Thoughts on "Impossible" Beauty Standards and Their Origin
Photo subject: @steemed-open
Disclaimer: In this essay I'm once again going to discuss males and females "on the average". I completely understand that not all women are stereotypically feminine, that not all men are stereotypically masculine, that genes produces great diversity of outcomes and that gender identity can be fluid. However, what variation exists between men and women tends to cluster around two different means--one for men and another for women--usually in the shape of a "bell curve" in each case. The average male is therefore different from the average female, and those differences become increasingly obvious the further one moves toward the tails of the bell curve and away from each's respective mean. Denying that these gender differences exist "on average" is untrue, unhelpful and unwise.
Anthropologists, biologists, geneticists and evolutionary psychologists generally agree that most gender roles and gender preferences are not strictly societally-imposed but rather often genetically determined. Many roles and preferences are observed even at the earliest of ages and before conditioning could have affected outcomes.
This means that traditional or stereotypical expressions of masculinity or femininity are NOT a consequence of the improper or differing socialization of males and females. Consequently, stereotypical men and women can't be "fixed" simply by changing how we educate or socialize them. Men are not just poorly-socialized women and shouldn't be treated as such, and vice versa.
For instance, men are not socialized for competition and dominance. Rather, they are (on average and subject to degrees of genetic variation and environmental influence) more or less hard-wired for it (testosterone levels being a proxy for interest in both competition and dominance). Gentlemen don't prefer blondes because culture, but rather because genes (light hair having historically been a genetic indicator of youthfulness and therefore female fertility). Men don't prefer that females have a certain waist-to-hip ratio because Madison Avenue, but because such was an ancient indicator of a female's fitness and her ability to carry and produce healthy offspring. Men do not pursue women because of some vestiges of societal "male privilege" or "rape culture" but because the less-than-monogamous male (prior to birth control) almost always passed on more of his genes than his more monogamous friend.
Likewise, females are not simply poorly-socialized males. Females of a certain age do not pine for babies because men have conditioned them to be baby factories, but because their bodies call them. Women don't assume more of the responsibilities for raising children because of the preferences of a male patriarchy or a conscious rejection of stereotypically male pursuits. Rather, most do so because they feel biologically compelled to do so. Females do not play to society's "beauty standards" (that is, to male sexual preferences) in their dress, hairstyles or hair color, or desire for a "better" body because culture demands they do so, but because their genes demand they do so. Females are not societally-conditioned to crave and even compete for the attention of dominant men. Rather, they are genetically programmed for it.
In short, as evolutionary psychologists Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa have noted, "men and women are not different because they are socialized differently; they are socialized differently because they are different." Most everyone who has parented both a boy and a girl knows from experience that this difference is real. It is often evident from the first moments after birth.
My point? Just this: Neither "society" nor the "patriarchy" hold people in general, or women in particular, to unrealistic or impossible beauty standards. Evolution does so.
Traditional feminists seem to "get" this fact when we move out to the tails of the bell curve but curiously deny that it applies near the mean. For instance, most feminists would argue strongly that homosexuality isn't a choice, nor is it socialized into us. Rather, homosexuals are simply "born this way" (with an innate and almost compulsive desire to be wanted by, and be found appealing to, the same sex) and, as a result, homosexuals deserve as much deference and respect as anyone else.
And yet these same feminists irrationally insist that the "average" heterosexual woman's desire to be wanted by the opposite sex, and to compulsively appeal to its sexual preferences (that is, to male society's "beauty standards"), is NOT a genetic predisposition but is instead a product of cultural conditioning and male dominance--of the "patriarchy" or "rape culture". Consequently, they often encourage women to reject these "impossible standards" as externally imposed restraints on female freedom designed to fetishize and diminish women for the pleasure of males.
Well, perhaps the "beauty standards" in question do seem impossible at times (especially as we age)--after all, evolution cares not one wit about our egos. But men's attraction to them, and women's pursuit of them, are not cultural, nor are they externally imposed. They are innate. They (on average) come with the bodies we are born with.
Consequently, by insisting (often hostilely) that women should reject their own innate sense of beauty standards by actively refusing to pursue them, and that men should be ashamed of their innate beauty preferences (as somehow demeaning or limiting women), feminists create conflict between our bodies (our conscious or unconscious urges) and our judgmental minds. This internal conflict is the source of incredible personal angst and societal stress.
Both society and the individuals that comprise it would experience far more peace if they lived in harmony with their innate nature--that is, if they didn't feel shamed by politics or religion into living other than as their natures call them. Again, that does NOT mean that every male would express stereotypically masculine traits and every female stereotypically feminine ones, though each sex would certainly do so on average.
