16 ms·

Don't dumb girls down

344 points by CarolineW 15y ago

sgns 15y ago
Thanks, that was interesting. Not least the comments, including one from "Too Smart", which said: "Being dumb is much better than having to play dumb. It does no good for a girl to be too smart," and suggested complimenting the girl for her sweet looks. Sort of trollish? Maybe, but it also is true that 'good looks' show, and have immediate 'consequences', whereas the intelligence that's innate to us doesn't show, and the real challenge of intelligence maybe is to find a way to do something with it. Something that makes life meaningful. Which takes constant work, self-confidence, and daring.
jacques_chester 15y ago
A lovely pot-pourri of anecdotes and hand-picked exceptional examples.
- wgren 15y ago
  It's a blog post, not a research paper. If course it will use anecdotes. Do you have any counter examples to show an exceptional bias in their "hand-picking"?
- Symmetry 15y ago
  The author used those because they are more likely to convince the median reader than scientific studies. If you want those, Google Scholar is just a click away.
philjackson 15y ago
These are good tips, here's how my conversation generally goes with other people's children: "Hello, I'm Phil" "Hi, I'm Maya" Then just stare at one another until another adult speaks.
sgentle 15y ago
This reminds me of a story that I wish I could find again. It was in the Reader's Digest Young Peoples' Annual from sometime in the 60s. I read it in the 90s, so some of the advice ("don't go dutch too often") was truly perplexing, but this particular story was about a girl who played baseball. She always sat and watched the boys play baseball. One boy in particular caught her eye. He asked if she wanted to play and she jumped at the chance. She wanted to impress him, so she pitched the ball hard and fast. With each player she struck out, he seemed less and less happy. Finally, it came her turn to bat. By this point, he was hardly paying attention to her at all. She swung out. "Oops", she said, "I guess I'm not doing it right". His eyes perked up and he came over to talk to her. "You should hold the bat like this", he said, "and don't swing so hard". She smiled at him. She could bat just fine, of course, but it's important to have priorities. I wish I had a copy because I'd love to read it again. I suspect that the consequences of treating girls like pretty dolls, rather than the explorers, creators and leaders that they can be, will be felt for a while still; but I hope a few decades from now I get to read this article again and laugh at how things have changed.
- 127 15y ago
  Human biology is not that quick to change. It demonstrates a large amount of hubris to even think it should be. Women marry up and across dominance hierarchies. Artificially boosting the career success of women just causes misery on the long run for men and for society. I thought that the girl in your story was very smart, and even if people had treated her like a pretty doll for her entire life she would still be the same. Intelligent, critical and capable.
  - ordinary 15y ago
    What makes you think this is a purely biological issue?
    - Tichy 15y ago
      That I am not very attracted to dogs or cows is a small giveaway.
  - 15y ago
Tichy 15y ago
"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." Hate to say it, but what if they are? Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life. Not that I mind girls being interested in other things, but perhaps the ideology should be kept in check. Even if a girl doesn't care about her looks, other people will, and she has to learn to deal with it.
- derrida 15y ago
  "Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life." [citation needed]
  - Tichy 15y ago
    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prettier+people+get+further+in+life http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prettier+people+get+further+in+life You know, by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". If I wasn't so desperate to procrastinate, I should just ignore you. Why waste energy to educate you if you are obviously not interested in learning?
    - robertskmiles 15y ago
      Are you serious? > by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". You're saying "I don't care for your random opinion you could have pulled out of your ass with no correspondence to the real world, please demonstrate that you didn't just make that up." When you make a claim that you want to be taken seriously, cite your source. It's not hard, and it's sure as hell not anyone else's job. If you don't cite a source, people will reasonably assume that you have none, and disregard what you're saying. That's fine if you don't care, but I repeat, if you want to be taken seriously, cite your source. That job is yours and yours alone, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, only you can cite your source because only you actually know what source you used. Secondly, from a utilitarian efficiency perspective, if it takes X minutes to look up and post the source, then the total time spent when you cite your source is X, but if you don't, and everyone has to look it up themselves, the total time spent is X*n, where n is the number of people who read your post. For values of n greater than one, this is dumb. Do the sourcing once, to avoid duplication of effort.
jwingy 15y ago
As a guy, and a geek, I definitely find intelligence highly attractive (and I think most of you would agree with me). Since geeks will eventually inherit the earth, wouldn't it be advantageous to start teaching our women how they can get ahead on this curve by flaunting their intelligence? :)
- derrida 15y ago
  As a guy, this type of thinking once again puts the value on women as 'attractiveness'. Why isn't intelligence good for its own sake?
  - jwingy 15y ago
    I never said intelligence wasn't good for its own sake, nor was I trying to imply a woman's worth is only in her level of attractiveness. Certainly in a ideal world we would all aspire to goals without concern for outside opinion, but alas we don't live in a vacuum.
- kamaal 15y ago
  Well if you start doing that, you would spark off a new debate. "Don't tell girls how intelligent they are". Because then the very analogical argument will be used to say - telling girls they are intelligent is making them under perform in other areas. In short, if you are not ready work hard and do something on yourself by your work alone. There are plenty of reasons you can use to justify what you are.
  - lutorm 15y ago
    In fact, you should not tell anyone how intelligent they are. Not because it makes them underperform in other areas, but because it makes them underperform in that area exactly by failing to teach them that it's hard work that matters. See e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...
    - 15y ago
erikb 15y ago
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?
- erikb 15y ago
  and... is that the author: http://www.lisabloom.com/ http://www.lisabloom.com/ ? Isn't she pretty?
  - _debug_ 15y ago
    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.
    - ErrantX 15y ago
      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..)
      - JonnieCache 15y ago
        "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 ;)
chrischen 15y ago
"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds. Looks are important. Both men and women keep up appearances. Furthermore, you know how smart you are, and no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber.
- wgren 15y ago
  >But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds. Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!" as an opening phrase. We don't sell these kind of tshirts to boys: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled-im-too-pretty-to-do-homework.html http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled... >Looks are important. [...] no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber. No, but it tells you what you should spend your time and energy on improving. Again, something we only do for girls.
  - chrischen 15y ago
    I'm sure if it were a little boy in pajamas the author would have had the same urge to say how cute he was. > Again, something we only do for girls. It's not as if all men let themselves go. It takes work, even for a man, to not become fat, smelly, and overly hairy. I think the underlying cause for women to focus too much on appearances is because it is much easier for women, in current society, to marry into wealth and/or depend on a man. I think this has a much larger influence on women focusing more on their appearances than behavioral conditioning through constant complimenting. The compliment is a signal. If the person is pretty and you say that, then it's a proper signal. If you tell a child they are smart because they did some random thing, it's not necessarily a proper signal. Sending a wrong signal is bad. In the case of telling a child s/he's smart when s/he's not, the child may not try as hard anymore because s/he may wrongfully think s/he's smart enough already... In the case of telling someone s/he's pretty, as long as it's true, there's nothing wrong with it because being pretty can actually have practical advantages. It is then up to the person to choose whether to leverage his/her physical assets or his/her mental assets to get what s/he wants in life.
kamaal 15y ago
This article is talking only about one part of the story, while it can't be denied that people demand girls to look good. At the same time, girls themselves get into peer pressure easily. Very quickly in their lives they get the feeling that in order to be 'looked at' you have to be beautiful. I am not saying that guys don't suffer from this, but girls suffer from this more than guys. Its like the TV channels competing for TRP's. The demand for a something good exists, but the fact is that the demand is fueled by the content providers and not viewers. Now on a larger scale, the society doesn't dumb down girls. Its just the mere biological reasons prevent them from doing so many jobs that are common for men. Women have higher social pressures, physically and biologically they have more limitations when compared to men. They have bigger social pressures to deal with. All in all, this counts for most of the reasons why women don't get the incremental learning at the same rate as men. Now come to look at the other part of it, there is huge difference between looking good/presentable and wild chase for beauty. Cosmetic products exist both for men and women, but their nature differ. Apart from your usual set of deodorants and usual kit et al, you don't mascara or lipstick for men. Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all. Ultimately you truly get what you want.
- paradoja 15y ago
  Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all. Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...
