Don't dumb girls down • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#21

Post by Tichy » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:25 AM UTC

derrida wrote: post #8

Tichy wrote: post #6

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." Hate to say it, but what if they are? Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life. Not that I mind girls being interested in other things, but perhaps the ideology should be kept in check. Even if a girl doesn't care about her looks, other people will, and she has to learn to de…

"Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life." [citation needed]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prettier+people+get+further+in+life

You know, by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". If I wasn't so desperate to procrastinate, I should just ignore you. Why waste energy to educate you if you are obviously not interested in learning?

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#22

Post by jwingy » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:25 AM UTC

derrida wrote: post #9

jwingy wrote: post #7

As a guy, and a geek, I definitely find intelligence highly attractive (and I think most of you would agree with me). Since geeks will eventually inherit the earth, wouldn't it be advantageous to start teaching our women how they can get ahead on this curve by flaunting their intelligence? :)

As a guy, this type of thinking once again puts the value on women as 'attractiveness'. Why isn't intelligence good for its own sake?

I never said intelligence wasn't good for its own sake, nor was I trying to imply a woman's worth is only in her level of attractiveness. Certainly in a ideal world we would all aspire to goals without concern for outside opinion, but alas we don't live in a vacuum.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#23

Post by Tichy » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:25 AM UTC

rmc wrote: post #11

Tichy wrote: post #6

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." Hate to say it, but what if they are? Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life. Not that I mind girls being interested in other things, but perhaps the ideology should be kept in check. Even if a girl doesn't care about her looks, other people will, and she has to learn to de…

Perhaps we should change the world's attitudes then.

Should go into Biotech then, I suppose.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#24

Post by wgren » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:26 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #3

A lovely pot-pourri of anecdotes and hand-picked exceptional examples.

It's a blog post, not a research paper. If course it will use anecdotes. Do you have any counter examples to show an exceptional bias in their "hand-picking"?

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#25

Post by erikb » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:26 AM UTC

ordinary wrote: post #16

erikb wrote: post #10

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about th…

I don't think you'd be doing people a favour by teaching them to accept things that won't make them happy. Do you think that people who don't worry about not being beautiful are less happy than people who do, considering that many (most?) people are not, in fact, beautiful? Do you think the world would be a worse place if more girls wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize rather than America's Next Top Model?

I understand that you argue that worrying about good looks can be hassle instead of an improvement in life condition. I can only agree. Didn't think about that when I wrote my comment! My argument is about another point though. I think if you reach that point of being good looking, with that attribute alone you can have less frustration then other people, because others are more likely to give you what you want and care about you. Think about the last time you saw a fat and ugly person cry and how much you cared about it and then the last time you saw a beautiful woman cry and how much you cared about that. Both arguments are true, though. Thanks for your addition!

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#26

Post by hessenwolf » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:27 AM UTC

ordinary wrote: post #16

erikb wrote: post #10

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about th…

I don't think you'd be doing people a favour by teaching them to accept things that won't make them happy. Do you think that people who don't worry about not being beautiful are less happy than people who do, considering that many (most?) people are not, in fact, beautiful? Do you think the world would be a worse place if more girls wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize rather than America's Next Top Model?

Looking like a contestant for America's next top model is not really going to get a girl far in her career, though...

Both men and women should care, in detail, about their aesthetics when at work. They should be healthy and fit, and, unless they are very sure they have the fashion sense to get away with interesting clothes, be conservatively and neatly dressed. Anything less smacks of imcompetence, poor organisation skills, lack of respect for others (who do have to suffer looking at you), and laziness.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#27

Post by erikb » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:30 AM UTC

derrida wrote: post #15

erikb wrote: post #10

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about th…

You are confusing things that are objective facts about the world (described by 'is' statements) with things that are created by norms (indicated by 'should' statements) which can be changed. That women are seemingly only valued for their looks is a norm that should and can change.

