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Don't dumb girls down

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Re: Don't dumb girls down

#131

Post by antihero »

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…

Is there any substance or is this just what essentially amounts to the conjecture of a high school student?

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#133

Post by mrpsbrk »

Compare with http://jcs.biologists.org/content/121/11/1771.full another post at HN at around the same time, about the importance of stupidity in science. Two very different conceptions of dumb.

I would also like to stress that it is not really about looks, only, but about being always "in character" for the woman, which is pretty and dumb, true, but would be much better described as "good marrying material".

Finally, please, anyone who cared about this, check out "Ada Lovelace Day", to happen this year a month from today. http://findingada.com/about/

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#134

Post by raghava »

paradoja wrote: post #102
kamaal wrote: post #28

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 competi…

Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all. Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...

>> Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...

Absolutely. They are working overtime on this one. Recently, India has seen a sudden surge in cosmetics for men. http://www.google.co.in/search?q=male+cosmetics+india+filety...

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#135

Post by true_religion »

JonnieCache wrote: post #70
ErrantX wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not uncommon. Or, rather, whenever I see these self-help/express yourself better/empower yourself authors they all look very attractive and poised. Female and Male. Which annoys me. The advice in this case is good, and it doesn't feel entirely hypocritical because she admits an initial instinct to praise good looks that she has to suppress. But some of her other stuff seems less so (i.e. she is selling hersel…

"Or, rather, whenever I see these self-help/express yourself better/empower yourself authors they all look very attractive and poised. Female and Male. " This is simply a small exposure of society's big secret: ANYONE can look attractive, even stunning, given a professional hair stylist, wardrobe person, makeup artist, and photographed properly under proper lighting, and then photoshopped. All those "beautiful" peopl…

You can't make someone look differently from what they look like.

You can't change their bone structure, or the shape of their nose.

You can improve them, and make them look as best as they can be by photoshopping or makeupping flawless skin but that's the most of it. You can make them look evocative with lighting, and setting but that doesn't change their genuine nature.

All things being equal, pretty people will only look prettier in photography and still much prettier than normal people given the same treatment.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#137

Post by true_religion »

_delirium wrote: post #93
knowtheory wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm in my late 20s and still get that if I visit relatives with my parents! But Greek relatives seem to consider any unmarried children to be kids, regardless of age.

Ditto in my culture. Talking about how handsome you are (you share my genes, how can you not be handsome?) and how surprising it is that you haven't found a wife yet continues long into your 20s.

To be honest, I think this whole debate is a generalization based on a post-victorian western culture where all the frivolities concerning male appearance have died. Previously, men--at least the aristocratic sort--used to wear make up, tights, wigs and high heels all at once but now only women do.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#138

Post by kamaal »

Duff wrote: post #121

Great, another whiny article about the poor, maligned girls doomed to a future of breast enhancement and cellulite cream thanks to misogny. The article is a troll, here to elicit an emotional response that will sell a book. Enter the strawman: "In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that 15 to 18 per cent of under-12 girls in the United States now wear mascara, eyeli…

This is worth thinking over.

I think a lot of boys do aspire the adrenaline rush professions. But if they don't end up being one, do they now resign from their whole lives and just go saying the social persuasions to be such, destroyed their whole lives?

There is always going to be a social persuasion for nearly everything. They way we eat, dress, talk nearly anything people can see, people can pass a comment on. And that becomes a mass opinion and taken to be the established truth later.

Somehow I find it difficult to understand why women consider themselves so special in this regard. Why do we end up comparing representation of women and men in every industry is beyond my understanding.

In the name of diversity and women's empowerment, why should we expect a guy to work late in the night, come on weekends, push hard deadlines and a girl is given all options to leave early? why is inefficiency assumed to be OK and acceptable just to accommodate them? If a girl feels need to emphasize her equality, can't it be done by performing? Why do rules have to be bent, made lot more easier?

Its like a foot ball game, where you remove away the defenders so that they can score a easily. This sort of defeats the very whole purpose of empowerment.

Empowerment is to give strength to something so that it can compete with challenges as they are, not remove away the challenges so that can be easily met.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#139

Post by Duff »

JonnieCache wrote: post #75

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…

Sure, and it's an equally massive leap to say "OMG! Little girls want to be reality TV stars instead of !" and assume that this is some sort of problem driven by sexism.

The folks who deal in this controversy have a vested interest to keep it controversial. Don't hold your breath for rational explanation.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#140

Post by Tichy »

knowtheory wrote: post #77
Tichy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spec…

Sorry I just reread your first post. You seem to be saying that if you tell an anorexic person they are pretty I will be enforcing their anorexia, and if you tell them they are ugly I will also be enforcing their anorexia. You don't mention it, but I suppose if I don't say anything, I silently encourage their behavior, too (being codependent or whatever).

So no matter what I do, I am an insensitive prick. See why I don't like your logic?

As I said in my other posts, I think there might be deeper issues behind anorexia than what you make them out to be. I really don't think it is about looks, that is just a vehicle.

Also, the girl from the article was not anorexic or at least the blogger doesn't mention it.

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