  - raghava 15y ago
    >> Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs... Absolutely. They are working overtime on this one. Recently, India has seen a sudden surge in cosmetics for men. http://www.google.co.in/search?q=male+cosmetics+india+filetype:pdf http://www.google.co.in/search?q=male+cosmetics+india+filety...
saturn 15y ago
None of this advice applies to me, of course. As a man and therefore a child molesting rapist just waiting for my chance to strike, the idea that I could have any sort of conversation with a little girl - let alone sit down on a couch and talk privately - is simply laughable.
- gyardley 15y ago
  While parents, in general, distrust unknown men more than unknown women, that's not the situation described in the article. The woman was at a friend's house for a dinner party. Unless some specific past behavior suggests that they shouldn't, parents do allow their friends to have conversations with their children. Don't ignore the advice in this article just because you want to make some unrelated point about a different set of gender relations.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  I feel sad for your culture :/
- funkah 15y ago
  That was my thought too. I can't use this advice because I'm not supposed to be talking to little girls in the first place.
- hack_edu 15y ago
  There ought to be a Godwin's Law about threads talking about gender on the Internet. Given a certain concentration of comments on the subject, a sarcastic and baseless complaint of the assumption of male guilt (especially absurb, off topic comments about rape!) must appear.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Well, is he wrong? I know I make an active effort to avoid children...
tintin 15y ago
This great article shouldn't be surrounded by those stupid banners dumbing down women.
orochimaru 15y ago
Of course people irrespective of their gender should be able to do what they want to, but hailing a genetic gift of smartness over a genetic gift of beauty, or vice-versa doesn't make sense. It's how evolution has worked up until now - it's pretty much a beauty pageant. Trying to change a process that has evolved us into what we are is going to take time. Of course not all aspects of evolution are perfect, but this - favouring beauty over ugliness/fatness is pretty darn effective. Without competition, we would all be slobs - no scratch that - unicellular organisms. So, in conslusion - we are who we are - whether you want to fight and change that is your wish, but don't go preaching to others about what we should or should not do. I'm going to go tell all the little girls around me how cute they are. Maybe not at the same time though, lest I get mistaken for a paedophile. :P
- lutorm 15y ago
  I don't know what your point is. Nowhere is the author making the point that you should hail any genetic gifts. And nowhere is she arguing that good looks are not beneficial. Moreover, if you want to make Darwinian arguments, one could equally well say that without competition we'd all be as stupid as amoebas. I don't see where you get support for appearance being more favored than intelligence. Furthermore, why do you focus on either of these attributes being genetic at all? If we assume that they are, then it shouldn't matter whether we encourage people to care about either their intelligence or appearance. But clearly there is a huge amount of nurture in both aspects, so the genetic aspect is just a red herring. The real question is whether encouraging girls to focus on appearance over anything else is helpful or healthy.
hermannj314 15y ago
"be the change you want to see in the world" The author is fighting an uphill battle on this one, but I appreciate her ideal. Never underestimate the power your words have on shaping a child's life.
ctek 15y ago
The desire to be attractive is hard-wired into female biology. Fundamentally, we exist to survive and reproduce. Millions of years of evolution have evolved visual cues that signal health - especially reproductive health in both men and women however women's interest in successfully advertising their reproductive health is absolutely essential to what they have evolved over millions of years to do - which is bear children. High intelligence is not necessary to survive and reproduce successfully even in today's world which explains why most women (and probably most - but less men) would rather be "hot" than "smart". In general, during the reproductive phase of their lives (and long after that as well), women focus advertising their reproductive health, and men - their status. High intelligence however is key to acquiring status - which is much more important for men than for women which in my mind explains why more men than women are interested in being smart.
- Jem 15y ago
  If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that looking attractive for women is basically a biological imperative? The problem, as I see it, is that the evolved visual cues signalling good reproductive health are not in the slightest bit similar to what the media purport to be attractive today. Look for example at Neolithic figurines... women with large bellies, ample bosoms, wide hips. That's not what's plastered all over magazines and TV.
  - 127 15y ago
    I'm thinking that the fertility symbols where the woman is fit and thin far outnumber the ones where the woman is visibly obese. Wide hips, large bosom, healthy layer of fat, most certainly. But obesity? Rare. India, Egypt, Rome. All those sculptures look to be in the confines of healthy weight. I doubt that people living in that age had access to TV or magazines. Looks to me like you're quite obviously cherry-picking.
    - Jem 15y ago
      Not deliberately cherry picking, simply picking a time before great royal families and extravagant emperors had an impact on fashions and culture. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert on this (just a passing interest) so happy to be informed otherwise. Side note: there's an interesting theory in Ann Sinnott's Breastfeeding Older Children about fertility / female symbols and their relation to patriarchy and our 'progress' from nomadic hunter gatherers. The theory goes that as we settled down into working the land / raising animals, where women were obviously needed more, they became less valued for child birth / child rearing and consequently these fertility symbols not only got slimmer, but started to be replaced by a greater quantity of male / phallic symbology. Only vaguely related to the topic at hand but hugely interesting (to me, anyway!)
anujkk 15y ago
Whenever I think about "beauty" this poem automatically comes to my mind - Beautiful faces are those that wear– It matters little if dark or fair– Whole-souled honesty printed there. Beautiful eyes are those that show, Like crystal panes where hearth-fires glow, Beautiful thoughts that burn below. Beautiful lips are those whose words Leap from the heart like songs of birds, Yet whose utterance prudence girds. Beautiful hands are those that do Work that is earnest and brave and true, Moment by moment the long day through. Beautiful feet are those that go On kindly ministries to and fro, Down lowliest ways if God wills it so. Beautiful shoulders are those that bear Ceaseless burdens of homely care, With patient grace and daily prayer. Beautiful twilight at set of sun, Beautiful goal with race well won, Beautiful rest with work well done. Beautiful graves where grasses creep, Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep, Over worn-out hands! Ah, beautiful sleep. –Ellen P. Allerton
ErrantX 15y ago
I was musing on this the other day (beware; anecdote alert!). I went out for some drinks with a friend of mine from a long time ago - he is certainly not the sharpest of individuals, but a laugh and good fun in small doses (even if a lot of the jokes include farts :S). For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women. I've seen him out and about before and thought "I'd like to have some of that!". But my first impression when we were hanging out was that all these girls shared two things in common - good looks and zero intelligence. Most of the fart jokes came from them. Which was a bit of a shock! It took me a while to figure out that most of them weren't actually thick. I managed to have a conversation with one of them later on; and found she was a psychology graduate (one of my favourite pet interests :)), had even published a research paper on her work. Which was just confusing... there was this smart good looking girl, and she was hanging around acting thick. Then I worked it out... they were acting as they were expected to (either by our perception or theirs) on a night out; shove on the lipstick, revert to street talk, laugh at fart jokes and play dumb around the men. The psychologist actually even said this about her career (paraphrasing): "oh.. well I never really tell people that, it puts them off". Which is just a fucking sad reflection on society.
- vectorpush 15y ago
  I could recount similar anecdotes, I think there is a lot to be said for the way that women who put their intelligence on display are treated. A talented intelligent male with an ego is regarded as a condescending elitist genius, but the same traits ascribed to a female makes her an intolerable bitch.
  - Meai 15y ago
    That is such a stereotype. If you are genuinely nice and intelligent, I can assure you that men would be very eager to battle their wits against yours. Most women just don't hold up to their own claims and they see such "attacks" as personal ; but the reality is that men are suddenly treating you as equal and you don't like it. Men do not discard a valuable member of a team just because of gender, that is ridiculous. In my experience women are more prone to claiming intelligence despite actual intelligence. Please be aware that I do not claim to be intelligent myself. In fact, I'm pretty darn stupid. It just makes it that much more apparent when I'm faced with such claims.
chubs 15y ago
What a beautiful story of her interaction with that little girl. I hope i'm like that with my daughter when she's that age :)
- pjscott 15y ago
  That's also a good way to interact with little boys, incidentally. It makes you a much more interesting adult than someone who just says and does the same boring things as every other adult who is suddenly faced with a child.
JonnieCache 15y ago
To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure? Last time I checked there was no evidence to support this idea. Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors. Separating nature from nurture is notoriously difficult, and in a community which endlessly holds P=NP to be an open question, it is absolutely laughable to assume that these biological differences map one to one onto the observed behavioural differences, when there is such a huge and obvious confounding factor looming over everything. We cannot all sit around waiting for six sigmas out of CERN before we can say we've found the higgs, and then just jump merrily onto simplistic biological arguments which happen to conveniently favour our social/political/economic hegemony.
