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Don't dumb girls down

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Re: Don't dumb girls down

#71

Post by vectorpush »

127 wrote: post #55
vectorpush wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It demonstrates a large amount of hubris to even think it should be. So what? It's this same hubris which bucks against the biological directive to impregnate every fertile female that enters your field of vision. Since when do humans settle for the biological imperative?

No, the force that bucks against the biological directive to impregnate every fertile female that enters your field of vision is the very real threat of violence and social ostracization. Plus, unless you're a total sociopath: empathy. Unlike some people would have you believe, being a man does not equal being a rapist.

Yes, a set of societal constructs so deeply embedded in the water supply that we take them for granted, similar to the topic at hand. There are places in the world where the crime of being raped is punishable by death. The culture we create does matter.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#72

Post by knowtheory »

_delirium wrote: post #41
wgren wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!" I agree it's not symmetrical, but I do hear this kind of thing directed at male children pretty frequently, especially in the relatives/family-friends type setting. "Oh what a handsome young man you have!" isn't uncommon at all. Though I do tend to associate it with older women, for some reason; at le…

And that stops at what... age 10ish with guys?

The whole 'ooh what beautiful daughters you have' thing continues well on into the teens, if not beyond.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#73

Post by whatusername »

hessenwolf wrote: post #26
ordinary wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/04/08/plastic-surgery-is-...

I'll just leave that there. (Not saying I agree with it completely -- but she partly has a point)

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#74

Post by Tichy »

robertskmiles wrote: post #61
Tichy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are you serious? > by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". You're saying "I don't care for your random opinion you could have pulled out of your ass with no correspondence to the real world, please demonstrate that you didn't just make that up." When you make a claim that you want to be taken seriously, cite your source. It's not hard, and it's sure as hell not any…

Also consider this: if PG or Steve Jobs made some claim, would you also reply with a blunt "citation needed"?

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#75

Post by JonnieCache »

To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure? Last time I checked there was no evidence to support this idea.

Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors.

Separating nature from nurture is notoriously difficult, and in a community which endlessly holds P=NP to be an open question, it is absolutely laughable to assume that these biological differences map one to one onto the observed behavioural differences, when there is such a huge and obvious confounding factor looming over everything.

We cannot all sit around waiting for six sigmas out of CERN before we can say we've found the higgs, and then just jump merrily onto simplistic biological arguments which happen to conveniently favour our social/political/economic hegemony.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#76

Post by spindritf »

hessenwolf wrote: post #26
ordinary wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Looking like a contestant for America's next top model will get her farther than not looking like a contestant on America's next top model -- physical attractiveness positively correlated with earnings.

But I think we're talking more about attitude and mindset than actual looks.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#77

Post by knowtheory »

Tichy wrote: post #67
knowtheory wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point. The question is not whether you can appreciate someone's physical characteristics. The question is whether you should appreciate someone's physical characteristics first , foremost , and most importantly above all of their other characteristics . The fact that there is a general rise in anorexia nervosa amongst all genders, is not to say that men in American society suffer equally wi…

If you want to go there... I don't think psychiatric disorders are being caused by the media or by being told "you are pretty" too often when you are a child. By telling somebody they are pretty I am also not telling them that it's the "first, foremost, and most important above all of their other characteristics". You are creating a straw man here. Of course I don't think telling somebody they are pretty will cure th…

/me grins

You don't get off that lightly. I am not straw-manning your argument, and i was not the one to raise the issue of eating disorders.

My point is that you are ignoring context. Telling someone that they are pretty is not just a one off event that you are offering to another person, to be held in a pristine platonic form. It is an event that takes place in the gestalt of their daily interactions, and more specifically within the context of their interactions with you (and/or people like you).

Is a complement about their attractiveness the first thing that they are greeted with? Does their attractiveness have bearing on the social context at hand? (in a work context? in a bar? at a conference discussing technical issues?)

> Of course I don't think telling somebody they are pretty will cure their disorders.

Really? Cause this sure makes it sounds like you do. At the very least it makes you sound really insensitive to the causes of anorexia nervosa and the factors that go into reenforcing them:

> Also, telling somebody they are pretty does NOT imply that you consider anorexic looks to be pretty. In fact, it might give that person a good feeling about herself which just might counter the urge to become anorexic.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#78

Post by Jem »

ctek wrote: post #38

The desire to be attractive is hard-wired into female biology. Fundamentally, we exist to survive and reproduce. Millions of years of evolution have evolved visual cues that signal health - especially reproductive health in both men and women however women's interest in successfully advertising their reproductive health is absolutely essential to what they have evolved over millions of years to do - which is bear chi…

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that looking attractive for women is basically a biological imperative? The problem, as I see it, is that the evolved visual cues signalling good reproductive health are not in the slightest bit similar to what the media purport to be attractive today.

Look for example at Neolithic figurines... women with large bellies, ample bosoms, wide hips. That's not what's plastered all over magazines and TV.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#79

Post by kamaal »

chrischen wrote: post #29
wgren wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Yes, Even I don't understand how giving a good complement can do any harm and that too to an extent this article points. In fact the opposite is true, if you call a kid stupid or ugly it can be him/her very discouraging.

Also the point on women seeking beauty to ensure the get the alpha male from the pack is very true.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#80

Post by Egregore »

ctek wrote: post #38

The desire to be attractive is hard-wired into female biology. Fundamentally, we exist to survive and reproduce. Millions of years of evolution have evolved visual cues that signal health - especially reproductive health in both men and women however women's interest in successfully advertising their reproductive health is absolutely essential to what they have evolved over millions of years to do - which is bear chi…

Actually men also consider intelligence when looking for mates, for example for 2 equally attractive female most males will go for the smartest one.

Anecdotal evidence: I've been told that a lot of females get more attention from males when they use gadgets.

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