplay the importance of the fact that they have real power now.
All forms of power rely on there being other people to exercise it on, but that is a very very low-level commonality between what the forms normally taken by male and female power.
None of you fuckers even finished a quarter of Being and Time.
"Even women who get "real" power have had to have it granted to them by men"
This is only relevant to the extent that women are more dependent on the good will of men (in giving them the power) than other men who come into power are. And don't most men who get power have to rely on other men granting it to them?
You're a sucker for manliness, then, because all manliness means to me is that someone has a deep voice, serious manner, and presence of command and/or ability to charm.
Can he have any of those things if he obviously doesn't have the qualities I identified? No. What you're talking about is the ability to convince people that you have the underlying manly virtues. But when your guy pisses himself after seeing a mouse, the response is going to be "Not so manly after all, big shot," not "Huh. Manly, but a coward."
Oxford UP has a "very short introduction" to feminism. At the very least, it would have a current bibliography.
Speaking of manly, Ogged, while you're healing is the perfect time to pick up a manly, yet relatively stationary sport like shooting. And quit looking at those pansy Glocks and get a proper handgun like a .357 revolver or something from Ed Brown.
531 - I thought your 526 was far more precise, with better examples of why manliness is useful.
533 - Movie star manliness for sure includes building/fixing things (or rigging impromtu bombs). See, useful? Presence of command is more direct than eye-batting, although both depend on the susceptibility of the recipient.
The parallel with "manliness" is misleading us here.
The parallel with manliness is the one that exists in movies and on this blog, it's what we've been talking about. The point you want to make is a broader ideological point that's not under discussion.
I'm going to stop with the threadjack after this comment, but FWIW my 519 was intended as a cynical commentary on how most power depends ultimately on kissing the asses of people that you (OK, I) wouldn't ordinarily want to have much to do with, including people who have very little power of their own. It didn't have anything to do with manliness or with gender differences in how power is attained and used.
baa, slave to knowledge and enlightenment, just called me from a bookstore to see if there were any more recommendations in this thread. You bastards better be nice to him.
537: Again, we are seeing a manifestation of the idea that the world was just created this morning.
538: The ability to convince people that you have quality x is generally more important than actually having the quality. Mostly life=marketing.
544: Backlash really was very good.
What you're talking about is the ability to convince people that you have the underlying manly virtues.
Maybe. But "beautiful" used to have a much tighter connection to womanly virtues than it does today.
Manlihood, or manliness, doesn't mean a lot to me as a category, and the men best able to emit what ogged is talking about are, in my experience, either salemen or gay.
The manly virtues LB is talking about, I tend to name. "OMG, he totally just whipped out a wrench and fixed that faucet. It was so McGyver, so hott." My ex was like that, and describing him as manly would have just been misleading.
545: Well, my quibble is more with your phrasing than anything. I just think it's an incredibly poor way to put it.
Movie star manliness for sure includes building/fixing things (or rigging impromtu bombs). See, useful?
That's only after the manly seeming men have been cast in manly roles.
I get the distinction y'all want to make. The man moves the table, the woman gets the man to move the table for her. But, if I wanted to argue the feminist position, that's not the distinction I'd make, since I don't think it holds up so well. The more important point seems to be that people will do certain things in the service of beauty, but they'll do other, more important things in the service of manliness, or the presence of command. That, by itself, doesn't seem sexist, and neither would saying that men, more than women, have command presence. What is sexist is that more men than women are raised to have it.
I've now wandered off the rails, but anyway....
Apologies in advance for earnestness, but here goes. (Apologies also for typos; sticky keyboard.) So many of the comments resonated with me, esp LB and B's. Megan's comments really hit home, though; I was actually saddened reading them.
Megan's comments made me think of all the time and energy I've spent dealing with unrealistic standards of beautiful women. I still remember being a teenager, wondering in awe at all that space between Farrah Fawcett's legs. How does she do that? And her poster was on so many guys' walls; how's a young woman supposed to process that? As (I think) Adam said, we didn't all just come into existence today. As a young woman, and as the adult woman I am today, I'm not going to think, 'So many individual young men have come to the conclusion that Farrah Fawcett is hott. But that has nothing to do with me, bless my heart.'
You know, it really sucks to have to go through this thought process all the time. As Megan said, it chips away and away at one's confidence and self-image. And in case you think no one has to go through this thought process...if I just toughened up...well, I'd love to be that tough and this is the only way I know how to get that tough, that is, to go through the thought process wherein I try to reason away the stupidity of these unrealistic standards. So yes, I do have to go through this thought process if I want to maintain my sanity about this. And if it pisses off and is a problem for Megan, LB and B, i.e., women with the advantages of education, intelligence, support systems, think how much worse off are women and girls in less advantaged situations.
Shorter: It strikes me as monumentally stupid that girls and women spend so much time and energy trying to counteract the bombardment of unattainable standards of female beauty. I can't imagine that anyone who really thinks it's no big deal to talk and think about women this way would really want their daughters to spend some part of each day dealing with this shit.
/earnestness
533 - Movie star manliness for sure includes building/fixing things (or rigging impromtu bombs). See, useful? Presence of command is more direct than eye-batting, although both depend on the susceptibility of the recipient.
Not dimissing women react to images of beauty and compare themselves to it and feel bad. We concluded that 150 comments ago. But, how come guys don't feel as bad if we don't match this definition of manliness (i.e. can fix anything, etc.) that we're bombarded with since childhood?
Off-topic (sort of): I have realized in recent weeks that no post needs more than 250 comments. In that space, everything will be said. After that people just go around in circles. There's nothing really wrong with that, I guess, except that it makes keeping up far more time-consuming for little additional benefit. The world would be a better place if all posts were capped at 250 comments. Added bonus: the person who posted the 250th comment would win!
I fervently dispute that "manliness" has any more inherent value than "beauty". They are both about sex appeal, not fucking survival skills. (Or, if one wants to argue that we have evolved to find survival skills sexy, then it's true for both -- manliness allows one to lift rocks, and beauty indicates health, both general and reproductive.)
Ballsack.
552: Maybe because there are other compensations, like being mostly in charge of everything. And even if we're not good at defusing bombs, we can still convince ourselves that we ain't pussies. Or fags.
The more important point seems to be that people will do certain things in the service of beauty, but they'll do other, more important things in the service of manliness, or the presence of command. That, by itself, doesn't seem sexist, and neither would saying that men, more than women, have command presence. What is sexist is that more men than women are raised to have it.
And what's sexist is that people (men and women) tend to resist command from a woman where they wouldn't from a man. Remember various discussions of how female associates tend to have trouble getting obedience from the staff more than male associates? Part of that is sexism from the staff; part of it is a rational expectation on the part of the staff that firm management will be sexist, and will smile on disrespect to a female associate and treat it severely from a male associate. Very little of it is 'command presence'.
(This type of argument is a bit of a piss-off for me. "Sure, people would treat you with respect if you had the sort of personality that compelled respect. Pity more men than women do, but there's nothing to do about it until we've raised the next generation." Ah, no.)
546 - 538: The ability to convince people that you have quality x is generally more important than actually having the quality. Mostly life=marketing.
See, this I don't understand. And the beauty thing is a form of marketing or packaging. Once you know somebody for more than 15 minutes, substance matters more. How pretty a woman is only matters if you don't know her. I suspect the same is true to women listening to a guy talk about what he knows how to do (you find out soon enough if he's full of shit or for real). Since we don't know strangers or celebrities personally, we judge them much more superficially.
How pretty a woman is only matters if you don't know her.
A very big overstatement.
"Not dimissing women react to images of beauty and compare themselves to it and feel bad. We concluded that 150 comments ago. But, how come guys don't feel as bad if we don't match this definition of manliness (i.e. can fix anything, etc.) that we're bombarded with since childhood?"
but, guys spend most of their time trying to do things to one-up each other. do guys, in general, have higher selfesteem than girls?
a. I don't know any longer how people are using the word "manly."
b. I read Backlash before I really identified as a feminist, and I was persuaded by it, despite what I then qualified as a polemical tone. However, can it really be that nothing in that vein has since been published? The backlash is not only continuing, it's been gathering force!
"Sure, people would treat you with respect if you had the sort of personality that compelled respect. Pity more men than women do, but there's nothing to do about it until we've raised the next generation." Ah, no
Mildly amusing story that doesn't really advance the discussion: at a place I've worked, a woman came into a position with some authority over several other people, most of them women. They all hated her and though she was a monumental bitch, but I went into a few meetings and actually said that I thought she was tough, but fine, and that people resented being bossed around by a woman. I kept this up until I realized that she was, in fact, a monumental bitch.
Kotsko is right that looking to manliness was not useful. The problem, if I'm reading this right, is that for a long, long time, the path to power for women was through beauty. There were more paths to power for men than simple manliness (or, rather, mostly it was other paths, and then "manliness" gets redifined to include the new data points).
I think where I differ is in my belief that the only truly useful thing is to get more women into power, a la Hirschman, because I don't really understand the various mechanisms at play, and I doubt very much that others do, either. So such investigations are fun and interesting, but not useful in developing a program into which I, at least, am going to invest much belief.
All of which is to say, in some sense, that ac is right.
Well, what does 'feel as bad' mean? I'd argue that the beauty thing is crazier, because it's less under the control of the individual and lots of the things you can do to improve yourself will actually injure you (starvation, heels). On the other hand, there's lots of pressure to be manly, and it does boys and men a great deal of damage, especially those who have particular difficulty meeting the standard.
Who hurts worse? I think this is time for everyone to join hands and repeat "Patriarchy hurts everybody."
556: This you should understand. We're all judged all the time for all sorts of purposes by people who don't know us well. Their treatment of us is affected by all sorts of superficial, meaningless stuff. Marketing (or, to use an older term, Reputation) matters a lot. The number of people who really know any of us well enough to make sense of our "substance" is damn small.
Since we don't know strangers or celebrities personally, we judge them much more superficially.
I kind of like the idea of not really bothering to judge them at all, if you don't know them. (As distinct from judging the attractiveness of a character they played.) The one time I can remember having a "which celebrity is hot?" conversation with a friend outside of this very blog I actually responded to the question with something like "how should I know, I haven't met any." This was met by some disbelief. After some badgering I named someone, only to be told that she was not in fact (according to my friend's standard, I guess, though he expressed it as a more general proposition) very hot. I changed the subject.
but, guys spend most of their time trying to do things to one-up each other. do guys, in general, have higher selfesteem than girls?
Yes we do (spend alot of time trying to one-up each other). Errr, we did. Epecially so as teenagers and cocky 20-somethings. But, as we get older and more "mature" it becomes less of a desire to prove to the world we're #1.
Is there an analogous situation where women eventually stop caring about comparing themself to ideal beauty standards?
566: But that's the thing, it's a significant part of male culture. Either you play in some form or another, or you remove yourself from some amount of male camraderie. I came to love basketball primarily because a bunch of my friends really liked it, and I wanted to hang out with them. Out of simple selfishness, I'm more or less dead set against a rule that instructs me not to hang out with a significant portion of my male friends.
I deny that there is such a thing as "male culture." There's something there, I guess, but that's not the right term for whatever-it-is.
563 - perhaps an outlier than because I only care about a) what my wife and family think of me, b) what my closest friends think of me, and c) what my co-workers and managers think of me. Anybody else's opinions or judgements mean nothing to me. Then again, I don't claim to be a a real extroverted person, which is ironic because as a teenager and I was obsessed with what people thought of me (other kids, parents, teachers, etc.). Perhaps it's because I came to realize (in my mind) that is doesn't matter than I hold this differing opnion than you do.
570: I'm not wedded to it. "Sausagefest culture"?
574 - might as well be because I've been agreeing with 95% of all your questions and thoughts. Obviously, we exprience(d) similar male culture growing up.
Although, see #5, I disagreed with you back there.
572: I suppose what I'm getting at is that it's a role, not a culture.
Somebody send Megan James Earl Jones and a case of IPA, stat.
564 - for men? Hops and a deep voice.
Ok, I'm putting you in charge.
Okay, first off, read the goddamn Second Sex. It's readable, it's a great book, and don't give me the "I don't care about anything that much" nonsense. Women are half the people on earth (slightly more than, actually). You don't care about that? Not buying it.
509: As Adam said, Mill and I aren't saying the same things. Shocker. Nonetheless, it's a good book and worth reading.
Re. the whole beauty / power / manliness argument. The fact that "manliness," like femininity, is a social construct that can be damaging to men, is irrelevant. When I say "x is an interesting issue," it is not helpful to say, "so is y, you know!" Yes, men too are oppressed by gender ideology. We aren't saying they aren't. What we're saying is that the way that women are oppressed (and by the way, in re. something pdf said upthread, the point is that women are oppressed *as a class.* That individual men also have to depend on more powerful men for advancement is an issue, but it is less a gender issue per se than a class issue. Which is another kettle of wax) is systemically disadvantageous to women as a class. Individual women will be "ahead" of individual men b/c of class or personal circumstances or whatever, but as a group, men have a head start.