- JohnsonB 15y ago
  >Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors. It's actually no leap at all. Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason. It certainly isn't random, but due to some evolutionary benefit, and given that these differences are in the brain, it actually necessitates that there will be differences in behavior resulting purely from these physiological differences. It doesn't say what those differences are, but that there will be some, and then good science would tell us to learn what specifically those are. In addition, in terms of evolution, you would expect there to be reliable, biologically caused behavioral differences between men and women due to the importance of specialization. Evolutionary, you don't have hundreds of thousands of years of men and women specializing in certain tasks without there being some built-in, biologically caused preferences in terms of what interests guide each gender.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    Oh I agree that behavioural differences are to some extent caused by biology, and that biology has been determined by evolution. That is obvious, for the reasons you state. What I am attacking is the idea that we can be at all certain about which behaviours are biologically influenced and which are socially constructed, or about the extent to which each factor is influential. Both factors self-evidently interact in highly complex ways to produce the behavior we observe. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to isolate either one of them, largely due to ethical problems with the experiments that would be necessary. The only thing that we can be certain of IMO is the fact that all behaviour is inextricably influenced by both nature and nurture.
kolektiv 15y ago
I loved this. I couldn't agree more. I don't really have any great salient points or anecdotes to add but I would love to live in a world where more people think this way. As a thought experiment though, what would it take to change this? Could this be published advice to parents? Parenting classes, post-natal something? I don't know. Prescriptive stuff is clearly not going to be popular, but in the spirit of the article - if you had a magic wand, what would you do to spread this thinking?
wallflower 15y ago
I quote a HN comment from HilbertSpace in its entirety: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111651 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111651 > "Way before age 5, the little girls realize that they are small versions of Mommy and NOT Daddy. They know in absolute terms that they are a GIRL and NOT a BOY. Since their mommy was happy being a mommy, the little girls want to be like Mommy and on the 'mommy track'. By about age 18 months, little girls are already masters at eliciting positive emotions from adults, MUCH better than boys. The girls are also MUCH better at reading emotions than boys. Facial expressions and eye contact are part of how the girls read and elicit emotions; other ways are to 'act' (they are MUCH better at acting than the boys) cute, meek, and sweet and to be pretty. Since being pretty lets them do better eliciting positive emotions, they love pretty dresses with ruffles and ribbons. So, they are in a 'virtuous circle': They act sweet, elicit positive emotions in an adult, e.g., father, grandfather, uncle, get a gift of a pretty dress, wear the dress, elicit even more positive emotions, get even more pretty dresses, white bedroom furniture, patent leather shoes, cute stuffed animals, etc. Having to act like a boy or be treated like a boy, instead of like a girl, would be terrifying to them. So, in their first years, such little girls, to be on the 'mommy track' want to play with dolls and not Erector sets, want to work at being pretty and not how to hot rod a car, want to learn how to bake a cake and not how to plug together a SATA RAID array. Give such a girl a toy truck and she will know instantly that the toy is 'for boys' and will avoid it as a big threat. Generally, from a little after birth and for nearly all their lives, human females are MUCH more emotional than human males. So, they pay a LOT of attention to emotions, both theirs and others'. One of a human female's strongest emotions is to get security from membership in, and praise, acceptance, and approval from, groups, especially groups of females about their own age. That is, they are 'herd animals'. Gossip? It's how they make connections with others in the herd. Why do they like cell phones so much? For more gossip. Why pay so much attention to fashion? To 'fit in' with the herd. In such a herd, in most respects the females try hard to be like the 'average' of the herd and not to stand out or look different. [An exception is when a female wants to lead her herd, e.g., go to Clicker, follow the biographies, get the one for the Astors, and look at Ms. Astor and her herd of 400.] Well, as long as human females with good parenting are on the 'mommy track', and the human race will be nearly dead otherwise, the 'average' of the herd will emphasize the 'mommy track', dolls, looking pretty, cakes, and clothes and not Erector sets, hot rodding cars, or building RAID arrays. When it comes to a college major, any human female 18 months or older will recognize in a milli, micro, nano second that her herd believes that mathematics, physical science, engineering, and computer science are subjects for boys and NOT girls. Instead the girl subjects are English literature, French, music, acting, 'communications', sociology, psychology, nursing, maybe accounting, and K-12 education. By college the girls have been working 24 x 7 for about 16 years to fit in with the herd of girls, and their chances of leaving the herd in college to major in computer science are slim to none. Don't expect this situation to change easily or soon: Mother Nature was there LONG before computer science, and, as we know, "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". Or, to get girls to major in computer science, "You are dealing with forces you cannot possibly understand.". Having women pursuing computer careers give girls in middle school lectures on computer careers will stick like water on a duck's back -- not a chance. Nearly all the girls will just conclude that at most such careers are for girls who are not doing well fitting into the herd of girls, are not very good socially, don't get invited to the more desirable parties, don't get the good dates, are not very pretty, and are not in line to be good as wives and mommies. By middle school, the girls have already received oceans of influences about 'female roles', and changing the directions these girls have selected and pursued so strongly for so long is hopeless..."
Goladus 15y ago
Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything. Appearance is almost always the first thing you notice about someone. I'm not sure pretending otherwise is especially practical or will really help much in the long run.
- samlevine 15y ago
  This applies to guys as well as girls. My parents made sure that I learned that people judge me on how I look, smell, speak, etc.
Duff 15y ago
Great, another whiny article about the poor, maligned girls doomed to a future of breast enhancement and cellulite cream thanks to misogny. The article is a troll, here to elicit an emotional response that will sell a book. Enter the strawman: "In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that 15 to 18 per cent of under-12 girls in the United States now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up, and self-esteem is down; and 25 per cent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful, university-educated women say they'd rather be hot than smart. A Miami mother recently died from cosmetic surgery, leaving behind two teenagers." Would the hysterical premise of the article hold true if you substituted common male gripes or practices? What percentage of boys aspire to be basketball or baseball players instead of whatever profession is deemed acceptable? How many young men would rather be football heroes than academics? How many would rather win a NASCAR race than win the Nobel Prize? Did a Miami father die of a heart attack because he was playing basketball at 45 in 100 degree heat? It's easy and convenient to beat up strawmen and find a sexist boogeyman behind every perceived problem. Just don't lose sight of the fact that when you do that, you are dumbing things down.
- kamaal 15y ago
  This is worth thinking over. I think a lot of boys do aspire the adrenaline rush professions. But if they don't end up being one, do they now resign from their whole lives and just go saying the social persuasions to be such, destroyed their whole lives? There is always going to be a social persuasion for nearly everything. They way we eat, dress, talk nearly anything people can see, people can pass a comment on. And that becomes a mass opinion and taken to be the established truth later. Somehow I find it difficult to understand why women consider themselves so special in this regard. Why do we end up comparing representation of women and men in every industry is beyond my understanding. In the name of diversity and women's empowerment, why should we expect a guy to work late in the night, come on weekends, push hard deadlines and a girl is given all options to leave early? why is inefficiency assumed to be OK and acceptable just to accommodate them? If a girl feels need to emphasize her equality, can't it be done by performing? Why do rules have to be bent, made lot more easier? Its like a foot ball game, where you remove away the defenders so that they can score a easily. This sort of defeats the very whole purpose of empowerment. Empowerment is to give strength to something so that it can compete with challenges as they are, not remove away the challenges so that can be easily met.
cafard 15y ago
This same item, but from an American publication, was posted to HN a couple of months ago. Reheated, it still does not impress.
mrpsbrk 15y ago
Compare with http://jcs.biologists.org/content/121/11/1771.full http://jcs.biologists.org/content/121/11/1771.full another post at HN at around the same time, about the importance of stupidity in science. Two very different conceptions of dumb. I would also like to stress that it is not really about looks, only, but about being always "in character" for the woman, which is pretty and dumb, true, but would be much better described as "good marrying material". Finally, please, anyone who cared about this, check out "Ada Lovelace Day", to happen this year a month from today. http://findingada.com/about/ http://findingada.com/about/