I realize that mindless pursuit of evolution's "impossible" standards can likewise cause great stress and angst. But the solution to that more natural stress isn't to deny evolutionary truth, the influence of genes or to blame "male" culture (as traditional feminist often do) but rather to make peace with what is. I wrote extensively on the importance of making peace with reality, especially in the context of beauty standards, here.
In favoring the natural over the political or religious, I'm not committing the "naturalistic fallacy". I'm not claiming that the natural is superior because it's natural. I'm claiming that the natural is superior to the preferred feminist narrative because the former is true, and coming to terms with truth is ever the only way for egos to experience peace and personal liberation.
Ah, this one should stir up some controversy. I can hear my friends now, "He sounds like an MRA, spouting unproven evolutionary psychology talking points!" Who's right? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I have some ideas on a nature vs. nurture post I'll hopefully get to eventually.
Do you have citations for these claims? I've only read one (Sex at Dawn) of the three books you recommended in your original post. Which should I read first to get more support for these claims (Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters or Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us)? Have you read any counter arguments to these claims and if so, what have you found them to be lacking?
I'm intrigued that you also added this:
While saying these are not caused by culture or soceity. To me, the nature vs. nurture discussion is essentially answered with "Yes." Our culture and environment (even in vitro) impacts our gene expression and development which then impacts the culture we grow up in. This is one of the reasons I'm a strong supporter of peaceful parenting. If we prepare our children for a world of violence in the first five years of life, they will then create a self-fulfilling prophecy by creating a violent world (see http://bombinthebrain.com for more on that... and yes, I know, Molyneux is off the rails on some issues, but I think he gets this one right).
But what if our study of human development argues that rape was an evoluntionarily beneficial practice? Do we just throw up our hands and say, "Sorry girls, it's in my nature." I agree we should be focusing on truth, but we also can't deny that, when it comes to society and culture, we create our own "truths" there. As much as we'd like to pretend this is a hard science like math or physics, it isn't. Human psychology and "brain stuff" is really squishy. How can we make definitive claims about "what is" while also acknowledging we have the power to change "what is" by what we value and the inputs we feed back into the system to create new outputs?
If these "truths" you're claiming do lead to more rape and more systemic oppression against women, shouldn't we do something about that? Shouldn't we acknowledge that we, as conscious beings, are more than the sum of our primitive urges?
I guess I'm looking at this from both angles. 1) Yes, we should not deny our very nature and should work to constrain it towards building the world we all want to live in. And 2) Our "genes" are impacted by our environment and the inputs we give ourselves. We are no longer under primitive natural selection and have the control to adjust what we value as a species.
So who's right? What combination of nature or nurture makes the most sense? What will lead to an increase in human well-being and a decrease in human suffering?
What creates the world we all want to live in?
First, @lukestokes, I love this comment. I love that you're pointing out places that need better support, really engaging with the central point, and setting a high level of conversation in every way. I am so glad you're here.
In answer to your question:
I think vegans have this problem where their morals say eating meat is bad for the human body but studies show that the human brain grew to the size it now is partly due to meat eating. So, if we hadn't eaten meat, we wouldn't be capable of thinking it's a a bad idea. Back to the example at hand: Even if it is determined that rape was once a necessary aspect of human development, it does not follow that it must continue to be. It's possible to view the origin of impossible beauty standards as biological without saying they are a social good.
But you ask two really important questions.
The answer from the article is clearly Yes. I'll pull this quote from the article on Yoga to explain:
So, Yes, obviously we should try to be more than the sum of our primitive urges.
An even more important question is:
My sense is that this is simply a larger question than the article's topic intends to address. For the most part, women with body issues aren't becoming rapists (leaving a little wiggle room there). Personal empowerment doesn't extend to changing others. I can become conscious of my body issues, come to love my body etc and that does, theoretically, little to protect myself or my loved ones from rape. In that sense, it's a broader topic, and one I'd be curious about the author's answer to. Thanks for stimulating my brain!
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters would be the better choice, I think. but I would encourage you to look beyond evolutionary psychology. My claims about masculinity and femininity being largely inherited traits are backed up by essentially every relevant scientific discipline. I will post some links here later.
You bring up a very valid point. It does sound like an excuse for misbehavior.
I am looking at it from both angles, as there is no other way.
We are motivated by our experience, as well as what is in our genes. ;)
:)) It's so strange that I like your comment more than the article.