The power thing is the point that beauty, as a form of power, *depends entirely on the perceiver* who may, or may not, grant the beautiful person what he/she wants. It's basically (like a lot of women's so-called power) a form of manipulation. Whereas money, say, or education, or strength, or independence, or decisiveness, or any of the so-called masculine attributes, are *directly* advantageous to the holder: sure, in order to have power you have to have other ppl, since power is a social construct, but your money will buy you shit whether or not the people you're giving it to like the way it's folded. My beauty gets me ahead only if the man I'm trying to manipulate with it is feeling in the mood to be charmed.
Hops and a deep voice? Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I have no idea whether any of my last ten boyfriends could jump higher than a foot. And most of them were, I think, pretty much in the baritone range.
481:Is Germaine Greer not read anymore?
I also appreciated the thread, and promise not to look at pretty women anymore. Or even think about them. OK, I lie.
564 - for men? Hops and a deep voice.
Before this goes to press, somebody should start selling voice chip implants...
579 - Not those hops. James Earl Jones, yes.
580 - You should. I have quite the command presence when I need it.
The fact that "manliness," like femininity, is a social construct that can be damaging to men
But, it can also be empowering too ...
I hear this kind of stuff from my wife and any number of female friends all the time. I pretend not to care, but that night I'll cry myself to sleep for not measuring up to their idealized notions of male beauty.
Hi, I'm gswift. I'm a member of a priveleged class. When other people talk about the priveleges I hold, and talk about how my behavior might reinforce my privelege, I make fun of them, and say I wouldn't feel the same in their position, because I'm real good at empathy, and because my privelege is important to me, and I don't like it when people criticize it.
Are people using "command presence" as a synonym for charisma?
Is there an analogous situation where women eventually stop caring about comparing themself to ideal beauty standards?
About the time you get dumped for a younger version of yourself and realize that you are actually relieved.
581 - that all sounds like "the truth", and no doubt dead on, but who decides what is the "ideal level playing field" and would it look like anyway? In a capitalistic society, nobody starts on equal footing. Those of us born into poorer families or less intelligent or less healthy or less attractive are handicapped, to be sure, but some % of us nonetheless go on to lead happier lives than some people born more privledged and haven't had to fight to find themselves. I guess what I'm asking is, how do you "define" quality of life and how much of the responsibility for achieving that is society versus ourselves?
If I were to define manliness, a lot of the criteria would match up with the criteria I have for being an adult:
--paying one's way through the world
--having figured out the balance between working and being human
--having made peace as an adult with one's family
--knowing one's abilities and limitations in the world (if you can fix it, great, if not, you admit as much and fucking hire someone already).
So what is there left for the special XY-factor in these qualities? Maybe some skillsets that are the product of patriarchal culture? Hops?
Greer, yes. Look, the reading list is off the top of my head: I'm not, in actual fact, a student of feminist theory.
Re. Ogged's question of who are the current big feminist theorists, you need to read the Second Sex, Ogged, or I will hate you forever. Do it instead of watching another season of some tv show. That said, Judith Butler is really interesting about gender as social construct. Other than that, you'll have to ask someone who is better than I am at the theory stuff. Try Labs.
q: Is there an analogous situation where women eventually stop caring about comparing themself to ideal beauty standards?
a:About the time you get dumped for a younger version of yourself and realize that you are actually relieved.
Which is about the same age men realize they can't lift, run, or get it up like the younger version of themselves.
If I were to define manliness, a lot of the criteria would match up with the criteria I have for being an adult.
Exactly. Also not caring about "silly things," like what the neighbors think, or whether to get the kid's teacher a present at the end of the year, or sending thank-you cards, or table manners, or any of those things that are manifestations of women's dependent position. Being able to laugh at, or shrug off, or be genuinely confused by the irrationality of things like the beauty standard. Knowing that pretty much every adult you ever came in contact with as a kid figured you could grow up to be whatever you wanted if you worked hard enough. Not having to "choose" between your family and your career.
Etc.
My beauty gets me ahead only if the man I'm trying to manipulate with it is feeling in the mood to be charmed.
Sure. But it is also true that because beauty is one of the very few means of acheiving power traditionally available to women, and thus as a woman you have an incentive to emphasize it and to play up its importance because it is a path to power.
I am not saying that my explanation is the only thing going on, but I am saying that ignoring this aspect of it gives one a flawed view of both the problem and the solution.
591 - that's a pretty good ideal definition for "maturity" - for both male and female - so at some point do we stop caring as much about our "social value" like we did when we were young or not? I'm inclined to believe we do stop caring as much, once we're more settled into adulthood.
Since we don't know strangers or celebrities personally, we judge them much more superficially.
Compare sports stars. We yell at X for being a complete loser, a fucking moron who doesn't deserve to live, b/c he failed to make a really difficult play that we ourselves, & everyone else we know, couldn't hope to make in 10^6 years.
Because he's a major league player, & we expect him to fulfill our high standards for 'em. If we were playing ball with one of our friends & he missed such a play, we'd just be like "oh, too bad!"
The Jessica Biels of today are beauty athletes. They work out like crazy. They spend hours getting makeup applied. And we hold them to no less exacting a standard than we do other athletes.
Now, *why* is female beauty like this, whereas the male version isn't? That would be the sexism thing, sure. But maybe what's wrong is the absence of the male category, rather than the presence of the female one.
595 - awesome! I like that definition. :-)
But maybe what's wrong is the absence of the male category, rather than the presence of the female one.
I'm sure that's it. Can we now spend 600 comments arguing about whether this or this is the more attractive landscape?
Ogged, you lazy bastard, do I need to take up a collection to buy you a copy of The Second Sex?
598 - that was basically the analogy I was thinking of earlier in this converstion for why the real women in our lives shouldn't take our remarks about celebrities' beauty as a personal comaprsion (i.e. they could be super model beautiful too if they had the same 12 hours per day to do nothing but work out too, personal tariners, chefs, photographers, ). But, I get that real women do take it seriously, even when not a fair comparsion, and I was an asshat for dimissing these feelings to some of the female commentors here.
601 - first one. Anybody who disagrees is wrong.
But, I get that real women do take it seriously, even when not a fair comparsion
Well, that's why it's my duty to raise their consciousness. (Exit, pursued by a bear.)
I'm in a peculiar position to evaluate such matters as non-gendered maturity, since my cultural hardwiring demands that I spend more time trying to find a nice young man whose career I can support and whose children I can raise than trying to find my way to the own non-gendered utopia I posit. Both of my sisters, all my aunts, nearly all my cousins, got good educations, got married, got children, and dropped out. Happily, or at least so the family narrative goes.
Anderson: "beauty athletes" is very well said.
Does this "Second Sex" book do anything to answer the heavy questions in my 590 comment?
596: Yeah, so? Beauty is an advantage. Therefore I surely have a major incentive to play it up. This, as everyone knows, costs money. Honing my "advantage" actually disadvantages me economically; plus, in doing so, I perpetuate its importance, which disadvantages other women in comparison. Thereby not only sustaining the system but also helping ensure that I get to play token woman status rather than having as many mentors (just to take one example of a gender-based advantage) as men do.
And I'll read The Second Sex when there's a decent translation of it. Ditto the 2d half of Being & Time (take that, Ogged).
569: There's truth to that, to the extent that you end up outside of a number of conversations. Anyway, somewhere on this blog I think I've commented on the hotness of some celebrity relative to another, so I probably have my own double standard.
This, as everyone knows, costs money. Honing my "advantage" actually disadvantages me economically
Depends on whether the payoffs exceed the costs, right? Intangible as the former may be.
(Jackmormon: thanks!)
612: The point is that if I were a man, I wouldn't incur those costs.
609 - ok, so what does the "promised land" look like then? When will there be total equality and how does it get enforced?
There won't and it won't. The goal is to have an equal opportunity to be oppressed by men and women.
601: Rainier.
614: What, I'm supposed to not only be able to analyze and explain the problem, but tell you what the solution is and how to get there? What the hell am I, the messiah? Read De Beauvoir and all the other stuff, get involved in the conversation, and figure out your own answers.
613 - you wouldn't incur those costs if you were a man, true; you would incur other costs.
616 - LOL. Funny, but kind of a copout too. You have already studied and thought about these things much more (obviously) so surely have some sort of vision for how utopia should look like? What if you asked me how this network should work and I told you to go read a book and figure it our yourself. I'm not asking for a detailed thesis, just broad strokes.
616 - and, p.s., I';m not asking for the "solution" or how to get there, only what there looks like.
618: I think I've done a lot of teaching today, and it's 9:30 and I have other things to do.
Beauty is an advantage. Therefore I surely have a major incentive to play it up. Honing my "advantage" actually disadvantages me economically; plus, in doing so, I perpetuate its importance, which disadvantages other women in comparison. Thereby not only sustaining the system but also helping ensure that I get to play token woman status rather than having as many mentors (just to take one example of a gender-based advantage) as men do.
Except for the point in 612, I mostly agree. But your "Yeah, so" avoids my main point. If I am correct, and women have an incentive (albeit an imperfect one) that is as great, or perhaps even more powerful, than men's, to advance the idea of the importance of female beauty, fixing the problem requires more than men stopping what they are doing.
To be clear, you have already said that what we have been discussing is not solely something men do to women, so I am by no means saying that I have found a contradiction in your position. I am saying that in figuring out how to get people to stop making women's lives miserable by overemphasizing female beauty, it is useful to see the true extent to which everyone has a hand in it, because you can't fix a problem until you know its full extent.
If I am correct, and women have an incentive (albeit an imperfect one) that is as great, or perhaps even more powerful, than men's, to advance the idea of the importance of female beauty, fixing the problem requires more than men stopping what they are doing.
Shouldn't "women" be "beautiful women"? And doesn't that suggest a divide and conquer element?
Also, I am flabbergasted that people on this thread are actually arguing that beauty standards for women are not political or ideological, if that's what baa was trying to say upthread. Try thinking back a few decades. Envision the cultural landscape. Is it now clear to you that then there were powerful cultural messages stressing that women's worth was as accessories, which involved, among other things, putting as much effort into their appearance as possible and that this had multiple political purposes, one of which was to keep them from demanding a life as anything but accessories? Seriously, if you envision 1950's depictions of womanhood, say, you don't see that going on? Now fast forward. Where did all those attitudes go? Are they just, poof, gone from the culture?
ok, so what does the "promised land" look like then? When will there be total equality and how does it get enforced?
That's a problem I remember discussing in undergrad. The problem is that, if feminist theory is anywhere *near* being accurate (& I think it is), then we are so permeated by sexism that we quite bluntly cannot imagine our way out of it in one fell swoop.
(E.g., take the all-permeating "faith in opposite values" that puzzled Nietzsche, & then consider whether it's not based on a male/other paradigm of sexuality.)
If it's too soon to tell whether the French Revolution was a good thing, how much moreso to tell where feminism will take us?
620 - not asking for you to teach me anything right now, or what needs to happen to get to the "ideal" location, and you've done a fine job today (as always) of identifying problems and cracks in many people's thought processes, given myself many thinks to think about, but I haven't as of yet heard anybody articulate what this ideal balance of gender "looks like". Everything mentioned today in this thread just hits on what is broken, not what the puzzle looks like when it's all put together. Maybe you don't know, and that's fine. Perhaps it's not even something that can be described.
Hi, I'm gswift. I'm a member of a priveleged class. When other people talk about the priveleges I hold, and talk about how my behavior might reinforce my privelege, I make fun of them, and say I wouldn't feel the same in their position, because I'm real good at empathy, and because my privelege is important to me, and I don't like it when people criticize it.
Yes yes, nothing says male privelege like mindless discussions of celebrity ass. And what better way to reinforce my male privelege than with a discussion of Levi Girl vs. J. Biel.?
And how exactly are Ogged, SCMT, myself, etc. supposed to debate this? They've both tried pointing out that this type of discussion among men is how everything gets discussed, whether it me movie stars, cars, sports. etc., but there seems to be a bit of resistance to you know, actually taking their word for it. There's a thousand ways male privelege manifests itself in society. Some of us just happen to think this isn't a very significant manifestation, or possibly not one at all.
Good lord, I'm having hard time taking it that seriously because the initial subject is pretty silly.
Shouldn't "women" be "beautiful women"?
Mostly, but it advantages not just those who are beautiful by oggedian standards, but any women who feel that they can compete for power through this route, which I suspect is most women.
And doesn't that suggest a divide and conquer element?
Between women, sure. But this is no different than things men do to acheive power. People try to find ways to power.
i really can't imagine a world where people don't jockey with each other for social position, at least in their youth. is the fact that some people end up as losers the main problem, or that the competion's benefits acrue all to men (the one enjoying looking at the pretty things?)
Honing my "advantage" actually disadvantages me economically; plus, in doing so, I perpetuate its importance, which disadvantages other women in comparison.
But you could be talking about miserable investment bankers here. Or better yet, lawyers.