Tashtego 15y ago
Man she's been shopping that column around for a while. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html?ref=fb&src=sp http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-litt...
amalcon 15y ago
I mostly agree with the sentiment, but this line stuck out at me: 25 per cent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Only 25%? That's spectacularly good compared to their male counterparts. What percent of young American men do you think would rather win the Super Bowl than the Nobel Peace Prize? It's got to be at least half.
- SapphireSun 15y ago
  How many of those women responded to the top model because the Peace Prize is a heavily politicized prize given to the most expedient person of the hour? Maybe they should have asked something like "Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology" (not to say that there isn't politics in science prizes, but it's a lot better than a newly minted President Obama receiving a prize and going, Um, thanks? What did I do?).
rhygar 15y ago
The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering. Have any of you ever actually talked to a woman? I'll boil down the argument into one that favors women: Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men. After all, it's their biology. And thus all men should be regarded as likely violent in the right circumstances. Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing.
- orangecat 15y ago
  The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering. Suggesting that biological factors result in statistical differences between men and women is not misogyny. "Different" does not mean better or worse. Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men. Essentially true. "Biologically programmed" is a bit strong, but in a sexism-free utopia would you seriously expect 50% of violent criminals to be women? Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing. Strawman. Nobody is saying that women should be discouraged from or can't excel in any area. It's just that if individual choices result in more male than female tech startup founders, and more female than male preschool workers, it may not be due to the all-powerful patriarchy.
  - rhygar 15y ago
    I find it amusing that you took a parody of the group-think displayed here as a serious argument.
- johngalt 15y ago
  Most of the people on here are debating the degree that gender affects life choices and goals (obviously it does to some degree). It's not misogyny to debate the differences between men and women. No one is advocating that women should be categorically denied access to certain societal roles. If I said: "Because of X, Y, & Z it's possible that biology has had more effect on female career choices than the 'patriarchy'." Does that make me a misogynist? Could there be any answer to why genders cluster around certain careers other than the 'patriarchy'? If that's the only answer you could ever acknowledge and anything else is "ignorance and misogyny" I think you should examine that. And your argument is exactly how men are treated, and many of those biases are institutional. Imagine if women weren't allowed to seek protection from domestic violence, and had no reproductive rights at all? That's the world every man lives in. It's a little insulting to be admonished how to properly speak to women, while men are imprisoned every day because of their gender.
NY_Entrepreneur 15y ago
Folks, this thread has a lot of confused thinking that is dangerous; we need the thinking in this thread to be more clear. First reality check. There is an old remark about research in psychology, that all the results either (1) are solid science that, however, say next to nothing important about humans or (2) say something important about humans, however, are junk as science. Similarly, for the main issue here, that is, for what is necessary in sex differences, for the role of nature versus nurture, etc., the results from solid science won't be very important and the very important results won't be solid science. Net, to address the issue scientifically, so far we are STUCKO. Sorry 'bout that. Second reality check. On the issue of the OP, that is, how to treat girls, young women, and women, each person WILL necessarily take some position. That is, no one gets to decline to choose an answer. We MUST have an answer. We do not have the luxury of no answer, and, from the first reality check, the answer we take on the important parts of the issue will not be from solid science. Sorry 'bout that. Solid science is great stuff. However, quite generally in life, we have to make decisions without solid science. Sorry 'bout that. Third reality check. I can assure you that it is actually fairly easy to get things very wrong in treatment of females, and the consequences can be from awful down to fatal. I exaggerate not. I can use Google Earth to give you the coordinates of the tombstone. So, the issue here is SERIOUS. There is a moral issue: Men don't want to be unfair or cruel to the females. So, here's a practical resolution: Give the girls plenty of opportunity. Give them dolls and also erector sets, white bedroom furniture and also a basketball goal, tell them they are cute, sweet, pretty, darling, adorable, and precious and also explain TCP/IP, DNS, and POP 3, encourage them in both English literature and physics, in both art history and solid geometry, have them help you make chicken salad and also put the snow tires on the car, mop the kitchen floor and also sweep out the garage. Some people who have tried this practical resolution came to a conclusion: The little girls quickly, strongly moved toward the stereotype for cute, sweet little girls. They played with the dolls and ignored the erector set; they liked art history much more than solid geometry; they were eager enough to mop the kitchen floor but wanted nothing to do with the garage. They were much more eager to be a cooperative member of a group than to strike out on some curiosity driven, independent, creative investigation. Important information about the girls? Yes. Solid science? No. Did I mention that quite generally in life, we have to make decisions without solid science? But more is possible: If parents and society push and shove, keep telling the girls to 'perform' well at 'boy activities', then, girls, being eager to please and more obedient, often will. If push them to be independent, autonomous, assertive, self-sufficient, and equal and to resent dependency, passivity, membership, partnership, subservience, etc., then through, say, college, they will. My experience is that, then, too likely (granted, not always) you will find that you have created a VERY 'mixed up' young woman and a weak, sick, or dead limb on the tree and conclude that Mother Nature considered all such issues long before you did and that it's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature. Here's an easier approach: If only from an 'asymptotic' consideration, place value on her being a strong limb in the tree. Do a really good job taking care of her until can help her find a really good husband, and then help her husband continue to take very good care of her and her children. Have her be good as a wife and mother in a secure, strong family. This thought, perhaps now with feminism really offensive, is not original with me. Instead, in the "Foreword" to Maggie Scarf, 'Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage', Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-5585-X, 1987. Dr. Carol Nadelson, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, wrote: "Traditional marriage is about offspring, security, and caretaking." If want her to be quite active between her ears and especially busy and productive, then emphasize to her and help her in how much there is to know about helping her children with their emotional, rational, psychological, social, artistic, physical, practical, verbal, quantitative, manual, scientific, technological, and creative problem solving development and understanding of history, business, the economy, people, groups, society, politics, etc., how far and away the most important influence on them, for their academic performance and nearly everything else, is the nurturing they get at home, and how important it is to build and have a secure, strong family and how she can play a central role there. Indeed, she might just take on doing a good job home schooling her children through, say, the International Baccalaureate program, high SAT scores, etc. Let the children get through the Beethoven piano sonatas and the Bach unaccompanied violin pieces, Rudin's 'Principles of Mathematical Analysis', Royden's 'Real Analysis', Breiman's 'Probability', and the 'Feynman Lectures on Physics' -- should keep them busy for a while! What do you want? Lots of really healthy grandchildren or someone to sweep out the garage?
georgieporgie 15y ago
This is kind of weird and forced. All social interactions start in a superficial way. Kids don't show up in their own cars ("hey, is that the new Brotus Fundero?"). They don't (usually) wear t-shirts from their last trade show or vacation. They aren't toting new laptops in unique courier bags and holding exotic drinks. You're basically stuck complementing their dress, hat, or whatever. That's how social interaction works, regardless of gender. You can move on to TV shows, books, and political affiliation later, but you need an opener.
WalterBright 15y ago
Parents with one kid believe it's nurture, parents with 2 or more know it's nature.
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
I was under the impression that female educational attainment was WAY up and continuing to increase. Oh I'm sorry, is this article only about correlations that are convenient for your premise?
dimmuborgir 15y ago
If beauty consciousness in girls can be said as peer pressure then geek/nerd consciousness in boys can be said as peer pressure as well. Boys who don't play videogames or watch sci-fi/action movies or listen to some complex rock/electronic music genre or those who are not gadget freaks or those who're not into science/technology/engineering in general are seen as less masculine (at least in a first world society). I think the reason why femininity is looked down is the economic models of the last 150 years which have favored science over art, rationality over irrationality and utility over authenticity. I think the world needs a second romantic era to truly appreciate the feminine aspects of beauty/creativity/genuineness.
grammaton 15y ago
Ah, the comments section of just about any article on the internet, always a goldmine of inadvertent comedy. My personal favorite from this one, right at the top: "What's wrong with wanting to be hot rather than smart? Not everyone can be intelligent, and both beauty and intelligence are natural, requiring no work." Priceless!

