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Comment by erikb | Hacker News Reader

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about the value of other things, don't we do them a favour, teaching them to care about good looks? Does caring about good looks exclude caring about smartness and education? Is my observation totally wrong?

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I find these articles boorish. When I was a little boy I distinctly recall every stranger I met telling me how handsome I was because it's a superficial complement that can be delivered without great insight. Aunt's used to tell me that I'd "break some ladies hearts" because they didn't know me, and had no idea if I was intelligent or not. How intelligent can a five year old be, anyway? I didn't see little Maya pick any boogers at dinner, she is destined to be a civil engineer, at least. Even with all the complements, I don't recall developing an eating disorder or wearing makeup at an early age.

Men only earn 43% of bachelor's degrees. Isn't the real issue that men are not valuing education as much as women? Smart women have a huge advantage at this point, especially in the tech industry. If they start a company, the press can't stop talking about it. Women are more comfortable dealing with women, and men are more interested in talking to women. If four people with equal intelligence and experience apply for a job, an attractive man, and attractive woman, an average man, and an average woman, the attractive woman is hired first and the average man last. Women are far more socially mobile than men, women are being better educated than men, and many people are still crusading against some perceived injustice.

> I don't recall developing an eating disorder or wearing makeup at an early age

Shouldn't you take this as evidence that there is something different in the way girls and boys are treated? In case you're not aware, eating disorders are horrifyingly prevalent among college-age women. [this statistic](http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/e...) reports 25% engage in purging, and in my anecdotal experience, that number could be an underestimate. It would stretch my imagination to think of purging as being a biologically rooted phenomenon, so I'd say it has to have societal roots. Saying that women are statistically more likely to go to college, and therefore can't complain about a society that profoundly fucks with their psychology is analogous to saying that blacks are statistically over-represented in sports, so they can't complain about a society that holds them back in so many other ways.

Consider the following:

In order to look how fashion advertisers tell them they should look, women have to have extraordinarily low body fat.

In order to look how fashion advertisers tell them they should look, men have to have extraordinarily low body fat... and high muscle mass.

If you know anything about body building you'll know that the second is extremely hard to do. Building muscle mass while at the same time keeping body fat to extremely low levels is a rather unnatural thing to do, far more unnatural than just being skinny. Not only that, but it's not strictly dietary, it takes time and money to build that muscle mass.

So why do women have more eating disorders than men, who actually have a harder time achieving their "greek god" form?

My guess is women take what they see in advertising too seriously. The majority of guys in this world don't actually expect their women to look like that, and the standard reaction to women who demand that from their men is "fuck it".

You should pay more attention. Most middle age men on tv are fat. Zero middle age women on tv are fat.

Super models aren't the role model. Raymond is.

The men on daytime TV sitcoms are not roll models for men, they're there for the women audience of those shows to laugh at to feel better.

Look at action movies. Those are the roll models of men. Look at advertisements targeted towards men. Those are the roll models of men.

Of course as memory serves, the female lead of Everyone Loves Raymond is actually more out of shape than Raymond himself... But hell, how about the most popular woman on television? Oprah isn't exactly trim.

Let's put it another way - if you teach a girl that her good looks are super super important, and she's bombarded with adverts telling her ways to improve, and images of people on TV that are portrayed vastly superior to her physically, then she is being set up to feel that no matter what she does, she's never good enough. Whilst us boys can "hit the gym" or "hit the books" and our manliness and success can exude, a girl has to chase beauty products, botox, and boob jobs in order to progress with what she's been born with. Or perhaps become anorexic to be as thin as the models and celebrities that form the vast majority of what women are told to aspire to.

This is an awful, awful system. Men are valued on something that is in many respects healthy - physical fitness, ambition, mental progress. Whereas girls are valued on something superficial and damaging - thinness, "beauty". This is what the "beauty" industry does - capitalise on this desire like a shark and not only provide ways for girls to improve their looks, but actively perpetrate the myth that women need to look younger or slimmer or have 100% perfect skin. The beauty industry is a fucking disease.