Interesting thread. I think a lot of the discussion isn't deep enough; I think Kotsko had the right idea in 535. A lot of the injustices faced by women have parallels in male experience. Everyone gets judged, everyone can be made to feel insecure. (As a man, I'm often struck by how often contacts/glasses or dress shirt/bleh shirt make a huge difference in how people perceive me and treat me. And when I've been single or insecurely attached, I've spent a lot of time worrying about my image.) Life isn't fair. But when you take a step back and look at the big picture, there's a substantial gap in the overall amount of injustice that men and women face.
You occasionally see the discussion turn to who is responsible for this state of affairs, men or women (or rather, men or both men and women). Which seems like a total red herring; are people just weighing their grievances?
Not sure how to finish this comment. So.
Please see 623, gswift. Also, please try to remember that your own sense of your actions or your intentions might not be the final word in how they affect someone else, when there's, like, a larger social context. As someone (Adam?) said upthread, the world was not made yesterday.
624 - thank you, Anderson. So, what you're implying is that feminism is verb instead of a noun and while it may be very proficient in finding current social inequalities, it has no way of declaring "victory"? That is, there's no commonly-held consensus like 1) once there's been a woman president, then check and 2) once the median salary of men and women are comparable, then check, ... until men and women have truly equal opportunities by several objective measures of equality.
You occasionally see the discussion turn to who is responsible for this state of affairs, men or women (or rather, men or both men and women). Which seems like a total red herring; are people just weighing their grievances?
While there is a value to providing witness to the pain this state of affairs inflicts on women, you can't really do a whole lot to fix something if you refuse to examine the causes critically.
So, what you're implying is that feminism is verb instead of a noun
I CALL THE WRATH OF GEOFFREY K. PULLUM UPON YOU
623: I think one way to read baa is to say that men don't perpetuate beauty standards to keep women down, but because they have outsized power, and one of the things they'd like to convert that power into is beautiful women. That is, I'm not sure your cause and effect is quite right, or at least all that's going on.
But when you take a step back and look at the big picture, there's a substantial gap in the overall amount of injustice that men and women face
Does anyone dispute this?
630 - As someone (Adam?) said upthread, the world was not made yesterday.
Yes, like I asked in 590 too, to who gets to decide what "fair" is?
They've both tried pointing out that this type of discussion among men is how everything gets discussed... Some of us just happen to think this isn't a very significant manifestation, or possibly not one at all.
My understanding of LB's and BPhD's and mostly my position upthread was:
Fine, men and women have this conversation about lovely women. When they do, it stings woman listeners a little more than you may realize. Do it if you will, 'cause I got more on my mind, but when you do, know that you are reinforcing a system that limits all of us and hurts some of the people around you in small ways that build up over time.
636: I believe the position of God-Emperor of Everything is currently vacant. Volunteers?
637 - that's a nice summary, Megan, and does makes sense (he said refraining himself from blurting any further yeah, but men also's ... )
Sheeet. At 5'4'. fat, coke-bottle glasses and bat-wing ears that don't work;an obnoxious personality and profound lack of social skills; a lower middle-class background and a habit of blowing whatever opportunities came my way; mental illness and drug abuse and probable Aspberger's; a certain feminization possibly endemic to isolated intellectuals that made everybody think I was gay when I wasn't;a defensive psuedo-intellectualism in pursuit of whatever small self-esteem might be available;a lack of strong attention to personal hygiene generated by depression & alienation...gee, Gals, turned y'all on yet?
Lord, lord nobody knows the troubles I've seen. Or the troubles most everybody else has seen. I somehow managed to survive 60 years, despite the constant revulsion and pity I have encountered, when I have known so many other with ulcers and alcoholism and even suicide. Did I mention 120/80?
Although I guess I have not been oppressed as a class. I am a privileged dude, master of all I survey. I must be sensitive about Paris Hilton's little tits, even though I prefer little tits, even though Paris Hilton has ten thousand things going for her than I can ever dream of, because Paris is part of an oppressed class and sensitive about her body image. As are all the prettier more privileged female peoples around me.
Bitter? Not so much. Maybe amused, and down so low so long that I have different priorities about where to direct my sympathies and sensitivities.
635: Well, in fact, yes: a lot of people dispute this. More to the point, though, while decent halfway intelligent people don't dispute this as a general statement, they *do* dispute whether x, y, or z is a particular manifestation of this broader truth; and if convinced, they then dispute whether or not this particular manifestation is really very important or whether it matters more than that other manifestation over there or whether it isn't really balanced out by the things that men have to deal with; once you get past that, they ask you to explain to them how to solve the problem or well that's all very well and good, but what about class? Or race? Or sexual preference? Or disability? Or native intelligence? And don't you think, really, that some of these things are just innate rather than actually being about social injustice? And so on.
In other words, the general truth is useful as far as it goes; but when people resist recognizing the ways that general truth actually works in the world, it doesn't go very far beyond pat statements like 'everyone should try to treat other people equally.'
Which that and eighty bucks will buy me a haircut.
Y'know, Bob, it's not a fucking zero-sum game.
When are we going to discuss the fact that Jessica Biel has no cellulite and an ass like two canned hams? Seriously, I couldn't go to the Durden site at work--so I just now checked it out. That woman's ass is retarded.
Wait--were you guys talking about something else?
Eighty bucks? The patriarchy strikes again!
So, what you're implying is that feminism is verb instead of a noun and while it may be very proficient in finding current social inequalities, it has no way of declaring "victory"?
Um, there's probably a few dissertations on the sexist nature of this "victory" concept, associated as it is with male-dominated warfare rituals, etc., etc.
But sure, "equality" is a dubious metric. Does a woman president have to be a man in drag? Do women achieve equal income by buying into male-designed & -dominated power structures? "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"
There's a sort of comparison with the relatively impoverished Christian notions of Heaven. What will *that* utopia be like, considering that pretty much everything people value is Of This World and thus irrelevant to Heaven?
Imagining that the death of sexism means equal pay for everybody and women in 1/2 of Congress, may be a lot like a child's imagining that Heaven is getting all the chocolate ice cream you want, with sprinkles.
640 - so, with all those social strikes against you, including lower middle-class, surely you were underappreciated from many angles (no offense), how are you able to be so happy when a Parise hilton "only" has to look good? That's what I'm not understanding. Is there really that much pressure on females to look good and is the weight of that one thing equal to all those many things you mentioned? Apparently so, in some women's minds. That is very sad and extremely disturbing.
It is seriously fucking expensive to be a girl. Also, "but you already have a black skirt" is not something that one says to one's spouse. Learned that one a while ago.
Y'know, Bob, it's not a fucking zero-sum game.
Of course it is. It's about power, and the more you have in relation to me (or Bob), the less I have.
634: I think the causal arrows go in both directions. Men who've been taught to cavil about women's appearance in certain ways, in a way that women typically don't, or do much less, to the objects of their desire (I don't), may not be rubbing their hands together at how their serving the patriarchy as they're doing so. But why do they so cavil about women's appearance? How did that come to be so common to men, yet not to women (when talking about men)? I think it came to be because of a long cultural history of treating women as if their primary value was as male property or accessory, which through most of history was done with the explicit purpose of women's subjugation, though no doubt the subjugators themselves said they were following natural law. Caviling about women in minute and picky ways is descendent of that tradition. And it still works in the same ways, cf the conversation, which I would link to if I could find it, in which my friend told me how she was jeopardizing her performance at her clerkship in order to diet, which hurt her conversation. You'll note that this rather disadvantages her in comparison with her male coworkers. No one is saying, "heh, heh, heh, I will make Liz insecure and then I will beat her out for the good lawyer jobs"; no one has to be doing anything intentionally any more; the engine fuels itself.
646 - excellent!! (see DrB, Anderson could do it! :-)
"the point is that women are oppressed *as a class.*"
Which is why I think Adam's phrasing was so bad at communicating his meaning.
Please see 623, gswift. Also, please try to remember that your own sense of your actions or your intentions might not be the final word in how they affect someone else, when there's, like, a larger social context. As someone (Adam?) said upthread, the world was not made yesterday.
Of course, but I just think celebrities and the entertainment industry in general isn't a very useful benchmark. Entertainment is a screwy industry with ridiculous standards for beauty, so naturally conversations of people in the industry are going to tend to focus on beauty. I think everyday corporations, law firms, etc. are where it's more useful to look at this stuff. Hollywood is like some kind of bizarro world, it's fantasy. It's just not very good lens though which to view these things.
654: The conversation is about how we interact with Hollywood crap, not the merits of the Hollywood crap in the abstract.
651 - Tia, that is very depressing (but quite plausible).
Men have always valued female beauty, let's agree. But have women always been subject to the kind of beauty regime that currently holds sway?
Not a bit of it. What did it mean to be judged in accordance to prevailing standards of beauty in the days before TV, movies, glossy magazines, ubiquitous advertising, the internets, and the like? In the days before everyone, every day, was constantly bombarded with images of airbrushed female perfection? It meant being compared to and contrasted with other real-life women, because that's where people's ideas of beauty (radical, eh?) actually came from. It meant that a reasonably pretty girl stood a chance of seeing herself as attractive in a non-neurotic way. It also meant, of course, that men viewed reasonably pretty girls as pretty girls, without comparing them to some unattainable ideal that they hadn't even dreamed of, against which real-life women inevitably fall short.
Book title suggestion: The Body Project (too lazy to look up the author at the moment). Among other things, the author (whose name I am too lazy to look up) , compares late nineteenth-century girls' diaries with their mid to late twentieth-century counterparts, and wow, what a difference just one brief century can make. When the Victorian girls spoke of the need to improve themselves, they were talking about character: 'I need to be a better person,' not 'I need to be a better-looking person.' Oh sure, they were all about those Victorian feminine virtues that are now largely sneered upon, but honesty, to look at that stuff alongside the later obsessions with weight and breast size and etc, is to wonder just what kind of progress has been made.
I'm surprised nobody has really raised the consumer culture, mass media angle in a serious way. I think it's quite significant. It's so much more complicated (and much harder to fight) than "the patriarchy," or what men are doing to women or what not.
I call I get to blogmarry the Invisible Adjunct!
Y'know, Bob, it's not a fucking zero-sum game.
No, but judging from the experiences of my male friends versus my female friends, my smart friends versus my dumb friends, my black/hispanic friends versus my white/asian friends, and my poorer friends versus my rich friends, sexism is one of my lesser concerns. I think that class, intellect, connections and looks have much greater effects on one's prospects than gender. Admittedly, I am very young and have been raised in very racially diverse cosmopolitan areas where sexism and racism are as low as they probably get in this world.
How did that come to be so common to men, yet not to women (when talking about men)?
But a cultural/sexist explanation would require men to not be as harsh on other men. As Adam mentioned earlier, men on the whole are more likely than women on the whole to be critical of their sex objects, regardless of gender. It's easy to say it's an inherent gender difference, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a good cultural reason for this.
I'm surprised nobody has really raised the consumer culture, mass media angle in a serious way. I think it's quite significant.
See 598 above. Today's media starlets are like "beauty athletes". It's their (chosen) profession to look a hyper-femine way, investing countless hours into their appearance (and they have the resources and support staff to make it happen). The fact that everyday, real-life women feel pressure to look that unrealistic way is kind of like real-life guys not being able to compete with professional athletes. The question is why do women feel more pressure than men to compete with these fantasy people?
647:Women fucking starve themselves to death because of the social conditioning. It is indeed a serious problem we should all be sensitive to.
My dad, due to overexertion in WWII, and a "Winter of Our Discontent" failed professional life, died of a heartattack at 54. I have outlived him, which is kinda of a milestone for guys. I still expect all the women I know to outlive me, have better and longer friendships, but somehow still be lonely.
What's the REM song? Everybody ...something, it doesn't much matter what, the key word is everybody.
I vote the right way, read the good blogs, try to act right and kind. I ain't taking on anymore guilt at my age.
I think it came to be because of a long cultural history of treating women as if their primary value was as male property or accessory, which through most of history was done with the explicit purpose of women's subjugation, though no doubt the subjugators themselves said they were following natural law.
It could be. It could also be, as someone adverted to in a prior comment about stringent gay beauty standards, that men are weirdly obsessive about the physical beauty of their mates, and given the differential in power, they've let it run riot. Probably doesn't make a difference, though.
Of course, but I just think celebrities and the entertainment industry in general isn't a very useful benchmark. Entertainment is a screwy industry with ridiculous standards for beauty, so naturally conversations of people in the industry are going to tend to focus on beauty. I think everyday corporations, law firms, etc. are where it's more useful to look at this stuff. Hollywood is like some kind of bizarro world, it's fantasy. It's just not very good lens though which to view these things.
I don't know what you're saying here about a "lens through which to view these things." It's not a lens I'm looking through. And what things?
The entertainment industry, along with a lot of other industries, is selling me a picture of what I should be. The way other people talk about that picture affects me. You saying it isn't important when I say it's important to me doesn't mean anything to me. You saying it's not a manifestation of your privilege when I see just how privileged you are as I survey the body neuroses of every single woman I know just sounds like someone who doesn't want to confront how extensive and pervasive his privilege is. You saying you don't intend anything bad by it--you don't mean it the way it sounds--just strikes me as, most charitably, profound naivete about the relationship between individuals and systems.