344 points by CarolineW 15y ago

sgns 15y ago

Thanks, that was interesting. Not least the comments, including one from "Too Smart", which said: "Being dumb is much better than having to play dumb. It does no good for a girl to be too smart," and suggested complimenting the girl for her sweet looks. Sort of trollish? Maybe, but it also is true that 'good looks' show, and have immediate 'consequences', whereas the intelligence that's innate to us doesn't show, and the real challenge of intelligence maybe is to find a way to do something with it. Something that makes life meaningful. Which takes constant work, self-confidence, and daring.

jacques_chester 15y ago

A lovely pot-pourri of anecdotes and hand-picked exceptional examples.

wgren 15y ago
It's a blog post, not a research paper. If course it will use anecdotes. Do you have any counter examples to show an exceptional bias in their "hand-picking"?
Symmetry 15y ago
The author used those because they are more likely to convince the median reader than scientific studies. If you want those, Google Scholar is just a click away.

philjackson 15y ago

These are good tips, here's how my conversation generally goes with other people's children: "Hello, I'm Phil" "Hi, I'm Maya" Then just stare at one another until another adult speaks.

sgentle 15y ago

This reminds me of a story that I wish I could find again. It was in the Reader's Digest Young Peoples' Annual from sometime in the 60s. I read it in the 90s, so some of the advice ("don't go dutch too often") was truly perplexing, but this particular story was about a girl who played baseball. She always sat and watched the boys play baseball. One boy in particular caught her eye. He asked if she wanted to play and she jumped at the chance. She wanted to impress him, so she pitched the ball hard and fast. With each player she struck out, he seemed less and less happy. Finally, it came her turn to bat. By this point, he was hardly paying attention to her at all. She swung out. "Oops", she said, "I guess I'm not doing it right". His eyes perked up and he came over to talk to her. "You should hold the bat like this", he said, "and don't swing so hard". She smiled at him. She could bat just fine, of course, but it's important to have priorities. I wish I had a copy because I'd love to read it again. I suspect that the consequences of treating girls like pretty dolls, rather than the explorers, creators and leaders that they can be, will be felt for a while still; but I hope a few decades from now I get to read this article again and laugh at how things have changed.