I can only agree. The beauty industry makes a sick thing out of the basic idea. And if the main article we comment about here means fighting that, then I totally agree. We shouldn't teach our daughters to follow in the foot steps of models and super stars. That would also be lying about what is good for them. In the same way I think it is lying if we tell them that looks don't matter and she should value herself according to other things more. She will be very surprised if she gets out into the real world and sees that most people actually don't care about her, because she doesn't care about her looks at all. Too little and too much both is wrong, I think. I hope I could show you that my argument is not the opposite of yours.

C'mmon.

I am thin, I can't call myself super good looking either. I am not very extrovert and not too much into sports.

But I can't use this as a reason to be bad at other things. Present ability, hygiene , looking good, neat and clean matter to both the genders. But if a person is not very attractive by natural look, that is no reason to not perform well in life by personal choice. That is not a reason, not to work hard, not to try, not to give your full.

Blaming things apart from oneself only goes so far. And doesn't help anybody.

Just because I sucked at sports, I can't use the same reason to be bad at programming.

There is is a substantial difference.

Society's sense of your worth, and as a result your sense of self-worth is not tied into those physical characteristics.

This isn't a matter of how hard someone tries at life, this is a question on what basis society judges individuals by (and i should note, this is an emergent equilibrium. It's nudged this way and that, but now that it's driven by financial interests, it's hard to shift the equilibrium).

I have a friend who's 6'7". Invariably the first question he was asked when he met new people was "wow you're tall, do you play basketball?" He hates basketball. But society's perception of what he'd be good at was tied into his height. He can't change it, he didn't ask for it, and he certainly showed no interest or indication that he'd like to discuss basketball.

That's an outside force impinging on his sense of identity. Same goes for women and what they think society values. Some women play the game, double down and use it as a zero-sum weapon against other women to get ahead. Some don't have a choice, or the will, and just get trampled (by the first group of women).

But again, the difference is that you don't have to play this game. There are other games you can play, and society will accept you for it. Women don't get that choice. This is the game that has to be played, if they're to participate in society.

I am not saying that looking good doesn't matter, sure it does. But it begins to truly matter only if you want it to.

The world is a tough place. Its difficult out there for the mild hearted. But that's the case with all the genders. When I was not allowed cricket for my school team, I didn't take that as male oppression or something that should dumb me down for ever. Although the common perception at that time was, if you played well you are more likely to get a girlfriend at that directly cor related to being smart. Its just that I was meant to do something else. Which I did eventually and did pretty well.

Today I have trouble getting a bride for marriage(here in India these things matter a lot). But I know deep down within me, I may not be a alpha male among the pack, not very muscular, smart good looking and physically active. But for the kind of hard work I put in I will be a lot more richer than the alpha males.

In fact this happens all the time, The society is sure responsible for these sort of perceptions. But they become the reality only if we want to.

Now to all girls who reject me to settle with a alpha male, when you discover a decade later I'm more financially rich. Please don't call that women's oppression. That just making wrong decisions and paying for it later.

> Now to all girls who reject me to settle with a alpha male, when you discover a decade later I'm more financially rich. Please don't call that women's oppression. That just making wrong decisions and paying for it later.

So, the fact that you found a game you can play and win at, justifies the mistreatment of people losing at other games? ;)

I appreciate your point, and i agree that people who are strong-willed enough can break the game, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're expected to play. The fact that society values different things at different stages of life doesn't mean that the game that you're good at is any fairer than the games you were bad at when society valued youth, vitality and ability to hit and/or catch a ball. All that's different is that you're winning :P

I dig that the internet is all about flying your freak-flag, but there are still common standards that society expects you to adhere to. When you go grocery shopping, or when you pass your neighbors on your way to work, or when you're out with your friends and you've got to deal with the bouncers at a club, or a bar tender at a pub. All of these places have expected APIs, and if you behave out of their bounds you have to do on the fly content negotiation, and some people will be tolerant and accept such negotiations, and other people are just going to fire back "request denied".