662 - I'm a little more willing to assume some guilt than Bob is, being the dad to a pair of young daughters that I don't want to grow up bashing themselves in 24/7 over their looks. I had no idea this issue was as big as it apparently is. I can't take any more guilt for one day, so I'm calling it a night and hopefully wake up tomorrow a little more sensitive per Megan's comment in 637. I thank Ogged for the post and male perspective, which I greatly identified with. And I thank Anderson in 646, especially. Really, everybody who's participated has said quality stuff. It was fun!
But a cultural/sexist explanation would require men to not be as harsh on other men.
No it wouldn't. This has been said already. Men learn, as men, to participate in a certain kind of critical and objectifying gaze. They do this for cultural/sexist reasons. If they are gay, their objects wind up being men. But most men are straight.
659: thank you, yes.
I call I get to blogmarry the Invisible Adjunct!
without comparing them to some unattainable ideal that they hadn't even dreamed of, against which real-life women inevitably fall short.
Is this of practical concern? What I mean is, is this simply a case of "some idiots do this", or do people you respect do this to you? If the former, Do we care about guys who subscribe to Maxim, and what they think or do? It's not my thing, so I don't pay it much attention. If the latter possibility though, I will sympathize with the concern.
I would be just jealous enough, IA, to prove my devotion, but never so jealous that you would feel smothered. Didn't I send you a link to something witty you-know-who had written, just this morning? Who loves you, baby?
Of course it is. It's about power, and the more you have in relation to me (or Bob), the less I have.
And this is wrong. To take just one example, the less men are taught to dehumanize the people they sleep with, the better their chances for mutual, full, loving relationships. Works out better for everyone.
668: If the blog-crush is fucking w-lfs-n, again....
This is going to be one of those things we try to guess but never learn, isn't it?
No, but judging from the experiences of my male friends versus my female friends, my smart friends versus my dumb friends, my black/hispanic friends versus my white/asian friends, and my poorer friends versus my rich friends, sexism is one of my lesser concerns. I think that class, intellect, connections and looks have much greater effects on one's prospects than gender. Admittedly, I am very young and have been raised in very racially diverse cosmopolitan areas where sexism and racism are as low as they probably get in this world.
What is the point of this? The problems of unionized supermarket workers in California are not as bad as the problems of subsistece farmers in India getting flooded out by dam projects. Does that mean we should not discuss the problems of unionized supermarket workers?
674: Megan's guy's secret is that he's IA in drag. He has a cat, which B once tried very hard to run over with her bicycle. The cat survived only because girls are bad at bicycle-riding.
And this is wrong. To take just one example, the less men are taught to dehumanize the people they sleep with, the better their chances for mutual, full, loving relationships. Works out better for everyone.
That analysis assumes, I think, the Engine running itself; men don't have the particular power, there. Either that, or we just have a probably intractable difference of opinon about the the mechanism of power.
No it wouldn't. This has been said already. Men learn, as men, to participate in a certain kind of critical and objectifying gaze.
Is this actually testable in any way? Is there any way to say whether the male tendency to be more critical of physical appearance is nature or nurture?
I'm just disinclined to think it's all cultural, as I know a few girls who are rough on men's appearance and men who don't criticize female appearance at all. I know that I'm rougher on men than on women, and that my parents and all those I grew up around were very unconcerned about gender. Hell, my parents knew I was fat-phobic at way too young of an age to even have any cultural inculcation. Why can't some or most of this be nature? What's the evidence for either side of this argument?
I'm afraid that what it ultimately comes down to is that it's not nice to say mean things about people, even people we don't know. Sometimes it's gender stuff we're reinforcing and sometimes other stuff, but the effect is seldom good. Which is kind of a shame for us bitter sarcastic types, but there you have it.
651: Caviling about women in minute and picky ways is descendent of that tradition.
As a guy, I don't see it that way. (And I recognize your point that one's intention and one's impact are two different things, and we can't just be judged on the former.)
I remember hitting puberty and becoming rather aware of images of sexy women. These images were present on television, on magazine covers, and so on, so in some sense this is all cultural influence. But my reaction was a private one, and essentially was "oh damn, that's nice." A pretty helpless and powerless reaction, really.
When guys sit around and talk about Jessica Biel, they are basically bonding over this common but basically private reaction. They may "progress" to making critical comments about Sarah Jessica Parker or whatever, but the whole exercise is driven by the sense of "oh damn that's nice." Guys are sometimes critical to signal that they are expert conoisseurs, but this is really "wankery" in the Atrios sense. And guys understand this, and don't take it seriously, which is why they're somewhat confused by women reacting to it rather negatively.
Much more insiduous are men criticizing women in their dating pool for being too fat or too ugly, even if only to their male friends; these standards are meant to raise male status by focusing the group on what's really important (banging hot chicks, of course). Of course this is also usually regarded as wankery (because the guys who get hung up on this the most are the ones who don't hook up with hot chicks).
And Tia's point is that all this does bring women down, even if not intentionally. And I think that's true.
Those of you who have blogcrushes (all of you) that you won't reveal are making me nervous.
What is the point of this? The problems of unionized supermarket workers in California are not as bad as the problems of subsistece farmers in India getting flooded out by dam projects. Does that mean we should not discuss the problems of unionized supermarket workers?
Actually, this is a poor analogy. The big problem with sexism and, to a lesser extent, racism are that the bias against a group is so dominated by differences within that group....
Ok, I had continued onto a huge post explaining my feelings on the range of female privilege versus class/educational group privilege and the implications for policy-level change (the only sort we can genuinely institute on a greater-than-individual level), but then I realized that it's 700 comments in and no one really cares what I say because I'm not a woman and thus could never grasp the full extent of my privilege.
Suffice it to say, sexism is bad. We can all agree on that and try to expunge it from ourselves. When I choose a cause to crusade for and fix in policy, there are others that I find more worrying.
Of course, 681 makes me the giantest hypocrite in the world. I tower over smaller hypocrites.
I would be just jealous enough, IA, to prove my devotion, but never so jealous that you would feel smothered.
Oh, you're good. Now, why is it you're not real-life married yet?
Didn't I send you a link to something witty you-know-who had written, just this morning?
You did. But just what kind of game were you playing, after all? I think it's only fair to warn you: I don't go in for that polyamory stuff (stuff and nonsense and downright decadence is what I meant to say).
I'm just disinclined to think it's all cultural, as I know a few girls who are rough on men's appearance and men who don't criticize female appearance at all.
The existence of variations in individual responses to the culture is not an argument for a phenomenon not being cultural. Surely there was a time when men did not sit around comparing the precise angle at which Goody Proctor's ass met her thigh to Goody Wilson's? This is one manifestation of male dominance. There've been others, and this one hasn't always been around (see IA's comment). I'm not talking about a general interest in the attractiveness of one's sex partner. I'm talking about a specific way of engaging celebrity culture. We've all noted that women do it to other women. Is there a gene that allows women to more frequently see small flaws in their own sex, as opposed to the opposite? Back on the veldt, did women say, "your ass is too fat" to distract their competitor breeder as the pushed her in front of a mountain lion?
I am such a small hypocrite that I only see hypocracy in others.
That analysis assumes, I think, the Engine running itself; men don't have the particular power, there. Either that, or we just have a probably intractable difference of opinon about the the mechanism of power.
I don't understand what you mean.
Goody Proctor
I seem to remember Giles Corey indicating a preference for "more weight."
Surely there was a time when men did not sit around comparing the precise angle at which Goody Proctor's ass met her thigh to Goody Wilson's? This is one manifestation of male dominance.
No, I think it's a manifestation of photography. Really.
The guys who do this the most are 15-year-olds who aren't anywhere near getting laid. They are the complete opposite of dominant.
688: She really has some meat on her stones.
I only see hypocracy in others
Government by the insincere.
Back on the veldt, did women say, "your ass is too fat" to distract their competitor breeder as the pushed her in front of a mountain lion?
Of course not. Back on the veldt they had real lions.
689: It's really not a matter of the positions of the individuals, but of one class's position w/r/t another class.
The entertainment industry, along with a lot of other industries, is selling me a picture of what I should be. The way other people talk about that picture affects me.
But when discussing people who are regulars in an industry where looks are everything, it doesn't really strike me as evidence of anything that conversations about actresses would be often be about beauty. I look at the top paid people in Hollywood (table at bottom of page), and it's not exactly Fuglytown with regard to the guys.
Looks matter for women in ways they shouldn't, and there's definitely a double standard. But I think Hollywood's emphasis on looks in general is kind of a static ridden sample to look at. I think it's more clearly apparent in industries where a woman's looks shouldn't matter, but seem to anyways.
industries where a woman's looks shouldn't matter, but seem to anyways
691: If you have problems with the spelling, take it up with Lincoln.
Lincoln knew a hypocracy when he saw one.
The existence of variations in individual responses to the culture is not an argument for a phenomenon not being cultural.
Of course, that's why I asked if there was any evidence for it being cultural or any testable predictions we can check, as my gut feeling from my own experience (extremely fallible, I know) is that there is a considerable nature component to criticizing appearance.
This is one manifestation of male dominance. There've been others, and this one hasn't always been around (see IA's comment).
Now I think this tendency has always been around. I was never raised with any male who made comments about women's bodies, but I knew a nice ass when I saw one. Just as I could analytically break down a professional athlete's game into the various fundamentals and declare which could be improved in my opinion and which are fantastic, I could analytically break down someone's body into particular body parts and rate them individually. Are you honestly telling me that you can't break a guy's body down into parts and say what you think of each of them individually? How do you assess the quality of anything that is a compound of many subelements?
693: You seem to be saying that men sit around discussing images of women fundamentally because they occupy a higher class than women. Maybe.
Question: 15-year-olds make Top 10 Hottest Women lists and discuss them. Is this more related to: (1) the fact that they are in awe of the opposite sex, and have ridiculous internal reactions to images of women; (2) their male privilege, cultivated over thousands of years? Again, this is not a black-and-white issue but as a male I think you're seriously discounting #1.
Food service, for instance.
No doubt. There's a sushi place my wife and I go where it's hot chick central with the waitresses. There's no way in hell their staff is representative of the general population.
gswift, what proposition is it that you think I'm amassing evidence for? What is that a response to? I can't tell; I don't understand it as a response to anything I've said. I'm not complaining that actresses are expected to be beautiful. I'm complaining that women in general are instructed through a variety of means that their worth is dependent on their beauty, that the specific ideal is destructive (in terms of body modification, time, and expense it would require), and I'm noting that the entertainment industry is one such method of instruction. Another method of instruction is certain ways men and women have of dissecting the flaws of other women. Men don't get instructed in the quite the same way because they don't have to contend with the rest of the apparatus beyond good looking actors, although society is taking on more and more of a beauty project for men, and there are other things they have to contend with.
Government by the insincere.
No, hypocracy would be an undersupply of governance.
Question: 15-year-olds make Top 10 Hottest Women lists and discuss them. Is this more related to: (1) the fact that they are in awe of the opposite sex, and have ridiculous internal reactions to images of women; (2) their male privilege, cultivated over thousands of years? Again, this is not a black-and-white issue but as a male I think you're seriously discounting #1.
Especially since in this instance I would say the comparison is not between men as a class and women as a class, but between adult women making bank as models or entertainers who are considered among the top 10 sexiest women alive, and 15-year-old boys. I can tell you who I'd back in the "winning at life" game, thousands of years of sex-based oppression aside.
This is my point. Women vs. men is a tragic inequality at a society level, but it is so dominated by all other inequalities that I can think of at any finer demographic analysis.
Are you honestly telling me that you can't break a guy's body down into parts and say what you think of each of them individually? How do you assess the quality of anything that is a compound of many subelements?
I could, but it wouldn't have that much relevance to whether I was attracted to him.
I think you are neglecting a distinction between a general appreciation and engaging in a series of impossibly fine distinctions.
703: This is just not a response to anything relevant here. No one's talking about the actresses. It's about every women who grows up with the way men and women talk about women's bodies. The 15 year old boys will someday not be 15. They're getting taught to relate to women a certain way and communicate about their bodies a certain way, and this will affect all women.
and 699: I'd never say that other kinds of dynamics don't exist in addition to political ones, or that multiple political dynamics don't exist at once.
I think you are neglecting a distinction between a general appreciation and engaging in a series of impossibly fine distinctions.
The thing is, men suck at making impossibly fine distinctions. A guy making impossibly fine distinctions about a supermodel is like the Jeff Daniels character in the Squid and the Whale. It's not something that should be taken seriously; I'm actually somewhat surprised to learn that apparently women get hurt by that. It's such obvious wankery.
They're getting taught to relate to women a certain way and communicate about their bodies a certain way, and this will affect all women.
But a guy who doesn't seriously realize the silliness of nitpicking Jessica Alba (or women in general) is damaged goods. Nitpicking women is a childish thing. It's a pathetic way to pretend to have control, and it's related to living more in a fantasy world than the real one. So it seems less "being taught to relate to women in a certain way" and more "substituting a fantasy world for the real one due to insecurity."