127 15y ago
Human biology is not that quick to change. It demonstrates a large amount of hubris to even think it should be. Women marry up and across dominance hierarchies. Artificially boosting the career success of women just causes misery on the long run for men and for society. I thought that the girl in your story was very smart, and even if people had treated her like a pretty doll for her entire life she would still be the same. Intelligent, critical and capable.
- ordinary 15y ago
  What makes you think this is a purely biological issue?
  - Tichy 15y ago
    That I am not very attracted to dogs or cows is a small giveaway.
- 15y ago

Tichy 15y ago

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." Hate to say it, but what if they are? Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life. Not that I mind girls being interested in other things, but perhaps the ideology should be kept in check. Even if a girl doesn't care about her looks, other people will, and she has to learn to deal with it.

derrida 15y ago
"Lots of studies show that pretty people get further in life." [citation needed]
- Tichy 15y ago
  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prettier+people+get+further+in+life http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prettier+people+get+further+in+life You know, by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". If I wasn't so desperate to procrastinate, I should just ignore you. Why waste energy to educate you if you are obviously not interested in learning?
  - robertskmiles 15y ago
    Are you serious? > by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". You're saying "I don't care for your random opinion you could have pulled out of your ass with no correspondence to the real world, please demonstrate that you didn't just make that up." When you make a claim that you want to be taken seriously, cite your source. It's not hard, and it's sure as hell not anyone else's job. If you don't cite a source, people will reasonably assume that you have none, and disregard what you're saying. That's fine if you don't care, but I repeat, if you want to be taken seriously, cite your source. That job is yours and yours alone, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, only you can cite your source because only you actually know what source you used. Secondly, from a utilitarian efficiency perspective, if it takes X minutes to look up and post the source, then the total time spent when you cite your source is X, but if you don't, and everyone has to look it up themselves, the total time spent is X*n, where n is the number of people who read your post. For values of n greater than one, this is dumb. Do the sourcing once, to avoid duplication of effort.

jwingy 15y ago

As a guy, and a geek, I definitely find intelligence highly attractive (and I think most of you would agree with me). Since geeks will eventually inherit the earth, wouldn't it be advantageous to start teaching our women how they can get ahead on this curve by flaunting their intelligence? :)

derrida 15y ago
As a guy, this type of thinking once again puts the value on women as 'attractiveness'. Why isn't intelligence good for its own sake?
- jwingy 15y ago
  I never said intelligence wasn't good for its own sake, nor was I trying to imply a woman's worth is only in her level of attractiveness. Certainly in a ideal world we would all aspire to goals without concern for outside opinion, but alas we don't live in a vacuum.
kamaal 15y ago
Well if you start doing that, you would spark off a new debate. "Don't tell girls how intelligent they are". Because then the very analogical argument will be used to say - telling girls they are intelligent is making them under perform in other areas. In short, if you are not ready work hard and do something on yourself by your work alone. There are plenty of reasons you can use to justify what you are.
- lutorm 15y ago
  In fact, you should not tell anyone how intelligent they are. Not because it makes them underperform in other areas, but because it makes them underperform in that area exactly by failing to teach them that it's hard work that matters. See e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...
  - 15y ago

erikb 15y ago

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?

erikb 15y ago
and... is that the author: http://www.lisabloom.com/ http://www.lisabloom.com/ ? Isn't she pretty?
- _debug_ 15y ago
  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.
  - ErrantX 15y ago
    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..)
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      "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 ;)

chrischen 15y ago

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything." But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds. Looks are important. Both men and women keep up appearances. Furthermore, you know how smart you are, and no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber.

wgren 15y ago
>But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds. Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!" as an opening phrase. We don't sell these kind of tshirts to boys: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled-im-too-pretty-to-do-homework.html http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled... >Looks are important. [...] no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber. No, but it tells you what you should spend your time and energy on improving. Again, something we only do for girls.
- chrischen 15y ago
  I'm sure if it were a little boy in pajamas the author would have had the same urge to say how cute he was. > Again, something we only do for girls. It's not as if all men let themselves go. It takes work, even for a man, to not become fat, smelly, and overly hairy. I think the underlying cause for women to focus too much on appearances is because it is much easier for women, in current society, to marry into wealth and/or depend on a man. I think this has a much larger influence on women focusing more on their appearances than behavioral conditioning through constant complimenting. The compliment is a signal. If the person is pretty and you say that, then it's a proper signal. If you tell a child they are smart because they did some random thing, it's not necessarily a proper signal. Sending a wrong signal is bad. In the case of telling a child s/he's smart when s/he's not, the child may not try as hard anymore because s/he may wrongfully think s/he's smart enough already... In the case of telling someone s/he's pretty, as long as it's true, there's nothing wrong with it because being pretty can actually have practical advantages. It is then up to the person to choose whether to leverage his/her physical assets or his/her mental assets to get what s/he wants in life.

kamaal 15y ago

This article is talking only about one part of the story, while it can't be denied that people demand girls to look good. At the same time, girls themselves get into peer pressure easily. Very quickly in their lives they get the feeling that in order to be 'looked at' you have to be beautiful. I am not saying that guys don't suffer from this, but girls suffer from this more than guys. Its like the TV channels competing for TRP's. The demand for a something good exists, but the fact is that the demand is fueled by the content providers and not viewers. Now on a larger scale, the society doesn't dumb down girls. Its just the mere biological reasons prevent them from doing so many jobs that are common for men. Women have higher social pressures, physically and biologically they have more limitations when compared to men. They have bigger social pressures to deal with. All in all, this counts for most of the reasons why women don't get the incremental learning at the same rate as men. Now come to look at the other part of it, there is huge difference between looking good/presentable and wild chase for beauty. Cosmetic products exist both for men and women, but their nature differ. Apart from your usual set of deodorants and usual kit et al, you don't mascara or lipstick for men. Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all. Ultimately you truly get what you want.

paradoja 15y ago
Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all. Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...
- raghava 15y ago
  >> Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs... Absolutely. They are working overtime on this one. Recently, India has seen a sudden surge in cosmetics for men. http://www.google.co.in/search?q=male+cosmetics+india+filetype:pdf http://www.google.co.in/search?q=male+cosmetics+india+filety...

saturn 15y ago

None of this advice applies to me, of course. As a man and therefore a child molesting rapist just waiting for my chance to strike, the idea that I could have any sort of conversation with a little girl - let alone sit down on a couch and talk privately - is simply laughable.

gyardley 15y ago
While parents, in general, distrust unknown men more than unknown women, that's not the situation described in the article. The woman was at a friend's house for a dinner party. Unless some specific past behavior suggests that they shouldn't, parents do allow their friends to have conversations with their children. Don't ignore the advice in this article just because you want to make some unrelated point about a different set of gender relations.
StavrosK 15y ago
I feel sad for your culture :/
funkah 15y ago
That was my thought too. I can't use this advice because I'm not supposed to be talking to little girls in the first place.
hack_edu 15y ago
There ought to be a Godwin's Law about threads talking about gender on the Internet. Given a certain concentration of comments on the subject, a sarcastic and baseless complaint of the assumption of male guilt (especially absurb, off topic comments about rape!) must appear.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Well, is he wrong? I know I make an active effort to avoid children...

tintin 15y ago

This great article shouldn't be surrounded by those stupid banners dumbing down women.

