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I wonder if we attack a woman's appearance because it works. I wonder if it actually does work and if so, why? I have heard some say that women are also cruel to each other in that regard, but I have my doubts.

Well there is the old adage that women dress up to compete with each other, not to look good for men. If they were primping to look good for men they would be running around naked.

The chief reason my wife liked to attend sacrament meeting by her own admission was to put on a fashion show.

MsJack wrote:Science is my weakest proficiency, so bear with me here. Isn't it usually the males of the species who develop bright, alluring coats and patterns to try and attract the females? How did things ever get so reversed for humans?

If anyone has ever studied up on this, please, educate me. I'm too lazy to look it up.

Human females hide ovulation, unlike most other species who advertise ovulation. So the signs of fertility have to be ascertained in more subtle ways. The things women do to "look good" are really attempts to mimic signs of a fertile young woman.

asbestosman wrote:I wonder if we attack a woman's appearance because it works. I wonder if it actually does work and if so, why? I have heard some say that women are also cruel to each other in that regard, but I have my doubts.

In my OP I made sure not to say that men were doing this...I said people. Women absolutely do it to other women.

Surprising. Generally I think of misogynists as men. I wonder if the motivations are different.

beastie wrote:

MsJack wrote:Science is my weakest proficiency, so bear with me here. Isn't it usually the males of the species who develop bright, alluring coats and patterns to try and attract the females? How did things ever get so reversed for humans?

If anyone has ever studied up on this, please, educate me. I'm too lazy to look it up.

Human females hide ovulation, unlike most other species who advertise ovulation. So the signs of fertility have to be ascertained in more subtle ways. The things women do to "look good" are really attempts to mimic signs of a fertile young woman.

Why don't men spend more money on proof of their wealth or social power via their clothing? What matching shoes and purses have to do with fertility and youth puzzles me. Maybe men tend to do something I don't get and possibly don't do.

Blixa wrote:

Sethbag wrote:If this question isn't just rhetorical, then I think a good answer is evolution. Evolutionarily speaking, women compete to attract the strongest, most capable and suitable males, and men compete to present the image to women that they are the most capable of supporting children.

Should there be more thought involved in our interpersonal relations? One would certainly hope so. But the genetic wiring shows through when viewed from the bird's eye point of view. This is one consequence of that.

Well, I don't have time to take this knee-jerk caveman reaction apart. Ugh, sloppy arguments from evolution and that s****y "wiring" metaphor again!

I think justme is mostly reacting to Tarski in another thread. She posted a picture of clothes she liked and Tarski though it necessary to tell us his dick couldn't get hard looking at that photo.

That he didn't think twice about making such a creepy remark has more to do with unspoken cultural male privilege than anything biological. And I think the fact that he apparently believes all men agree with him is part of the same cultural continuum.

While I agree with you that the appeal to evolution card is sometimes overplayed in these kinds of discussions, I really don't think that mentioning it is a "knee-jerk caveman reaction". Evolution plays an enormous role in the way humans view the world -- whether they choose to acknowledge this or not. From a purely mathematical perspective, it has to. Human civilization has only existed for the last 10,000 years or so. By contrast, evolution has been working on organisms for the last several billion years. Even restricting the discussion to the times involved since humans became a distinct species (the figure I have in my head is about 500,000 years), civilization has only existed for a small percentage of the time that humans have existed. So, evolution is a large factor in human behavior.

That being said, it still doesn't mean that evolution is the only factor that contributes to this type of attitude about women; and it certainly doesn't justify it. It's obnoxious that men think that they have the right to creep out on women over their physical appearance and how many sexual partners the woman has had. I find it especially obnoxious when, in Hollywood, a promiscuous woman is called a slut, whore, tramp, etc. while a promiscuous man is called a playboy, ladies man, player, etc. I think that type of attitude is mostly cultural, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was a strong, hidden evolutionary component to it.

keithb wrote: Human civilization has only existed for the last 10,000 years or so. By contrast, evolution has been working on organisms for the last several billion years.

The wild card isn't civilization, it's culture. Human culture (social behavior) has been around since the beginning of the species.

Morley wrote:

keithb wrote: Human civilization has only existed for the last 10,000 years or so. By contrast, evolution has been working on organisms for the last several billion years.

The wild card isn't civilization, it's culture. Human culture and social behavior has been around since the beginning of the species.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here. I have no doubt that human culture 50,000 years ago was very different from human culture today. Also, I have no doubt that some of the attitude that men have about women are mainly cultural and not based in evolution. I don't know what the contribution of each factor are.