Again, this is my personal male perspective. I won't argue about the consequences to women, which is something that I'm sure you understand much better than I.
The thing is, guys, that the point here is the effect this kind of talk has on women, regardless of the intentions or insecurity of the guys doing the talking.
It's about every women who grows up with the way men and women talk about women's bodies.
But the boys are supposedly learning to criticize in this way while they have no societal power to justify the criticism. Why can't young girls learn the same form of criticism based on the images of beefcake men that are prevelent in advertising for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klien post-heroin-chic, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc.?
I'm just asking why the only form of harsh criticism of purely physical traits that you claim doesn't exist (and to some extent, I agree with you) is that of women criticizing male bodies. Why would that be? Why don't women criticize or analyze men's bodies in private?
As long as I'm commenting on the substantive issue, I might as well throw in my two cents. I don't think I've participated in a conversation about the hotness of various women since high school, at least not actively; I may have been present at a couple since then. They bore me, much like other common "guy" topics such as cars and sports (which, as several others have mentioned, tend to be discussed in the same manner). This is part of the reason I generally prefer spending time with women.
I don't think I've made any comments about the appearances of celebrities (dagger aleph excepted) around here, and I don't really understand ogged's enthusiasm for posts like this.
708: agreed; but to respond to 701:
I'm complaining that women in general are instructed through a variety of means that their worth is dependent on their beauty, that the specific ideal is destructive (in terms of body modification, time, and expense it would require), and I'm noting that the entertainment industry is one such method of instruction. Another method of instruction is certain ways men and women have of dissecting the flaws of other women.
I read this as implying that the purpose of "dissecting flaws of women" is to instruct women that their worth is dependent on their beauty. But it's probably more appropriate to read this as "men dissecting women contributes to women thinking that their worth is dependent on their beauty." Can't argue with that, but I am trying to push forward the intuition that we could easily have a world where women don't feel their worths are dependent on their beauty but men still sit around dissecting models. I'm saying that the important causes are elsewhere, and this "Jessica Biel's ass is FINE" stuff is a very minor factor that only gains power through the other ones.
I could obviously be wrong; for one thing, I have a very limited perspective. But as of now I don't see it.
I really think that's the kind of thing that we're just going to have to trust the women about, bro.
Ok, and I'm feeling more and more like I've just been wasting the time of B, LB, Tia, and all the other people who've been holding up the feminist side of this thread.
I always have an impossible time with feminist arguments because they seem rooted in male sexism entirely foreign from my upbringing and a male hegemony that never existed in my household or any of my relationships. I can understand the "culture" theories on an intellectual level, and I love what I've read on the sociological theories of culture from the Marxist, Feminist, Structuralist, Post-Structuralist, etc. points of view, but I haven't come across any scientifically testable predictions or plausible suggestions for societal improvement that would make them seem like more than intellectual exercises. Sorry for the failures of my imagination or pattern recognition.
And with that, I'll shut up and hopefully stay out of all the future feminism discussions, even though I should have learned my lesson with the Burger King and Snickers commercials thread.
Is there really that much pressure on females to look good and is the weight of that one thing equal to all those many things you mentioned? Apparently so, in some women's minds.
No one is saying that looks alone = "all the problems men face." We've said repeatedly that looks alone /= the extent of sexism; just the only one we're discussing in this thread. Jeez.
I vote the right way, read the good blogs, try to act right and kind. I ain't taking on anymore guilt at my age.
Who is asking you to "take on guilt"? People feeling guilty does women fuck-all good. No one cares if you feel guilty. All we're asking is that you not dismiss us, thankyouverymuch. Which includes waving your hands and saying "you think you've got it bad..."
It's about power, and the more you have in relation to me (or Bob), the less I have.
It isn't about individuals. It's about women as a class How many times does this need to be said?
(see DrB, Anderson could do it! :-)
Bully for Anderson. Maybe Anderson can be the personal feminism tutor. My point wasn't that I can't perform on demand; it is that I am neither required nor inclined to, and I kind of get surly when people fail to realize that asking me to is yet another kind of sexism.
It isn't about individuals. It's about women as a class How many times does this need to be said?
B, precisely how do you (and Tia, it appears) see power working? Because to me, it's a comparative measurement game, and, as between two people or two classes, it is definitionally a zero-sum game. But perhaps there's a different understanding of power at work here.
When I said it wasn't a zero sum game, I was responding not to comparisons between two classes--e.g., men and women--but to implied comparisons between classes that overlap. Say, the working class and women. Some of whom are working class. To say that one doesn't really see the oppression of women as an important issue because after all, poor people are oppressed worse is ironically both sexist and classist, inasmuch as it seems to imply that women and poor people are distinct groups: that one sees "poor people" as men only, and that one conceives of all "women" as being, say, middle class and above.
As to the broader question, I think that power is a relative term and one that depends a great deal on context. If you have power, that doesn't mean I lack it; I may (almost certainly do) have power in different contexts. So, for instance, take language. In the academic world I live in, speaking "standard English" conveys a great deal of power. So much so that, in fact, its power is nearly invisible: "everyone" speaks standard English, it's just the way things are. We seldom stop to think about whether speaking non-standard English (especially if you do so without an accent) is *in and of itself* a valid measure of intelligence, writing ability, teaching skill, and so on, or whether we're discriminating against people whose speech patterns reflect a working-class background but who are otherwise excellent researchers, highly intelligent and original thinkers, and so forth.
Now, when I was in elementary school, my ability to speak standard English fluently (and by the way, one of my hobbyhorses is pointing out that so-called "standard" English would be more accurately described as the English of the educated class) was a handicap, socially speaking. I got mocked for it, and made fun of for sounding square, for not knowing what x or y slang term meant, and so on. I got beat up for it once or twice.
But the fact that in that context my speech patterns were a disadvantage does not negate the more important (I would argue) fact that speaking standard English gives me a hell of a social advantage. In fact, my getting beaten up was in part surely a recognition of that social advantage: the way I talked implied (to the people I spoke to) that I thought I was better than them. Was I thinking that? No, of course not. Was it nonetheless true that the way I talk did, in fact, mark me as "better"? Yes, in the unthinking way that we usually talk about these things. It's completely illogical that this should be the case--after all, my classmates could make themselves understood just as well as I could and of course it's a democracy, we're all equal, blah blah blah. But they and I knew perfectly well that although my language made me a social pariah there, it also meant that I would probably go on to college, make more money than them, marry and have children later, and a whole host of other things that again, are logically unrelated to how I talk but that do, nonetheless, tend to follow because standard English serves as a remarkably subtle and effective class marker.
gswift, what proposition is it that you think I'm amassing evidence for? What is that a response to? I can't tell; I don't understand it as a response to anything I've said. I'm not complaining that actresses are expected to be beautiful. I'm complaining that women in general are instructed through a variety of means that their worth is dependent on their beauty, that the specific ideal is destructive (in terms of body modification, time, and expense it would require), and I'm noting that the entertainment industry is one such method of instruction.
Guess I'm mostly just saying something similar to what Ogged said in 197. It just seems like there's an assumption that how we discuss what are basically "professional beatutiful people" is reflective of our larger attitudes towards women, and that's not necessarily the case.
And admittedly, I'm bad at empathy. Shocking, I know. I think when Yglesias posted that link to the empathy test on the Guardian site I got a single digit score, which puts me at something like serial killer level.
When I said it wasn't a zero sum game, I was responding not to comparisons between two classes--e.g., men and women--but to implied comparisons between classes that overlap. Say, the working class and women.
I took bob to be making a fairly common criticism that I've heard from economically disadvantaged men, non-white women, and often enough, lower-than-middle-class white women: feminism is middle-class-and-above white women, and not me. Which is to say, the criticism is either explicit or implicit that we're talking about two groups that do not overlap, despite claims to the contrary. It's not a crazy sentiment, and is roughly analogous to the Where the White Woman At complaint: given scarce "progressive" resources, not every ill can be addressed, I (as bob or someone else from those groups) know who is going to get served, and it won't be me. (And this, I think, is roughly right. My sense is that if you break out the data, the middle class+ white women will have done vastly better under the Civil Rights Movement (or during the Civil Rights Era) than any other traditionally named group. )
This really is a complaint about the zero-sum nature of improving one class's lot as compared to another (and relatedly, about having the political power to do so). It's a silly, stupid, and even offensive complaint coming from me, but, given the resume he just provided, it is, at a minimum, not incomprehensible coming from bob.
Oh no, obviously the "feminism is about relatively privileged women" complaint has a lot of validity. Of course I would quickly counter that "feminism," as a whole, certainly isn't just about relatively privileged women, but yes: this discussion certainly reflects the concerns of the educated middle-class and up group that comment here. I'll totally cop to that.
But then, surely the whole "which actress is hot" discussion isn't exactly advancing the interests of the working class either, right? Part of what bugs me about the "yeah, whatever ladies, I care more about the poor" attitude is that it crops up in the one context but not in the other. Why is it important in a discussion about feminism to say that it isn't one's most important issue? If I were feeling cranky or defensive I'd hypothesize that it's a form of backlash or sexism or something: don't get too uppity, ladies. I'm not in that mood at the moment, so I'm honestly wondering. I can see that it comes up because discussions of feminism are specifically about social justice in a way that discussions of hot actresses aren't, and so there's a chain of associataions that's just easier to make. But it doesn't seem to happen (maybe I just don't see it) when people are talking about, say the importance of universal health insurance. Folks don't come in and say, "yeah, that's important, but frankly I care more about abortion rights, and that's where I'm putting my energy." Do they?
719:Hey I am not complaining or whining or envious or competing for resources or attention. I am just hunky dory, completely satisfied with my lot. I am a pretty happy dude nowadays, whereas b and LB and Tia are just miserable because ogged said stuff about Jessica Biel. It feels a little like a luxury, an indulgence.
I know women whose live, jobs, relationships have been damaged by the body-image thing. I don't sismaiss the feelings, or the problems. I just don't know how to look at women anymore.
Aww, this thread is old and tired, and I think it has all been said better than I can.
Oh crud, sorry about that. I meant to close italics after "in a discussion about feminism," to indicate that I meant that topic specifically. My bad.
720:Yeah, it does. Reference Joe Lieberman who is so good on so many issues, and so bad on others , and entire threads devoted to which is more important.
Most bloggers like their commenters to stay on topic, but I very often in UHC threads say "In your dreams, dude, until the deficit and taxophobia are handled."
And God knows there are fights about who NARAL endorses, as tactical wins but strategic losses.
For three examples.
b and LB and Tia are just miserable because ogged said stuff about Jessica Biel. It feels a little like a luxury, an indulgence.
We are? No. We just enjoy discussing these things. Inasmuch as blog commenting here is a luxury and an indulgence, sure. But that would be the case no matter what the topic.
The point of the appearance thing is that it is the issue at hand. Is it a hell of a lot of work to go through these discussions about relatively minor things just to get people to realize that (duh) playing the hot or not game is part of the larger problem of basing women's worth disproportionately on their appearance? Yeah it is. Is it, nonetheless, a useful way to get people to start to think about the ways that little things can add up--which is a much more important issuse? Yeah, it is. Am I damn lucky to be in a position where I can spend my substantial free time doing that work? Hell yes.
But I mean, so?
722: But your examples are about staying on topic: they're all about political strategy. This thread wasn't.
717: Men are really good at compartmentalizing. That might be a nice way of defining "manliness."
Doesn't "compartmentalizing" mean "focusing on one thing and assuming someone else will take care of the rest of it"?
Specifically, it means walking away until a woman gets ahold of herself and decides to listen to reason -- or at least to put on a good show.
726: See, I knew my wife and I had our gender roles backward.
BTW, B, not to kiss your ass or anything, but I've learned a lot from reading your stuff on threads like this over the last year or so.
Why thank you!
It's okay, you can kiss my ass. It's not as fine as Jessica Biel's ass, but it's probably better than Sarah Jessica Parker's. I don't think you'll really be settling.
I'm pretty much in favor of most asses that anybody will let me get anywhere close to, when it comes right down to it.
Well, when I get that ticket to Hawaii, we'll see about that.
BTW, did you get my return email?
And thus DaveL perpetuates the "guys will nail anything that breathes" stereotype.
734: Haven't yet. I sent from my work computer and have been gone from there for an hour and a half or so, so you sent since then I'll get it in the morning.
733: My thing is more bitter and cynical, really.
Dude, Dave, don't try to downplay it. Every comment on here, you sound ridiculously angry.
735: "Nail" s/b "surreptitiously admire," in my case.
737: Ah, fuck you in the horse you rode in on anyway.
Ah, okay. That's cool.
BTW, speaking of work email, I googled you and we went to the same place for grad school. I think you knew that about me, but I don't remember knowing that about you.
"Nail" s/b "surreptitiously admire," in my case.
DaveL is a peeping tom!
Fuck Adam *in* the horse? How would that work, exactly?
743: Hey, as long as he doesn't talk about it when women are around, who's to know?
It really doesn't seem unreasonable in a "is so hot" thread to talk about the meaning of "is so hot" discussions in general.