I agree to an extent that we control how much we let that get to us. But there are a lot of things that go into our mental health and stability. If your family is also constantly haranguing you about the same shit you get from everyone else, you have no safe quarter to be yourself (again except maybe the internets). That's not really a healthy/sane way to live.

I'm not Indian, but the Chinese side of my family totally thinks that my worth (both as an individual and as a representative of my family) is attached to my financial stability and whether i've got a "real job" or not. Let me tell you, i have gotten a lot less flack now that i'm not freelancing. They were also weirded out that i got married prior to reaching that point of financial stability. But that in a way is the benefit of being the son of immigrants. The things that society judges me by are different from the metrics that my family judges me by. That's something that people like me can play to my advantage, or for some people, it means that they get the worst of both worlds, they can't win either in society's perception (and stay true to their family) or visa versa.

The fundamental question is how optional each of these games are. I don't take it for granted that they are optional. I think that taking the position that women have a choice to play the game is a difficult one for me to accept.

I don't take it for granted that they are optional. I think that taking the position that women have a choice to play the game is a difficult one for me to accept.

This is something that even I agree, Here in India a lot of women are helpless and clearly driven by social pressures. Often under poverty and caste obligations.

But we are not talking about that section of women here. We are talking of girls(in the article) who in very clear conscious have the choice to spent their time, money and resources in a particular way. But don't take the best way out, and take the wrong choice.

This is utmost bad decision making, not a social problem. Otherwise every other social persuasion or thought can become your life problem.

Flame me away...

I can't show sympathy to any person who can actually work hard and do something, but just doesn't and keeps blaming every outside reason for why they can't.

Looks, poverty, opportunities etc etc all buzz words matter. But none of them matter more than personal will to rise beyond, get moving and do some work.

Sitting on time and opportunities and letting them go by as time flies over the years. And then at the end of an era blaming 'looks' and other stuff for failure doesn't deserve any sympathy.

I would rather show sympathy towards people who are disabled physically or other wise. But perfectly healthy people giving reasons as to why they couldn't do what they wanted, while they could actually have by work don't deserve any mercy.

Just by telling somebody they are pretty you are NOT endorsing the beauty industry and boob jobs. How about teaching people how to deal with the media and PR industry properly instead?

By the way, there are beauty products targeted at men, too.

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.

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 with women (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anorexia_nervosa#Epidemiology ).

More over, the notion that complimenting someone on their appearance will some how coax them out of a psychiatric disorder is naïve at the very least, and destructively ignorant at worst.

Anorexia nervosa is about appearance. If you give an anorexic any indication about their physical appearance you are reinforcing their condition. Complements are taken as an indication that starving themselves (or purging in the case of bulimics) works, and that they must continue the behavior to continue to receive complements. Attempts to inform them that they look unattractive (even if it's due to the fact that they're starving themselves) will be taken as an indication that they have not sufficiently starved themselves into attractiveness. You can not logic a person out of an eating disorder. Psychiatric disorders can not be reasoned with, and attempting to do so really does just court disaster (would you attempt to reason with an alcoholic?).

I sincerely urge you to read up on psychiatric disorders and the way that they are managed, it's a really challenging subject, and common wisdom about them is usually incorrect.

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 their disorders. But it can make somebody's day nevertheless.

/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.

I don't know that much about anorexia, but I suspect it doesn't have to do anything with beauty ideals at all (case in point: anorexia does not look pretty). It is more about control issues (I suppose).

I know it can hurt to feel ugly, though, so I don't think it is a bad thing to be reminded now and then that you are not ugly (at least not to everyone).

About pretty little girls: I was taught in biology class that babies are actually born to look cute (it is called "Kindchenschema" in German, other mammals also have it). It is a natural reaction to want to care for cute little humans, and it makes sense for little humans to look cute.

