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> Beauty standards at first seem like the natural by-product of society, just an aggregate of society’s aesthetic opinions and sexual tastes. Yet, in reality, b

> Beauty standards at first seem like the natural by-product of society, just an aggregate of society’s aesthetic opinions and sexual tastes. Yet, in reality, beauty standards are a set of norms that reinforce the gender and class status quo in a patriarchal society. It is a handy implement in the toolbox of oppression. I don't know how to take seriously an article that begins like this. Cultural notions of beauty are not part of a grand conspiracy. What an absurd claim.

pjc50 9y ago
Oppression doesn't actually require conspiracy, just an inflexible role structure enforced unthinkingly by people being conventional.
- weberc2 9y ago
  I'm very skeptical, at least for any meaningful definitions of "oppression".
- jm__87 9y ago
  I kind of get what you're saying, but to be fair, there are certain characteristics that women find more desirable in men and yet no one would say that men are being oppressed because of this.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    The desire exists in a context of social, economic, physical and legal power belonging to men as a class.
    - scotty79 9y ago
      Could you rephrase your point? I have trouble understanding what you said and how it relates to what the person you were responding to said.
  - GuiA 9y ago
    > there are certain characteristics that women find more desirable in men and yet no one would say that men are being oppressed because of this. I have a male friend who's far on the left side of the bell curve in terms of height, and he has shared plenty of life experience with me that contradicts precisely this (and not just in terms of his relationship to women as well, but also to peers, employers, etc.). It certainly goes both ways.
    - jm__87 9y ago
      Sorry to hear that. The point I was trying to make is that inequalities != oppression. I think it is important to distinguish between unfairness arising from random natural events (e.g. being weaker, shorter, uglier or below average in some other way) vs unfairness that arises from one group having authority over another group and placing undue constraints on them. I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed. I just disagree that beauty standards had anything to do with it.
      - weberc2 9y ago
        > I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed I absolutely agree (especially that beauty standards have nothing to do with oppression); however, our culture seems to take this as proof that women as a class are oppressed (optionally oppressed by men, depending on who you talk to). Of course, this is trivially refuted--life is difficult for men who wish to live outside the norm as well; however, despite being clearly false, the myth has a strong hold over our culture. On the subject of beauty standards, it's particularly hard to make the case that they're used to oppress women given that they equally oppress men, and while I think that 'beauty' affects women more than men, it's important to note that (1) there are lots of other social factors that impact men more strongly than women and (2) this also means above-average beauty affords women more social capital than it does men. The folks who claim that women are oppressed almost exclusively sample poorly--they focus exclusively on criteria that favor men over women or they focus on the top 10% of a distribution such that men appear favored favored for their disproportionate representation, failing to note that men are even more represented in the bottom 10%. If they're not sampling wrongly, they're looking at criteria like 'beauty' and double-dipping: beautiful women and homely women are both wronged while beautiful men and homely men are both privileged. It's hard not to conclude that the folks who hold these positions are acting in bad faith.

pjc50 9y ago

Oppression doesn't actually require conspiracy, just an inflexible role structure enforced unthinkingly by people being conventional.

weberc2 9y ago
I'm very skeptical, at least for any meaningful definitions of "oppression".
jm__87 9y ago
I kind of get what you're saying, but to be fair, there are certain characteristics that women find more desirable in men and yet no one would say that men are being oppressed because of this.
- pjc50 9y ago
  The desire exists in a context of social, economic, physical and legal power belonging to men as a class.
  - scotty79 9y ago
    Could you rephrase your point? I have trouble understanding what you said and how it relates to what the person you were responding to said.
- GuiA 9y ago
  > there are certain characteristics that women find more desirable in men and yet no one would say that men are being oppressed because of this. I have a male friend who's far on the left side of the bell curve in terms of height, and he has shared plenty of life experience with me that contradicts precisely this (and not just in terms of his relationship to women as well, but also to peers, employers, etc.). It certainly goes both ways.
  - jm__87 9y ago
    Sorry to hear that. The point I was trying to make is that inequalities != oppression. I think it is important to distinguish between unfairness arising from random natural events (e.g. being weaker, shorter, uglier or below average in some other way) vs unfairness that arises from one group having authority over another group and placing undue constraints on them. I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed. I just disagree that beauty standards had anything to do with it.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      > I think it is hard to disagree that historically, women who wished to live a life outside of the cultural norm at the time were oppressed I absolutely agree (especially that beauty standards have nothing to do with oppression); however, our culture seems to take this as proof that women as a class are oppressed (optionally oppressed by men, depending on who you talk to). Of course, this is trivially refuted--life is difficult for men who wish to live outside the norm as well; however, despite being clearly false, the myth has a strong hold over our culture. On the subject of beauty standards, it's particularly hard to make the case that they're used to oppress women given that they equally oppress men, and while I think that 'beauty' affects women more than men, it's important to note that (1) there are lots of other social factors that impact men more strongly than women and (2) this also means above-average beauty affords women more social capital than it does men. The folks who claim that women are oppressed almost exclusively sample poorly--they focus exclusively on criteria that favor men over women or they focus on the top 10% of a distribution such that men appear favored favored for their disproportionate representation, failing to note that men are even more represented in the bottom 10%. If they're not sampling wrongly, they're looking at criteria like 'beauty' and double-dipping: beautiful women and homely women are both wronged while beautiful men and homely men are both privileged. It's hard not to conclude that the folks who hold these positions are acting in bad faith.