Except that it had been repeatedly said that of course this one issue isn't the main point, and except that one could on those grounds say the same about every blog thread one has ever read. The point is, why does this particular topic inevitably (ime) draw exactly that response?
Well, I keep running around the neighborhood in the early morning, but nobody seems to walk around naked much. Maybe because everyone over the age of 60 is apparently required to be out on their morning walks between 5 and 6 am.
A day of hard daddy duty, and now this Gravity's Rainbow-length thread. It's a wonder I've been able to bring myself up to speed. So anyway, this Jessica Biel -- she's an actress, you say?
Mostly just an ass with some kind of woman-thing attached, as I understand it.
I get the two confused anyway. Hey, baa's a Red Sox fan, right? Judging from their recent epic collapse, he should have plenty of free time this October to read The Second Sex.
748: I don't know. I have objections to specific points here and there in the thread, but not that one.
(and by the way, one of my hobbyhorses is pointing out that so-called "standard" English would be more accurately described as the English of the educated class)
Well of course one would expect the educated class to have it together enough to speak standard English, duh.
Can't argue with that, but I am trying to push forward the intuition that we could easily have a world where women don't feel their worths are dependent on their beauty but men still sit around dissecting models. I'm saying that the important causes are elsewhere, and this "Jessica Biel's ass is FINE" stuff is a very minor factor that only gains power through the other ones.
Then you're not saying anything different than I've said, though I might excise the very. I said the reason lots of this stuff had power was because of the rest of the apparatus.
I'm just asking why the only form of harsh criticism of purely physical traits that you claim doesn't exist (and to some extent, I agree with you) is that of women criticizing male bodies. Why would that be? Why don't women criticize or analyze men's bodies in private?
I didn't say doesn't exist; I said existed to a lesser extent. And I've said why not already; women are not taught to relate to the object of their desire as objects in the same way, with the same frequency, that men are.
There is no contradiction between the elements of this sentence: So it seems less "being taught to relate to women in a certain way" and more "substituting a fantasy world for the real one due to insecurity." Seeing women as fantasy objects makes them less real, less human, less worthy of consideration. Of course members of a dominant class, especially when they are low status members of a class, are insecure. And one of the ways they express this insecurity is by taking stances towards the subordinate class that puff them up, even though they subjectively experience those subordinant members as more powerful. Do you watch Deadwood? Is Steve insecure? In some ways, is he actually in a worse position than, say, the Nigger General, because he is personally weak, and a drunk, and disrespected by everyone? Is the way he treats Hostetler and the NG actually an expression of impotence? In fact, does he himself complain about how the niggers are taking everything away from him? Does this mean he is not in a dominant class w/r/t the NG? That he does not have serious advantages w/r/t the NG? Yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no. /Rumsfeld.
It doesn't matter what the subjective experience of the men/boys is. One's own introspection is not the last word on how one functions as a social actor.
I understand perfectly that descriptions of the class dynamics of men discussing celebrity ass does not capture the full range of psychological and social factors involved, esp. if the discussants are 15 year old boys. Sometimes, when you're interested in one thing in particular, you focus on that.
Another thing I don't think some people here understand is the extent to which women are taught to see themselves through the eyes of men, and the converse does not happen in the same way. Of course men are hurt and affected by sexual rejection or deprivation, but as a general rule, they do not have the same consciousness of their bodies as women see them the way women have a consciousness of their bodies as men see them.
And you know, Bob, I'm the first to recognize that I'm privileged. In threads about class, I've acknowledged that I have enormous class privilege, even though my mother is an elementary school teacher and my father is a customer service rep. I've also expressed some annoyance with my college friends who were fond of bitching about how many people at my college were rich and romanticizing their own position, as if presence there did not constitute privilege. I'm exceedingly privileged by being white, American, and educated. I actually don't think much of my attractiveness privilege, since as a woman, I only maintain it through not insignificant effort to thinking about what would makes someone else approve of me, and for about half my life it's basically going to have gone away. It's there, but it's exceedingly flimsy compared to the others.
I don't think that once someone's material needs are met and they have career opportunities they are no longer worth consideration. I happen to have a lot of energy and interest in this particular topic because it affects me and and a solid majority of my intimates, because my intimates are mostly women. When women are damaging their own bodies, avoiding the doctor because they are ashamed of their bodies (another poll I read; again, a majority), I think that problem is real (and I know elsewhere you said it was real, Bob, so I'm not sure what your point is), and no, actually, I don't think it's solely a middle class problem. I knew plenty of lower class girls, many Hispanic, in my Central Valley town who were plenty concerned about how fat and ugly they were. It may be somehow gauche to talk about my own concerns. But I can't quite see how a blog where people talk about the meaning of hot or not threads is more of an exercise in privilege than, you know, a blog with just the hot or not threads.
re: 754
"Well of course one would expect the educated class to have it together enough to speak standard English, duh."
Or to be able to choose to speak standard English when they need to and not speak it when they don't.
Apropos of nothing at all: if you're as fascinated by bonobos as I am (bonobos are the species who fuck more than any other, because they find each other so hot; when there's an argument between two bonobos, the whole tribe drops what they're doing and start fucking, and that's how they end arguments), there is an interview with the world's biggest bonobo expert, Dr. Frans De Waal, on my blog today.
Scroll down three posts and read about the animal kingdom's hippy sex fiends.
Who wouldn't rather be a bonobo than a person?
a. I don't know any longer how people are using the word "manly."
I usually hear it preceding the word "meal".
Judging from their recent epic collapse, he should have plenty of free time this October to read The Second Sex.
The essential inhumanity of the left! (also, I'll switch seamlessly to the Patriots, like all modern Bostonians.)
So far into Second Sex, I find much to agree with, and not much that is (to me) controversial. The section on "the biological facts" is at one time obviously correct (don't reify these sexual differences), hilarious (her recounting attempted derivations of a notion of masculinity from the structure of spermatozoa), and boring (in the sense that much of what she says is, to my 21st century ears completely uncontroversial). What it will be interesting to see is the move from detailing pervasive past and current oppression (which I hope everyone acknowledges) to arguments that establih a causal role of mentalities shaped by pervasive oppression to the structure current practice X. Likewise, I suspect from what has come so far that there will be an argument for the value of construing women as a class for analytical or political purposes. Neither has been fleshed out so far...
On where the thread is, I empathize a lot with JAC's comments above. It's not like I don't get how the 'male gaze' argument is supposed to work, or other arguments about false consciousness or the pervasiveness of power-structures that warp our desires, values, and assessment. It's just that I don't see how these theories are going to be tested. Maybe there is a set of evidence out there that would make people think "hey, the male gaze isn't really the main reason women nit pick other women" or "it's not primarily sexism that makes gay men on average more focused on the physical attractiveness of potential partners than straight women are." But because I don't get a sense from these conversations what that set of evidence could be, the whole topics seems (ultimately) like a waste of everyone's time (again, as JAC says).
755:"and I know elsewhere you said it was real, Bob, so I'm not sure what your point is"
Oh, maybe just a general appeal for magnanimity and compassion;a recognition that we all have a complex of advantages and obstacles. Maybe don't sweat the small stuff, but as b said, this is the appropriate place and time to work out and exercise perceptions.
Did I mention Simon & Garfunkel? I grew up listening to "Richard Cory" in my formative years. It ruined me. I see very few people as privileged by the usual standards.
I understand perfectly that descriptions of the class dynamics of men discussing celebrity ass does not capture the full range of psychological and social factors involved, esp. if the discussants are 15 year old boys. Sometimes, when you're interested in one thing in particular, you focus on that.
The impression I, and I suspect a several of the other male commentators, got from this thread, was that any discussion of a womans appearance, no matter what the circumstance, was going to get immediately labeled as male privilege.
Yep. Any time anyone mentions a woman's appearance, the feminist police leap out of the shadows and begin savagely berating him.
But damn, some of those feminist police officers are hot, so you don't really mind being berated.
Dude, in a conversation of the form: "This thing that happens and you participate in hurts us." "But your complaints about your pain hurt Me!!" sure. Maybe I'm not all that empathetic.
We'll try to keep the whimpering down so you don't have to feel bad about hurting us. I know that can't be pleasant for you.
I'm inclined to wonder if there are other domains in which baa and JAC might find discussing something fruitful even if it were not easily tested, and inclined to think the answer is yes.
gswift, male privilege is always operating, in any range of circumstances that we could plausibly discuss here (as opposed to some hypothetical society of Amazons). It is not the only thing that is operating.
And you know, with regards to theother forms of oppression stuff, the stuff discussed in this thread can interact with those. Here's an example. Debra Dickerson is black, and yet she still manages to find time to worry about the portrayal of her desirability in mass media. Note that one big way the media denote the sexless black woman is to make her fat.
Good lord, I'm joking. None of this hurts me one bit. I just happen to think it's absurd to extrapolate how someone relates to half of the species from a mindless conversation about celebrities. Thankfully you were there with the cool head of logic to point out that it was in fact akin to the beating of women.
I'm inclined to wonder if there are other domains in which baa and JAC might find discussing something fruitful even if it were not easily tested, and inclined to think the answer is yes.
I'm inclined to suspect that naked self-interest might make some untested theories seem more compelling to you than others. What's your point? Cripes. baa's actually reading a book recommended to him here to get a better sense of the feminist argument, because he's willing to believe that he might be wrong. JAC has stumbled all over himself caveating his point away. Maybe a little charity in specific cases wouldn't be actually harmful to the Cause.
Note that one big way the media denote the sexless black woman is to make her fat.
Au contraire! "The softer the cushion, the finer the pushin'," as they say. (You know, "they"--ask Ogged, it's in Heidegger.)
Well, yes, when one's interests are harmed, one tends to examine what's doing the harming. My point is that empiricism is not the only way of understanding social phenomema, and I think it's getting elevated here for no particular reason.
But for that matter, there is boatloads of empirical support for the effects being described. In fact, I think the mechanism probably has empirical support to. It's actually unclear to me what part of this anyone thinks isn't emprically supported. In a second I'll try to find one of the psych articles I'll bet exists showing something like, "men who recently viewed X image of women versus control group scored higher on Y scale of sexism".
As a paid up member of teh nasty analytical philosophy brigade, I'd argue that not only is this false:
"empiricism is not the only way of understanding social phenomema"
I'd argue that empricism* is pretty much the only way of understanding much of anything at all.
* Assuming you are using empiricist in the way I think you are.
772: No, no, no, no, no, no....
Did anyone point out The Airbrushing of Katie Couric? (Confirmed, btw.)
Now that's just silly. I wonder if Jessica Biel's ass made CBS do that.
I sure haven't been following this thread and don't intend to, and I can't figure out the context, but it sounds to me like Tia is objecting to the idea that you need statistical studies (or something like that) to prove the existence of a phenomenon. In this she's right.
cf dsquared, who needs to put semicolons after his special character codes, on evidence-based medicine. You don't need a fancy sociological study to know that male privilege exists, any more than you need some sort of double-blind test to suspect that the elephant-man drug is what gave that guy lymphatic cancer.
re: 773
I know. I'm a bit of an antediluvian unreconstructed Humean at heart who, occasionally, finds himself thinking things like, 'Damn, those Vienna Circle guys, they had a point.'.
I have only read to comment 240. I plan to finish the rest of them, but I do have to go out in a few minutes and wanted to have my say before the conversation dies completely. In fact, it probably has already.
(1.) In college I hung around guys who did this a lot to real women. They didn't knwo them though. They were sort of the celebrities of the dining hall. They'd mostly go on about how gorgeous some woman was or occasionally say how bad someone looked in super-tight pants (this was often fair and more along the lines of "What was she thinking?" It could have been about a leopard print too) or that someone was not attractive. The last was kind of offensive.
At first this made me a bit insecure, but then, eventually, I realized that they only said this stuff in front of women they thought were (1) friends only and (2.) attractive themselves. I once said something like, "I'm plain," and they all laughed in my face and asked me if I was fishing for compliments. They were still kind of jerky. My roommate who was part of this crowd said that all of their kids were going to have to hang out with eachother, because they would piss everyone else off.
(2.) Maybe somebody has already said this above, but I want to start objectifying some men. Becks, will you start a thread that says, "damn, this guy is hot." Cute and handsome are slightly different characteristics, and I think we can discuss that too.
And I'm a more paid-up member of teh analytic philosophy brigade than you, I've got a PhD and everything, so nyah. (Actually I need to send my dues to the APA.)
761: Yeah, actually, it would. Your argument is that that's not fair of feminists; ours is that it's not fair of sexism. It's not that men checking out women intend, or are aware of, or are inherently sexist; it's that in the current social structure such checking-out is one part of a much larger constant surveillance of women as sex objects.
I don't know how much more we can bend over backwards to say that this isn't fair to you guys, that the checking out in isolation is neutral, that there's nothing wrong with it in and of itself. The problem isn't any one individual act most of the time; it's the meaning that act expresses in a broader context. Which you don't, as an individual or even really as a group control any more than we do. But which you can at least recognize and acknowledge.