Sorry I did not understand how you are not creating a strawman. I think you are thinking way too much about all this. It seems important to me to act naturally with children to some extent, and not having to go through a endless mental checklist before reacting to them.

Anorexia is absolutely about beauty ideals. Indeed you are right: anorexia does not look pretty; anorexia is about what the patient sees when they look in the mirror: it is a perceptual disorder in a sense. Regardless of the actual weight of the person in the mirror, the anorexic sees an overweight figure looking back at them.

Bulimia is more about control, that's the one that involves purging. It usually coexists with anorexia in the same patient, and goes in cycles. The patient keeps undereating due to the distorted perception of their body size, until they become so underweight that even they cannot deny their problem. Then they begin overeating to compensate for this, and then they are racked by shame due to the overeating and start purging, and the whole awful cycle begins again.

Anorexia is not a trivial teenage anxiety disorder, it has a survival rate of around 80%. A horrible business.

Do you have sources for that? Because I really don't think it is correct. I don't know anybody with anorexia, but I know several therapists. Not that I have inquired much about the problem, but I simply have heard different things. In fact the first hit for "anorexia causes" (with DuckDuckGo) seems to confirm my thoughts: http://helpguide.org/mental/anorexia_signs_symptoms_causes_t...

"Believe it or not, anorexia isn’t really about food and weight—at least not at its core. Eating disorders are much more complicated than that. The food and weight-related issues are symptoms of something deeper: things like depression, loneliness, insecurity, pressure to be perfect, or feeling out of control. Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure."

Of course blaming it on beauty ideals conveyed in the media is an easy way out for relations of anorexic persons, who then don't have to confront the real issues.

We are confusing causes with symptoms. Anorexia may well be caused by deeper problems with the person's life, the ones you list in the quote, general sources of depression. However "anorexia" refers to a form of depression that manifests itself in issues with eating and weight. It is not the depression that kills patients, it's the undereating and the vomiting. Therefore it is entirely appropriate to discuss, deal with and treat the eating/food/weight aspects of anorexia patients' lives. When looking to actually cure the patient, therapists will indeed look to deeper issues in the person's psychology/environment. These will likely be specific to the patient, and so it is not really productive to discuss them in general terms accross populations. That can be dangerous, this kind of thinking is what lead to the concept of the "schitzogenic mother."

Also, this quote shows a big misunderstanding:

"Things that no amount of dieting or weight loss can cure."

Nobody claims that weight loss can cure anoreixa. Anorexia is basically the irrational desire for weight loss. Being cured of anorexia essentially involves stopping ones extreme irrational weight loss behaviour, and it is self evident that no amount of weight loss can cure this.

Sure, you might say the screwed beauty ideals are a symptom. What I was saying is that they are not the cause. And of course the starvation is a problem that has to be dealt with. How is maybe another issue best left to the specialists.

I think you misread that last quote. What they say is that the anorexic persons are not actually striving for some ideal weight that would make them satisfied if they would reach it. So they say precisely that it is not some specific beauty ideal they strive for.

They only wrote it like that because that is what it might look like from the perspective of the anorexic person (if only I could use so much weight, I would be OK).

Anyway, I think we have settled this as far as amateur knowledge permits.

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.

What looking good means biologically? It's actually how men appreciate the health and fertility of the women - the healthier she is the prettier she will look for most men.

There are quite a few parallels with the way women are pressured to be pretty and men are pressured to be wildly successful. Both are likely damaging if allowed to increase uncontrolled and can lead to a variety of different mental health related issues. Just something to be aware of.

The way you praise a child can have an effect on their definition of success and their goals. For example, something as subtle as praising a child for his intelligence vs praising him for his hard work can make him too focused on the number of points he gets vs actually understanding and learning.