orochimaru 15y ago

Of course people irrespective of their gender should be able to do what they want to, but hailing a genetic gift of smartness over a genetic gift of beauty, or vice-versa doesn't make sense. It's how evolution has worked up until now - it's pretty much a beauty pageant. Trying to change a process that has evolved us into what we are is going to take time. Of course not all aspects of evolution are perfect, but this - favouring beauty over ugliness/fatness is pretty darn effective. Without competition, we would all be slobs - no scratch that - unicellular organisms. So, in conslusion - we are who we are - whether you want to fight and change that is your wish, but don't go preaching to others about what we should or should not do. I'm going to go tell all the little girls around me how cute they are. Maybe not at the same time though, lest I get mistaken for a paedophile. :P

lutorm 15y ago
I don't know what your point is. Nowhere is the author making the point that you should hail any genetic gifts. And nowhere is she arguing that good looks are not beneficial. Moreover, if you want to make Darwinian arguments, one could equally well say that without competition we'd all be as stupid as amoebas. I don't see where you get support for appearance being more favored than intelligence. Furthermore, why do you focus on either of these attributes being genetic at all? If we assume that they are, then it shouldn't matter whether we encourage people to care about either their intelligence or appearance. But clearly there is a huge amount of nurture in both aspects, so the genetic aspect is just a red herring. The real question is whether encouraging girls to focus on appearance over anything else is helpful or healthy.

hermannj314 15y ago

"be the change you want to see in the world" The author is fighting an uphill battle on this one, but I appreciate her ideal. Never underestimate the power your words have on shaping a child's life.

ctek 15y ago

The desire to be attractive is hard-wired into female biology. Fundamentally, we exist to survive and reproduce. Millions of years of evolution have evolved visual cues that signal health - especially reproductive health in both men and women however women's interest in successfully advertising their reproductive health is absolutely essential to what they have evolved over millions of years to do - which is bear children. High intelligence is not necessary to survive and reproduce successfully even in today's world which explains why most women (and probably most - but less men) would rather be "hot" than "smart". In general, during the reproductive phase of their lives (and long after that as well), women focus advertising their reproductive health, and men - their status. High intelligence however is key to acquiring status - which is much more important for men than for women which in my mind explains why more men than women are interested in being smart.

Jem 15y ago
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that looking attractive for women is basically a biological imperative? The problem, as I see it, is that the evolved visual cues signalling good reproductive health are not in the slightest bit similar to what the media purport to be attractive today. Look for example at Neolithic figurines... women with large bellies, ample bosoms, wide hips. That's not what's plastered all over magazines and TV.
- 127 15y ago
  I'm thinking that the fertility symbols where the woman is fit and thin far outnumber the ones where the woman is visibly obese. Wide hips, large bosom, healthy layer of fat, most certainly. But obesity? Rare. India, Egypt, Rome. All those sculptures look to be in the confines of healthy weight. I doubt that people living in that age had access to TV or magazines. Looks to me like you're quite obviously cherry-picking.
  - Jem 15y ago
    Not deliberately cherry picking, simply picking a time before great royal families and extravagant emperors had an impact on fashions and culture. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert on this (just a passing interest) so happy to be informed otherwise. Side note: there's an interesting theory in Ann Sinnott's Breastfeeding Older Children about fertility / female symbols and their relation to patriarchy and our 'progress' from nomadic hunter gatherers. The theory goes that as we settled down into working the land / raising animals, where women were obviously needed more, they became less valued for child birth / child rearing and consequently these fertility symbols not only got slimmer, but started to be replaced by a greater quantity of male / phallic symbology. Only vaguely related to the topic at hand but hugely interesting (to me, anyway!)

anujkk 15y ago

Whenever I think about "beauty" this poem automatically comes to my mind - Beautiful faces are those that wear– It matters little if dark or fair– Whole-souled honesty printed there. Beautiful eyes are those that show, Like crystal panes where hearth-fires glow, Beautiful thoughts that burn below. Beautiful lips are those whose words Leap from the heart like songs of birds, Yet whose utterance prudence girds. Beautiful hands are those that do Work that is earnest and brave and true, Moment by moment the long day through. Beautiful feet are those that go On kindly ministries to and fro, Down lowliest ways if God wills it so. Beautiful shoulders are those that bear Ceaseless burdens of homely care, With patient grace and daily prayer. Beautiful twilight at set of sun, Beautiful goal with race well won, Beautiful rest with work well done. Beautiful graves where grasses creep, Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep, Over worn-out hands! Ah, beautiful sleep. –Ellen P. Allerton

ErrantX 15y ago

I was musing on this the other day (beware; anecdote alert!). I went out for some drinks with a friend of mine from a long time ago - he is certainly not the sharpest of individuals, but a laugh and good fun in small doses (even if a lot of the jokes include farts :S). For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women. I've seen him out and about before and thought "I'd like to have some of that!". But my first impression when we were hanging out was that all these girls shared two things in common - good looks and zero intelligence. Most of the fart jokes came from them. Which was a bit of a shock! It took me a while to figure out that most of them weren't actually thick. I managed to have a conversation with one of them later on; and found she was a psychology graduate (one of my favourite pet interests :)), had even published a research paper on her work. Which was just confusing... there was this smart good looking girl, and she was hanging around acting thick. Then I worked it out... they were acting as they were expected to (either by our perception or theirs) on a night out; shove on the lipstick, revert to street talk, laugh at fart jokes and play dumb around the men. The psychologist actually even said this about her career (paraphrasing): "oh.. well I never really tell people that, it puts them off". Which is just a fucking sad reflection on society.

vectorpush 15y ago
I could recount similar anecdotes, I think there is a lot to be said for the way that women who put their intelligence on display are treated. A talented intelligent male with an ego is regarded as a condescending elitist genius, but the same traits ascribed to a female makes her an intolerable bitch.
- Meai 15y ago
  That is such a stereotype. If you are genuinely nice and intelligent, I can assure you that men would be very eager to battle their wits against yours. Most women just don't hold up to their own claims and they see such "attacks" as personal ; but the reality is that men are suddenly treating you as equal and you don't like it. Men do not discard a valuable member of a team just because of gender, that is ridiculous. In my experience women are more prone to claiming intelligence despite actual intelligence. Please be aware that I do not claim to be intelligent myself. In fact, I'm pretty darn stupid. It just makes it that much more apparent when I'm faced with such claims.

chubs 15y ago

What a beautiful story of her interaction with that little girl. I hope i'm like that with my daughter when she's that age :)

pjscott 15y ago
That's also a good way to interact with little boys, incidentally. It makes you a much more interesting adult than someone who just says and does the same boring things as every other adult who is suddenly faced with a child.

JonnieCache 15y ago

To all the people in this thread who seem so absolutely sure that the gender differences are strictly biological, do you fancy telling us what exactly makes you so sure? Last time I checked there was no evidence to support this idea. Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors. Separating nature from nurture is notoriously difficult, and in a community which endlessly holds P=NP to be an open question, it is absolutely laughable to assume that these biological differences map one to one onto the observed behavioural differences, when there is such a huge and obvious confounding factor looming over everything. We cannot all sit around waiting for six sigmas out of CERN before we can say we've found the higgs, and then just jump merrily onto simplistic biological arguments which happen to conveniently favour our social/political/economic hegemony.