Nevertheless why everybody insists in polarizing these linked parts of every human's life ? Why is important the result of nature vs nurture? They are interdependent. Forever interdependent and even if we want to understand better the human evolution throughout the old cause-effect recipe it's not right. Guys, you are talking about something refined in hundreds of thousands of years throughout thousands iterations. As you know better than me, actually it's one of the big questions of our evolution and we still use the old X vs Y. There are different layers of interpretation, different perspectives, many correlations between biological, psychological, cultural and we stick to a mathematical perspective?
I understand that we need to use the scientists output in our analyses and to be careful with the logical fractures that we have some predisposition to make but I think more importantly is: the relevancy of the "battle".
Why is important who's the winner when the winner is interchangeable with the second place ?
I don't knkw if I'm coerent at all.
Great article. I've always preached that we are slaves to our instincts despite how hard we try to convince ourselves we are not. What attracts women to men and men to women doesn't really change much.
Its true, men of all species are always the ones that must attract the female... thats why cardinal males are bright red, anole lizards have a red crest they pop out their throat, peacocks have such an amazing feather display, rams bash each other's heads, male squid rapidly color change, and why human men buy all the crap we do... to impress the opposite sex in the hopes they'll mate with us. We are slaves to our DNA... just vessels they use to replicate themselves.
Let me tell you something: if a man could fuck a woman in a cardboard box, he wouldn’t buy a house.” - Dave Chappelle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=106&v=GwJVh1BzrUY
An excellent book is *The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature"... Amazon's description:
I totally agree.
In a way, the feminist movement to change societal codes by policing them is like the movement on Steemit of complaints about certain types of post being overpaid. They're not wrong that it's not fair, but even if we collectively agree that it should be fair (not going to happen) or that social engineering is the way to fix it (also not) then there's this question of what rule book should be installed (insane authoritarianism?).
One thing I will point out is that beauty standards are made more powerful by being more impossible. Foot-binding and other examples of women dramatically altering their bodies to achieve impossible ideals are common throughout history and frequently even more shocking than the surgical alterations done today. Some mothers just seem hardwired to want their daughters to compete in that freak show, and without doing any research on the topic, I bet it's mothers who have classically enforced impossible beautifying practices. That's a whole 'nother topic. :)
I admire the way your photography draws attention, artfully, to the captivating power of the female body. The photos are often intense, with very intentional lines. I appreciate the way these inspire thought and am glad you've taken the time to write articles on this topic. Thank you!
Rather than address the assertions you are making here, I would just like to add how technology plays a role in the "impossible" beauty standards these days. With Photoshop and other photo editing software, it is now possible to create images that do not accurately represent real people.
When you look at the "before" and "after" images of photos that have been Photoshopped, it's quite amazing what can be done--lengthening necks, slimming everything, enlarging eyes, smoothing out skin, thickening hair, etc.
I very distinctly remember a comment a friend made to me many years ago when I was in college. I was looking at a magazine and he expressed frustration about the ladies in the photos and how people try to live up to the beauty standards in magazines. He said, "THEY [the models] don't even look like that!" How true!
What we see in magazines and advertising is not real. It's been airbrushed, Photoshopped, edited to create an ideal that isn't even achievable because it's not real...it's more like artwork. But a lot of people think it's real, whether consciously or subconsciously.
Thoughts?
Beauty is measured by Youtube videos now a days :(
Related to this:
http://steemit.com/life/@feminism/the-evolution-of-a-mother
ENJOY
Do you truly believe that society has nothing to do with it, though?
I think it's a combination of both...
Also, just an observation. It kinda seems like you're blaming societal pressures on feminists, instead of evolution, based on how much you use the term "traditional feminists" in your own counter-arguments.
Society has something to do with it, but much less than feminists suggest (meaning that we can't solve the "problem" simply by reforming society). From the book Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters:
To the extent I'm "blaming" anybody, I blame men for conning and shaming women into ceding their sexual power. My frustration with traditional feminists (as opposed to more modern sex positive ones) is that they aid and abet men in this task.
My whole point is that evolutionary programming NOT a "societal pressure", rather it's a natural, internal urge. So, it would be inappropriate for me to "blame" evolution for "societal pressures". To the extent societal pressures are to blame for anything, it's for conning/shaming women into doing other than what they are biologically programmed to do, creating much societal strife and personal angst.
The woman is a beautiful creation of nature, every man should be proud of his companion
I'm sure it's a natural instinct to want a baby, but a woman should never feel lesser of anything by never having one. Men either. Sometimes, everything doesn't happen to you in your life...still, you should love and enjoy it to the fullest.