I mean, honestly: is there any guy here who would check out babes in front of his girlfriend or wife? Who would do it in front of a woman who *isn't* his girlfriend or wife, if he didn't know her fairly well? Don't you guys have kind of a sense that this thing bothers women for some reason other than that we think celebrities are an actual threat? Ever noticed that women are illogicaly critical of their own appearance? Are all these things just separate datapoints that don't add up to anything in your mind, really?
768: Tim, relax. The boys are tough, Tia arguing strenuously isn't going to make them cry.
re: 779
Yes, my PhD status is somewhat ambivalent at the moment. Details not for posting on public fora though.
In view of BitchPhD's latest comment, it's plain that Ogged needs to start a new spinoff blog that will be solely devoted to checking out babes, so that women who are bothered by that behavior won't be subjected to it here at Unfogged.
What to call this spinoff blog ... hmmm ...
"Oggled."
Can I suggest further discussions be moved to "Cuck Fomity?" lest this turn into a blog-killing "Innocence" thread?
Tim, relax. The boys are tough, Tia arguing strenuously isn't going to make them cry.
You really need to let go of your gender-based assumptions about emotional responses, B.
781: Whoops, sorry if there was indiscretion there -- thought I was just recapping public information.
No, no indiscretion. No problem.
This is a fragile and delicate blog: SCMT's probably right that the discussion, to the extent that anyone's still punching, should move.
Tia makes me cry. I have wondered if rather than sexist dismissal, patronizing sympathy from an utter loser would be a nastier way to go.
Hell, if I didn't have false consciousness, wouldn't have no consciousness at all.
Well, I've been working, and I'm having trouble figuring out the keywords on this one (media+sexism is getting me one result on psycinfo; that can't be right), so I haven't come through with articles.
In the meantime:
I just happen to think it's absurd to extrapolate how someone relates to half of the species from a mindless conversation about celebrities.
No one actually said they were extrapolating anything about how people here treated women from this thread, with the possible exception that maybe at one point LB speculated about how TD and his wife communicated about her body image, I think, and I said I wouldn't really believe any man who says any version of "I know Jane and she isn't like that," though that wasn't about the celeb comments; that was about response to complaints about the celeb comments. This is the claim: in our current social context, the conversations are harmful. You keep constructing other claims to respond to, and then I get bewildered as to how to even respond.
Thankfully you were there with the cool head of logic to point out that it was in fact akin to the beating of women.
analogies do not imply that situations are alike in every way.
Re: Jackmormon's 283: I do think that Vince Vaughn looks like a schlub. Not attractive at all.
790:Vince Vaughn is a comic second, I don't know where people got the idea he is a romantic lead.
Aaron Eckhart is a schlubby romantic lead.
I'm coming in much too late to this thread (but I've read every comment! woo!!) just to address the "more women should objectify men's appearances in the same way that men (and women) nitpick women's appearances" idea that Bostoniangirl and someone else (JAC, maybe?) support. I just want to say "Please, NO." Why anyone would think that causing misery to one group would somehow diminish the misery of another baffles me. I am not happy to see people insulted for their flaws, even if those people do not resemble me.
Wait, I take that back. When someone says a woman is too thin, I very briefly think "take that, skinny bitches." Because I am not skinny and will never be too skinny by anyone's rational standard. Therefore, I'm a little buffered by the idea that that is one flaw I will never have to worry about. But then I think, "well, that's one thing I don't have to worry about, but here is the list of all other things that make me substandard..." And that list is long and takes me the rest of the day to complete, whereupon I am tired and very depressed and on the verge of consulting a plastic surgeon to find out if there's a procedure that will fix the fact that my eyes are too close together.
So I'm saying, Please. No. Don't start talking about men as if they were merely a conglomeration of attractive (or not) meaty parts. A cock is just a cock. It does not have to be pretty. If it did, our species would probably be extinct by now. I find it exhausting enough to worry about my physical failings, do not try to make me worry about men's as well. (At least not to any further extent than I already do, which is simply "cute or not cute.")
Mmm. And it involves being pressured to say rude things about people you generally find attractive (as in conversations I've had with male friends about other women who were attractive enough to want to have sex with, but not attractive enough to date.)
I must say I'm happy that Buck's being a bald skinny dude with a big shaggy freaked-out Civil War mustache/goatee doesn't translate into a status loss for me because I couldn't acquire a prettier man. He's pretty enough that I want him, and no one else gives a damn about what that says about me.
790, what kind of crack are you people smoking?
Vince Vaughn is top fucking five for me. Christ.
Also, am I the only woman here who's ever been in a beauty pageant? When I was a child, of course. All the girls in my school were in the pageants, every year, unless your family was too poor to buy you a dress, in which case everyone pitied you for being poor as well as ugly. And having bad teeth.
One of my worst memories was the night that Mom told me I couldn't be in the pageant next year unless I won/placed that year, as we couldn't keep buying these expensive dresses if I wasn't going to win anything. I didn't, of course, win anything, so I never got to be in the pageants any more, and I was pitied by all the pretty girls after. Even Reba, the deaf girl whose hearing aid was so large she wore it strapped to her chest, got to walk the stage and smile and get her picture taken.
Seriously? This obsession-with-beauty thing starts really early for women, and if you aren't forced to think about it critically, it's extremely easy to fall into the (strong, loving, only slightly too restrictive) arms of the patriarchy.
The day we start putting little boys in tuxes and parading them across the stage (with extra padding in the bicep area to simulate muscles, maybe?), that's the day I'm moving to... I don't know, Mongolia? Antartica? Mars?
Silvana, dude.
Wrenae, beauty pageants for children are sick and wrong. My neighborhood had only one family that was into them, thank God, and all us other children knew that mom was bad news.
I mean, honestly: is there any guy here who would check out babes in front of his girlfriend or wife?
Yes (being honest). But, not in an obnoxius, gawking, cat calling way, no.
Who would do it in front of a woman who *isn't* his girlfriend or wife, if he didn't know her fairly well?
No. Because that would be "rude". Most wife/girlfriends are already secure enough about the relationship (especially the longer you've been together) and know that we love them best for many, many reasons beyond their appearance. But, yes, in front of women we don't know very well, it is not polite to comment on other women's appearance. See Bostoniangirl's 778. We mostly only do this if we a) are already good friends (or in a secure, stable relationship) so that it's not a "threat" and/or b) we find the woman attractive and so "critize" the other woman to make the attractive girl feel better about herself.
Don't you guys have kind of a sense that this thing bothers women for some reason other than that we think celebrities are an actual threat?
Yes, but see above. We don't assume it bothers those that know us well. Would you rather a guy lie about his true thoughts and feelings? That doesn't sound like a good formula for a success.
Ever noticed that women are illogicaly critical of their own appearance?
Yes. And we try to reassure you constantly!!
Are all these things just separate datapoints that don't add up to anything in your mind, really?
I think they're correlated, sure, and all women in our society are affected by it to varying degrees, but how come some women are less sensitive about it than others? To use men again as an analogy, we're all supposed to be fit and athletic. Somebody pointing out how in shape guy X is might bother us a little knowing we're not as in shape as we could be. But, it really just depends on how big of a deal the commentor is making about it.
It's just possible to say definitely that commenting on somebody else's appearance is enough to insult everybody else that happens to hear it. Some people internalize it more than others. Women, on average, internalize it more. We all get that. But, even within the female gender, there's alot of variation as to who gets more offended or not. Hencewhy, most considerate guys don't overdo it, but we all look, yes.
Just to clarify, JM, these were school pageants, done in the gym, and my mother did not coerce/force me into them, nor did I start at preschool age a al Jonbenet Ramsey. Mom didn't even let me wear makeup. I wanted to be in the pageants because all the girls were, and she let me. (However, when she stopped me from competing, it was not because of a sense that it was "wrong" or "sick" for girls to be compared and rewarded for their looks like cattle at an auction. It was just because the prom-like dresses were too pricey.)
Anyway, my point was the push for females to look pretty in exchange for rewards is pervasive and starts earlyearlyearly. Why else pierce little girl-babies' ears before they're even able to say the word "earring"? You are female, therefore you must be pretty. Anything else and you're disappointing.
Oh, and for some more good reading on the male gaze, specifically in regard to our society's love for "beautiful dead women," go here:
http://www.dianablaine.com/
The most recent post is very good, as well as the previous "Who owns the female body?" post, and many others.
795 - The day we start putting little boys in tuxes and parading them across the stage (with extra padding in the bicep area to simulate muscles, maybe?)
Ever seen a little league baseball game?
I'm trolling this thread to 1000 baby. The chicks are all just annoyed that we're talking about J. Biel's ass instead of theirs.
They pad the biceps of Little League uniforms? Really?I'd have to see it to believe it, TD.
But really, a baseball game is not the same as a beauty pageant, and you know it. The point of a baseball game is not to admire the boys for their trim figures, pretty smiles, and proper grooming. It's to admire/encourage their sportsmanship, athletic ability, teamwork, etc. Those things have their own intrinsic value--value to society and the boys themselves--in a way that simply "being pretty" does not. You can see that, right?
802 gets it completely wrong. The point of a baseball game is to have a big potluck afterward and sit around drinking beer.
802 - yeah, I can see that. Look, I'm not going to win this argument because I already know what you're say is true. It's already been established that there really is no one thing we males must constantly deal with that compares to what females must face when it comes to beauty. The closest thing would be pushing boys too hard to be the very best at activity X, which can mess some of them up pretty bad too. But, in terms of % negatively affected, it's not even close. You're right, it's not even a fair comparison. Plus, if a male isn't good at X, he usually is just encouraged (or self-selects) to pursue Y instead whereas females can't escape the pressues of beauty. It's not fair. I feel bad for it. But, what can I do?
Erm, when someone mentions the problem, doing almost anything other than spending two days arguing about whether it's really a problem? That'd do for starters.
803 - that's adult softball. Little league baseball is for pushing kids to be the professional athletes we all think could have been if we had really wanted to.
806: No, that's kid baseball as I've lived it for lo these past five years.
805 - LB, when did I ever deny it's really a problem? You point out one comment I've made! (apology accepted)
The point of a baseball game is not to admire the boys for their trim figures, pretty smiles, and proper grooming. It's to admire/encourage their sportsmanship, athletic ability, teamwork, etc.
Sure, but similar b.s. gets thrown around about beauty pageants & their character-promoting qualities.
For that matter, if you've had an unathletic child suffer through Little League, as I have -- tossed in with kids who evidently were hitting triples in the freakin' womb -- you can see that sportsmanship, teamwork, etc. is the same load of happy crap. It's the scoring, baby. You can't hit the ball, you can't catch it, but you have a *really good attitude* about it? You're scum.
But, like somebody said above, it's not just "beauty" that gets judged, so why is judging somebody's appaerance such a horrible thing? If I said "so-so" celebrity is an idiot. He/she doesn't even know who the vice president is, then that's "funny". But, if you say "so-so" celebrity is way too thin (or fat), then you're a sexist pig. How come?
Why is judging the attribute of "beauty" of females so dammning but judging any other attribite isn't as bad?
So, I can see how guys that incessantly comment on women's looks or care about that above all else, including their intellect, that that could be seen as pitiful. But, as somebody said above, this is "sad". Why should you care what a loser like that says?
Is there really that much pressure on females to look good and is the weight of that one thing equal to all those many things you mentioned? Apparently so, in some women's minds. That is very sad and extremely disturbing.
Apology withheld.
810 - knows what I'm talking about. That's the pressures males face growing up - and not just in sports. But, see, 804, I acknowledge that it's not as bad.
(and, LB, once again notice that I acknowledge females have it worse)
810: My kid unfortunately inherited his athleticism from me rather than his mother, plus he has an unfortunate birthdate that makes him the youngest in his year group in baseball, but he's had a pretty good experience anyway. It doesn't have to suck. (And this is on a fairly competitive team in a fairly competitive league.)
811 - yeah, but where do I deny there's a problem? I may have been a little skeptical that the problem is as big as some women here report it to be, but I never denied the problem doesn't exist at all. Never. Not even in those comments.
It doesn't have to suck.
Sure, but neither do beauty pageants. I mean, hell, it could be all about talent & citizenship & Doing Your Best, right? (Can't quit thinking about talent scene in Little Miss Sunshine however.)
Nah, you just said that we all worried about it too much and shouldn't care about it as much as we do.
Look, I'm not in charge of you - do what you like. You asked what you could do to help. I'm telling you that a nice starting point would be to quit minimizing the problem. Listen or don't as it suits you.
813 - nobody said it does suck always and everywhere. It does for alot of kids, though. Just like I'm sure there's plenty of women who relish that beauty is rewarded despite many others seeing it as a bad, horrible thing.
815: False analogy. You win a baseball game when your team scores more runs than the other time. You win a beauty pageant by being judged a better person than the other contestants according to some fucked-up set of standards. The fact that some of those standards have some sort of connection to things that are legitimately good doesn't make the nature of the competition any less fucked up.
Nah, you just said that we all worried about it too much and shouldn't care about it as much as we do.