I see your point. I understand that you don't think it is a natural thing, that people care about good looks. What do you say about these famous experiments that just born babys, not able to speak or walk or listen, are already spending more time looking at pictures of beautiful people then not beautiful people? I don't mean that you are completely wrong, though. Some part of what is actually percieved as beautiful is in fact norm, like which clothes are more beautiful and so on. But there are other things like thin, sporty bodys, healthy skin, the size of certain body parts, which can all be found in animals, too.

Anyway I will think about how norms can influence the situation and maybe adapt my opinion accordingly.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#28

Post by kamaal » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:33 AM UTC

This article is talking only about one part of the story, while it can't be denied that people demand girls to look good. At the same time, girls themselves get into peer pressure easily. Very quickly in their lives they get the feeling that in order to be 'looked at' you have to be beautiful. I am not saying that guys don't suffer from this, but girls suffer from this more than guys.

Its like the TV channels competing for TRP's. The demand for a something good exists, but the fact is that the demand is fueled by the content providers and not viewers.

Now on a larger scale, the society doesn't dumb down girls. Its just the mere biological reasons prevent them from doing so many jobs that are common for men. Women have higher social pressures, physically and biologically they have more limitations when compared to men. They have bigger social pressures to deal with. All in all, this counts for most of the reasons why women don't get the incremental learning at the same rate as men.

Now come to look at the other part of it, there is huge difference between looking good/presentable and wild chase for beauty. Cosmetic products exist both for men and women, but their nature differ. Apart from your usual set of deodorants and usual kit et al, you don't mascara or lipstick for men. Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all.

Ultimately you truly get what you want.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#29

Post by chrischen » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:35 AM UTC

wgren wrote: post #18

chrischen wrote: post #17

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds. Looks are important. Both men and women keep up appearances. Furthermore, you know how smart you are, and no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to ma…

>But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds. Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!" as an opening phrase. We don't sell these kind of tshirts to boys: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled... >Looks are important. [...] no amount of telling you yo…

I'm sure if it were a little boy in pajamas the author would have had the same urge to say how cute he was.

> Again, something we only do for girls.

It's not as if all men let themselves go. It takes work, even for a man, to not become fat, smelly, and overly hairy.

I think the underlying cause for women to focus too much on appearances is because it is much easier for women, in current society, to marry into wealth and/or depend on a man. I think this has a much larger influence on women focusing more on their appearances than behavioral conditioning through constant complimenting.

The compliment is a signal. If the person is pretty and you say that, then it's a proper signal. If you tell a child they are smart because they did some random thing, it's not necessarily a proper signal. Sending a wrong signal is bad. In the case of telling a child s/he's smart when s/he's not, the child may not try as hard anymore because s/he may wrongfully think s/he's smart enough already... In the case of telling someone s/he's pretty, as long as it's true, there's nothing wrong with it because being pretty can actually have practical advantages. It is then up to the person to choose whether to leverage his/her physical assets or his/her mental assets to get what s/he wants in life.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#30

Post by erikb » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 9:37 AM UTC

antihero wrote: post #19

erikb wrote: post #10

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about th…

Let's put it another way - if you teach a girl that her good looks are super super important, and she's bombarded with adverts telling her ways to improve, and images of people on TV that are portrayed vastly superior to her physically, then she is being set up to feel that no matter what she does, she's never good enough. Whilst us boys can "hit the gym" or "hit the books" and our manliness and success can exude, a…

I can only agree. The beauty industry makes a sick thing out of the basic idea. And if the main article we comment about here means fighting that, then I totally agree. We shouldn't teach our daughters to follow in the foot steps of models and super stars. That would also be lying about what is good for them. In the same way I think it is lying if we tell them that looks don't matter and she should value herself according to other things more. She will be very surprised if she gets out into the real world and sees that most people actually don't care about her, because she doesn't care about her looks at all. Too little and too much both is wrong, I think. I hope I could show you that my argument is not the opposite of yours.