That means that when offered a choice between problems that allow them to get a lot of right answers vs a challenging problem, kids that were praised on their intelligence chose the easy problems (so they wouldn't look dumb) and kids praised on their hard work picked a problem where they would actually learn something and have to work hard. Also the ones praised for their intelligence interpreted failure to mean they weren't smart. The ones that were praised for hard work thought they didn't work hard enough and tried harder.

So maybe we wouldn't be doing them such a favor by teaching them to care about good looks instead of hard work, because when they fail they will think that they are too ugly and have bad self esteem. Praising them for something they have control over and can actually change (such as their education, interests or hard work) would be much better.

(you can read the article I skimmed for this answer "Intelligence praise can undermine motivation and performance" https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/sys... )

I think the issue is not that being attractive is bad, it's just that often that's the _only_ message that is consistently heard by young girls.

Girls might hear positive messages about being smart, creative, independent, etc. from all sorts of well intentioned sources, but there isn't the same sort of powerful, all pervasive weight attached to them as the message that being attractive is important.

Appearance is the 'common standard' of value for a female in many societies. I think that is the real problem.

The question is, does that come from society or would it be the same without society? I think there are also a lot of natural factors involved that drive this way of thinking. My thesis is, that to a bigger part society mimics the natural desire for beauty and attractiveness of women, not the other way around. What society creates by mimicing is absurd. No question about that. But that doesn't mean, most men would value a smart woman over a beautiful woman if there would be no society.

You are confusing things that are objective facts about the world (described by 'is' statements) with things that are created by norms (indicated by 'should' statements) which can be changed. That women are seemingly only valued for their looks is a norm that should and can change.

I see your point. I understand that you don't think it is a natural thing, that people care about good looks. What do you say about these famous experiments that just born babys, not able to speak or walk or listen, are already spending more time looking at pictures of beautiful people then not beautiful people? I don't mean that you are completely wrong, though. Some part of what is actually percieved as beautiful is in fact norm, like which clothes are more beautiful and so on. But there are other things like thin, sporty bodys, healthy skin, the size of certain body parts, which can all be found in animals, too.

Anyway I will think about how norms can influence the situation and maybe adapt my opinion accordingly.

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?

I understand that you argue that worrying about good looks can be hassle instead of an improvement in life condition. I can only agree. Didn't think about that when I wrote my comment! My argument is about another point though. I think if you reach that point of being good looking, with that attribute alone you can have less frustration then other people, because others are more likely to give you what you want and care about you. Think about the last time you saw a fat and ugly person cry and how much you cared about it and then the last time you saw a beautiful woman cry and how much you cared about that. Both arguments are true, though. Thanks for your addition!

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 skills, lack of respect for others (who do have to suffer looking at you), and laziness.

Unless she wants to have a career as a top model. Then looking like a top model could help a lot.

"lack of respect for others (who do have to suffer looking at you)"

If I suffer when I speak with people that don't agree with my beliefs - is it good enough reason for them to convert to my beliefs? How is it different than requiring people to respect you esthetical sense by complying with it?

Poor health, poor posture, ill-fitting, ragged clothes, poor hygiene... this is what I mean.

If you carefully design your aesthetic, even if it does not fit with my personal style preferences, then that will be fine. Just show that you thought about it ;)

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)

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.

and... is that the author: http://www.lisabloom.com/ ? Isn't she pretty?

Her web site features her looks more than her books. (In case it changes : 80% of the space is occupied by a photo of hers, and 20% by textual content). Do as I say, not as I do.

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 herself as "look, I am attractive, smiling, happy! Read my books to find out why" - and then the books are [apparently] about getting over things like beauty..)

"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" people on TV? Almost without exception, at home they look just like you or me.

BUT DON'T TELL ANYONE! Western capitalism might come crashing down around us ;)

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.

We are hardwired to pay attention to faces. It happened looooong time before any book was in sight. And marketing people do know this stuff.

Also next up: the story how she spent an entire evening reading books with an ugly girl.

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