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Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

> When a 34-year-old biologist is asked what she is looking for in a man, she doesn’t respond with a height requirement or a hair color. She pauses for a moment, reflecting on a divorce and the French man who came after. He needs to be there for her; she has to be sure of him. But the most important thing, she says, as she points to her head: “It’s all up here.”

Yeah, but that's merely what the woman says she wants. That doesn't reflect what she might be impulsively attracted to.

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Exactly.

It's like some of my female Asian friends who say they don't actively exclude Asian guys, yet their dating history pretty much is exclusively white guys (even in cities with plenty of Asian guys). Yet if I said that my small company only hires and interviews male engineers, I'm pretty sure people would criticize us for being sexist.

Furthermore, we can look at stats in online dating and compare rates of interracial marriage segmented by race and gender. What we find is that taller men absolutely have higher number of sexual partners compared to shorter men. We also find that Asian women and Black men marry out at a significantly higher rate than Asian men and Black women.

Dating and hiring are worlds apart. Having a preference for your intimate partner isn't the same as hiring policies. A company that hires only men is being sexist. A man or woman that is intimate with only men isn't being sexist; their private life doesn't hold others back from social opportunity.

I don't think that colmvp was trying to draw a moral equivalence. Just saying that "the proof is in the pudding". You can say you don't screen on criteria 'x' but that's not convincing if you happen to never select people who match criteria x.

A person is a relationship; people are markets. Even though the consequences are different downstream the structure is similar, in that in both cases there is market behavior, an expectation of bias, an expectation of denial of bias, and yet statistically a bias seems to exist without intervention.

That being true, I am very leery even of the basic "doesn't respond with a height requirement" part of this anecdote.

I have seen a lot of dating profiles with things like "no short guys please", "minimum height 6 ft." etc; and have heard a lot of my female friends openly admit to "not liking short guys". For some reason, admitting that seems to be a lot more socially acceptable than a man admitting that he doesn't like women with a certain body type.

Discrimination is a funny thing. We think we've solved it all (or at least seen the light on what's right and wrong) when it comes to race, gender, religion.

Yet prejudices and discriminatory attitudes show up again when dealing with other factors. Today is seems the trend falls upon age and height. The worse is that it tends to manifest at an almost subconscious level.

It's not discrimination, it's a matter of preferences. Hell, if I want to date a girl younger and smaller than me it's my right, isn't it? Plus on these apps/dating websites, you only state preferences. As I said, I would prefer a girl smaller than me, but it doesn't mean I'll not end up with someone taller than me.

> Profiles ask you to include things like your job title and college

So, maybe not height, but apparently a prestigious college is important. Down here in Australia, mentioning your college like it's part of your personality is just plain weird. People mention what was studied as a matter of course, but where you studied it isn't a significant part of your personality.

I can see this format of dating site solving the problem of women getting unsolicited dick pics, but I don't see how it can solve the problem of less-attractive men getting some attention.

Women tend to make all these "lists" for what they want in a man, and then fall for the "bad boy" that may match nothing on that list.

Your anecdotal remarks would appear more credible if you skipped out on the "air quotes"

http://frivolousquotationmarks.tumblr.com/

Men do the same thing. Though perhaps not the "bad girl", but we often fall for a type (of the many types) that's a lot of fun but terrible for long term relationships and leave the ones that have better long term potential out.

Have you met men who says otherwise? Isn't that why you have the meme "Don't stick your dick in crazy"?

You mean men with a list of what they want but never end up dating women that match it? Yes. Though less at my current age, most of my friends are married at this point.

No, I mean men who claim that they don't fall for the "wrong" women.

Yes. But mostly they're married at this point.

People in general have trouble articulating what they want (and sometimes admitting it to themselves). You're not wrong but it doesn't just apply to women so there's no need for this misogynist garbage.

If you ask anyone what they are looking for, chances are they will describe the qualities missing in their last partner. But that's simply describing the qualities that a person they actually wanted didn't have.

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