LB, be fair to me. This is much different than denying the existance of the problem at all, right? For example, I'm overweight. I don't worry about it even though I acknowledge it's a problem that does exist. Therefore, I wish you all didn't care about conforming to beauty standards as much as you worry about it. This is much, much different than saying it's not a real problem you face.
Look, I'm not in charge of you - do what you like. You asked what you could do to help. I'm telling you that a nice starting point would be to quit minimizing the problem. Listen or don't as it suits you.
I'm listenening. It's why I'm still here. If I didn't care about this topic, I would have left after 150 comments! True, I did try to minimize the problem earlier (and probably still am), but I've been curious to get at the real reasons for why the problem is as big as it sounds, cutting through the emotions, and what everybody who thinks the problem is really, really big envisions for a different world than the real one we live in now.
818 - is wrong too. "You win a beauty pageant by being judged a better person than the other contestants" should be "You win a beauty pageant by being judged a better looking person than the other contestants", right?
815: False analogy. You win a baseball game when your team scores more runs than the other time. You win a beauty pageant by being judged a better person than the other contestants according to some fucked-up set of standards.
I don't find the disanalogy relevant. Is being judged to be a better person b/c you're a better hitter/fielder, any less fucked up than b/c you know how to arch your back like Jessica Biel does?
N.b. that the whole objectivity/subjectivity thing is arguably gendered ... pageants, skating, dance, etc., aren't scored like baseball or basketball.
823: I would note that it is possible for the better team to lose a game. It is certainly possible for a player on a losing team to be a better player than a player on a winning team. Sports events are about what happened on a given day, rather than about the personal qualities of the participants.
Not that there isn't pressure, and that it isn't on some level about the skills of the players. But it's very differently structured from a beauty pageant.
823: We're getting a long way afield here, but my point was that baseball is supposed to be about winning the game, not about individual players' displays of mastery. The individual displays are fun and we talk about them and there's unfairness toward people who aren't so good at that stuff, etc. etc. etc., but that's all within the context of playing a baseball game. I suppose the sports analogy to a beauty contest would be something like a home-run derby or something.
I agree more with 823 than 825 (I know, big suprise). But, anyway, the larger point is that people getting judged by anything superficial beyond their actual character is fucked up. It happens to both genders in many different situations and we all do it, particularly to those we know less personably about. And if you say you don't, you're a hypocrit. Having said that, it's sad that it just so happens to females when it comes to beauty disproportinately more than it does to males. This is wrong and we all recognize it. Certain institutions and traditions in our society keep perpetuating it as acceptable. Sound about right, LB?
This thread doesn't need to be revived, and probably everyone will just ignore me, but I did say I would look for studies with lots of statistics (what I meant by empiricism), and I just got back to it now. Here's one such study I speculated existed above (I'm sure there are more; it's hard to find them; on all the keywords I try they're drowned out by scores of studies on the effects of the media on female body image.) I'm actually not sure what specific proposition people think needs empirical support, in part because it all seems blindingly obvious to me, but I'll articulate what I think I'm supporting thus: "images of women in the media function politically and ideologically to maintain a society in which men are the dominant class and women the subordinate." Please, for the love of the goddess, try not to ascribe something else entirely to me and then shoot it down with your devastating wit. Anyway, here's the first abstract I found:
MacKay, N. J. & Covell, K. (1997). The impact of women in advertisements on attitudes toward women. Sex Roles, 36, 573-583.
Abstract The present study extends existing research showing a link between images of women in advertisements and sexual attitudes. We examined also the impact of seeing sex image and progressive advertisements on attitudes toward feminism and the women's movement. Ninety-two undergraduate academic and technology white middle-class students were assigned to one of two conditions: rating either sex image or progressive advertisements. All participants then completed four subscales of M. R. Burt's [(1980) ldquoCultural Myths and Supports for Rape,rdquo Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 38, pp. 217-230] Sexual Attitudes Survey and R. E. Fassinger's [(1994) ldquoDevelopment and Testing of the Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's Movement (FWM) Scale,rdquo Psychology of Women Quarterly, Vol. 18, pp. 389-402] Feminism and Women's Movement Scale. Major findings include replication of previous data showing a relation between viewing sex image advertisements and reporting attitudes supportive of sexual aggression. Those seeing sex image advertisements also showed lower acceptance of feminism. It is suggested that continuous presentation of such advertisements undermines women's striving for equality.
Here's one with one of the same authors and a very short abstract:
Images of women in advertisements: Effects on attitudes related to sexual aggression
Lanis, Kyra, Covell, Katherine. Sex Roles. New York: May 1995.Vol.32, Iss. 9-10; pg. 639
The effects on sexual attitudes of different portrayals of women in advertisements were examined. Analyses showed that males exposed to the sex-object advertisements were significantly more accepting of rape-supportive attitudes.
Here's not an abstract, but a paragraph from a review article:
Developmental Review
Volume 23, Issue 3 , September 2003, Pages 347-388
Understanding the role of entertainment media in the sexual socialization of American youth: A review of empirical research*1
L. Monique Ward
For example, in their 1988 study, Hansen and Hansen asked undergraduates to watch three music videos and then to evaluate the taped interactions of a male and female job applicant. While students who had watched the neutral music videos later perceived the man’s sexual advances toward the female applicant to be akin to sexual harassment, students who had viewed the stereotypic music videos perceived his sexual advances as appropriate, and thought less favorably of her if she rejected him.
Here's another:
L. Monique Ward, Does Television Exposure Affect Emerging Adults' Attitudes and Assumptions About Sexual Relationships? Correlational and Experimental Confirmation, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Volume 31, Number 1 / February, 2002
Abstract Because concern is frequently raised that TV's abundant yet stereotypical portrayals of sexual relationships may mislead young viewers, this study examined the effects of both regular viewing habits and experimental exposure on students' conceptions about sexual relationships. A multiethnic sample of 259 undergraduates aged 18-22 was assigned to view a set of clips depicting either 1 of 3 sexual stereotypes or neutral, nonsexual content. Participants then completed measures assessing their attitudes about sexual roles and relationships, their assumptions about the sexual experiences of their peers, and their regular viewing habits. Both correlational and experimental connections emerged between TV viewing and students' sexual attitudes and assumptions. More frequent and more involved viewing were repeatedly associated with students' support of the sexual stereotypes surveyed. Similarly, women exposed to clips representing a particular sexual stereotype were more likely to endorse that notion than were women exposed to nonsexual content. Finally, both experimental exposure and aspects of regular viewing significantly predicted students' sexual attitudes and assumptions, even with demographics and previous sexual experiences controlled.
Scrolling into the pdf of the article, the "sexual stereotypes" she's referring to are these: women are sex objects, men are sex-driven, and sexual relationships are recreational.
I'll articulate what I think I'm supporting thus: "images of women in the media function politically and ideologically to maintain a society in which men are the dominant class and women the subordinate."
For what it's worth, this sounds quite plausible as the overall, net effect, but I'm not sure I agree with the stronger accusation (if you're even making it) that we're all somehow consciously aware of the fact that we're contributing to it. Or, when we do have it pointed out to us, we might feel defensive and bad because we don't intend to be contributing, but somethings are so engrained and "natural" it's not always easy. To use an analogy, most of us believe global warming is real and that's it's real bad for everybody. But, we might not even realize all the ways we all contribute to it, in very small ways, everyday. Even the "environmenalists", though to a much smaller degree.
So, how do you propose we fix it? Make it illegal to show women on TV? Make it regulated so that x% of actresses must weigh more (or less) than y pounds? Force everybody to look a standard way so there's no variablity and therefore no "supply & demand" issues? I've heard alot of problems in this thread (and I've agreed with alot of them), but not many solutions.
For example, in their 1988 study, Hansen and Hansen asked undergraduates to watch three music videos ...
Also, why is everything based on "undergraduates"? They have no (present day) "power"? Why not focus studies on middle aged exuctives and hiring managers?
833 - nevermind, 832 is a good one. Sorry.
TD, You need to calm the fuck down.
If you want to be a feminist ally, it can't be about you and whether you're being fairly compensated for your feminist righteousness.
835 - thank you for your concern, Adam, but I didn't know I was even "upset"? And who said I was asking to be "compensated" for anything? Moreover, I surely have no place to claim righteousnes! (nobody does, especially when it comes to this issue.
p.s. what are you so hostile about?
why is everything based on "undergraduates"?
Because they're easy to do studies on, as I understand -- you just do a survey on your Psych 101 class.
Adam's just generally hostile. You do, however, seem to be continuing this discussion long after everyone else has tired of it, and I at least am wondering why, since you've conceded essentially all of the points the women were making. This thread is already very long and is starting to creak, and I really don't think there's any need to keep going over the issues in it.
838 - but they're a fairly narrow demographic and not representative of society at large. I'm not doubting good studies can't come from them, I just think it's a little funny that a lot of controversial studies make big headlines based on undergraduates as the sample, often times small samples at that.
840 - ok (but Tia posted more stuff earlier)
841: Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber has had some things to say about the practice of using undergraduates so routinely in studies.
842: I believe Tia was just making good on her earlier pledge to come up with some data.
OK, but Tia also postulted a hypothesis while doing so (see 828, wherein she also quips "and probably everyone will just ignore me", which suggests to me she wasn't really quite ready to close the book on the discussion)
Also, thanks for the link (am reading it now).
843 - now off topic, teofilo, that link was good. It's exactly my pet peeve whenever research gets reported as truth; particularly when it comes to anything sex or gender related. So, seemed valid to challenge Tia a little, even if I essentially agree with her.
I am going to make a concerted effort not to come across as hostile for a while.
TD, Your comments really strike me as an attempt to vindicate yourself. You seem to feel that you've made a very good effort to be empathetic toward women's concerns and that the women here are not treating you appropriately in the light of that. And you have made a very good effort, by many standards. You clearly are not a male chauvanist pig. That's wonderful. Still, insisting that women -- who experience this problem in a way that you simply cannot -- are exaggerating the precise degree of the problem still seems to me to betray a certain distrust of women's assessment of their own situation and an attempt to get them to see their situation as you do (i.e., to adopt a male perspective on it -- a sympathetic male perspective, but still a male perspective). You get to judge the degree to which women's concerns are taken into account, and you post multiple comments in a row when they stubbornly insist on not seeing it your way (or, as you seem to be arguing, on not seeing that they already basically see it your way).
Also, you generally seem to be wanting to tap all these women -- particularly Bitch PhD -- as your free feminism tutors, and you have probably ended up putting too much pressure on them by asking far too many questions.
I know that you don't mean any harm, at all. I know you want to be sympathetic. But part of that has to be learning to just sit back and listen. We men have a real tendency to want to have this feminist thing finished, then move on -- and in doing so, to try to hijack the terms of debate. (I won't say that I'm innocent of that, at all. I posted way too much in this thread.)
particularly when it comes to anything sex or gender related
Overstatement of the implications of research annoys you more when it's pertaining to gender, rather than other topics?
That's fucked up.
846 - Adam, that was very well said. Really, really well said, actually. Thank you. I'd say you hit the nail on head for everyone one of your points. And the tendency to want to fix the problem and move on is especially true.
847 - well, when you say it like that, it makes me re-think my comment some. I didn't really mean to emphasize the when it comes to anything sex or gender related part as much as it came out. Extrapolating to the general population about anything based solely on a small sample of undergraduates is annoying. But, college undergraduates do face a particularly strong (and narrow) set of stereoptypes about sex and gender to begin with, right? (basically what Tia mentioned in one of her comments; e.g. women are sex objects, men are sex-driven, and sexual relationships are recreational).
TD, you mentioned in 666 that you have a couple of young daughters. I remembered that because it struck me as one of your motivations in beating your head against this clearly rather new set of concerns. My father, who still retains his backwoods Yukoner accent, claims that raising three daughters made him a feminist; I can't help wondering how our lives would have been different had he been a feminist before he started to raise us. So I'm glad you're taking this seriously because it is serious business. [Says the woman who's pretty sure she doesn't have an eating disorder.]
That said, we're not going to "solve" gender in this thread, nor are we really going to be able to give you a good education in feminism. If you really are interested in learning more about how women experience modern culture as women, you probably could do worse than spending some time browsing through the feminist blogs linked at BitchPhD's place. I've also rather enjoyed, in a weird way, Feminist Mormon Housewives.
But seriously, there are a TON of women talking about this stuff out there on the intertr0ns. It's worth your time reading what they have to say. It's also worth noticing what kind of trolls they get, frankly.
849 - thank you, Jackmormon. I appreciate your comment as well. It was very nice too.
Now, if you'll excuse me while I tie my hands together so I can't comment yet once more last time in this one. :-)
JM, speaking as someone who has, in the past, been on the verge of tears from guilt after eating a hamburger, might I recommend that you stop smoking and have half a brownie every day? If you do, I'll upgrade that "kinda hot."
May the force of Unfogged be with you.
849: It's also worthwhile to read something other than blogs.
853: B-school jargon is almost as unattractive as an extra five pounds on one of Hollywood's finest.
That was the knife's edge of the irony, DaveL.
I've also rather enjoyed, in a weird way, Feminist Mormon Housewives.
Read some of their stuff here and there. Hello cognitive dissonance.