JohnsonB 15y ago
>Obviously there are easily observed physiological differences in brain structure and in the endocrine system etc, however it is a massive leap to go from that to asserting that observed differences in behaviour are down to this rather than down to societal factors. It's actually no leap at all. Evolution put those differences in brain structure for a reason. It certainly isn't random, but due to some evolutionary benefit, and given that these differences are in the brain, it actually necessitates that there will be differences in behavior resulting purely from these physiological differences. It doesn't say what those differences are, but that there will be some, and then good science would tell us to learn what specifically those are. In addition, in terms of evolution, you would expect there to be reliable, biologically caused behavioral differences between men and women due to the importance of specialization. Evolutionary, you don't have hundreds of thousands of years of men and women specializing in certain tasks without there being some built-in, biologically caused preferences in terms of what interests guide each gender.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  Oh I agree that behavioural differences are to some extent caused by biology, and that biology has been determined by evolution. That is obvious, for the reasons you state. What I am attacking is the idea that we can be at all certain about which behaviours are biologically influenced and which are socially constructed, or about the extent to which each factor is influential. Both factors self-evidently interact in highly complex ways to produce the behavior we observe. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to isolate either one of them, largely due to ethical problems with the experiments that would be necessary. The only thing that we can be certain of IMO is the fact that all behaviour is inextricably influenced by both nature and nurture.

kolektiv 15y ago

I loved this. I couldn't agree more. I don't really have any great salient points or anecdotes to add but I would love to live in a world where more people think this way. As a thought experiment though, what would it take to change this? Could this be published advice to parents? Parenting classes, post-natal something? I don't know. Prescriptive stuff is clearly not going to be popular, but in the spirit of the article - if you had a magic wand, what would you do to spread this thinking?

wallflower 15y ago

I quote a HN comment from HilbertSpace in its entirety: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111651 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111651 > "Way before age 5, the little girls realize that they are small versions of Mommy and NOT Daddy. They know in absolute terms that they are a GIRL and NOT a BOY. Since their mommy was happy being a mommy, the little girls want to be like Mommy and on the 'mommy track'. By about age 18 months, little girls are already masters at eliciting positive emotions from adults, MUCH better than boys. The girls are also MUCH better at reading emotions than boys. Facial expressions and eye contact are part of how the girls read and elicit emotions; other ways are to 'act' (they are MUCH better at acting than the boys) cute, meek, and sweet and to be pretty. Since being pretty lets them do better eliciting positive emotions, they love pretty dresses with ruffles and ribbons. So, they are in a 'virtuous circle': They act sweet, elicit positive emotions in an adult, e.g., father, grandfather, uncle, get a gift of a pretty dress, wear the dress, elicit even more positive emotions, get even more pretty dresses, white bedroom furniture, patent leather shoes, cute stuffed animals, etc. Having to act like a boy or be treated like a boy, instead of like a girl, would be terrifying to them. So, in their first years, such little girls, to be on the 'mommy track' want to play with dolls and not Erector sets, want to work at being pretty and not how to hot rod a car, want to learn how to bake a cake and not how to plug together a SATA RAID array. Give such a girl a toy truck and she will know instantly that the toy is 'for boys' and will avoid it as a big threat. Generally, from a little after birth and for nearly all their lives, human females are MUCH more emotional than human males. So, they pay a LOT of attention to emotions, both theirs and others'. One of a human female's strongest emotions is to get security from membership in, and praise, acceptance, and approval from, groups, especially groups of females about their own age. That is, they are 'herd animals'. Gossip? It's how they make connections with others in the herd. Why do they like cell phones so much? For more gossip. Why pay so much attention to fashion? To 'fit in' with the herd. In such a herd, in most respects the females try hard to be like the 'average' of the herd and not to stand out or look different. [An exception is when a female wants to lead her herd, e.g., go to Clicker, follow the biographies, get the one for the Astors, and look at Ms. Astor and her herd of 400.] Well, as long as human females with good parenting are on the 'mommy track', and the human race will be nearly dead otherwise, the 'average' of the herd will emphasize the 'mommy track', dolls, looking pretty, cakes, and clothes and not Erector sets, hot rodding cars, or building RAID arrays. When it comes to a college major, any human female 18 months or older will recognize in a milli, micro, nano second that her herd believes that mathematics, physical science, engineering, and computer science are subjects for boys and NOT girls. Instead the girl subjects are English literature, French, music, acting, 'communications', sociology, psychology, nursing, maybe accounting, and K-12 education. By college the girls have been working 24 x 7 for about 16 years to fit in with the herd of girls, and their chances of leaving the herd in college to major in computer science are slim to none. Don't expect this situation to change easily or soon: Mother Nature was there LONG before computer science, and, as we know, "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". Or, to get girls to major in computer science, "You are dealing with forces you cannot possibly understand.". Having women pursuing computer careers give girls in middle school lectures on computer careers will stick like water on a duck's back -- not a chance. Nearly all the girls will just conclude that at most such careers are for girls who are not doing well fitting into the herd of girls, are not very good socially, don't get invited to the more desirable parties, don't get the good dates, are not very pretty, and are not in line to be good as wives and mommies. By middle school, the girls have already received oceans of influences about 'female roles', and changing the directions these girls have selected and pursued so strongly for so long is hopeless..."

Goladus 15y ago

Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything. Appearance is almost always the first thing you notice about someone. I'm not sure pretending otherwise is especially practical or will really help much in the long run.

samlevine 15y ago
This applies to guys as well as girls. My parents made sure that I learned that people judge me on how I look, smell, speak, etc.

Duff 15y ago

Great, another whiny article about the poor, maligned girls doomed to a future of breast enhancement and cellulite cream thanks to misogny. The article is a troll, here to elicit an emotional response that will sell a book. Enter the strawman: "In my book, Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World, I reveal that 15 to 18 per cent of under-12 girls in the United States now wear mascara, eyeliner and lipstick regularly; eating disorders are up, and self-esteem is down; and 25 per cent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Even bright, successful, university-educated women say they'd rather be hot than smart. A Miami mother recently died from cosmetic surgery, leaving behind two teenagers." Would the hysterical premise of the article hold true if you substituted common male gripes or practices? What percentage of boys aspire to be basketball or baseball players instead of whatever profession is deemed acceptable? How many young men would rather be football heroes than academics? How many would rather win a NASCAR race than win the Nobel Prize? Did a Miami father die of a heart attack because he was playing basketball at 45 in 100 degree heat? It's easy and convenient to beat up strawmen and find a sexist boogeyman behind every perceived problem. Just don't lose sight of the fact that when you do that, you are dumbing things down.

kamaal 15y ago
This is worth thinking over. I think a lot of boys do aspire the adrenaline rush professions. But if they don't end up being one, do they now resign from their whole lives and just go saying the social persuasions to be such, destroyed their whole lives? There is always going to be a social persuasion for nearly everything. They way we eat, dress, talk nearly anything people can see, people can pass a comment on. And that becomes a mass opinion and taken to be the established truth later. Somehow I find it difficult to understand why women consider themselves so special in this regard. Why do we end up comparing representation of women and men in every industry is beyond my understanding. In the name of diversity and women's empowerment, why should we expect a guy to work late in the night, come on weekends, push hard deadlines and a girl is given all options to leave early? why is inefficiency assumed to be OK and acceptable just to accommodate them? If a girl feels need to emphasize her equality, can't it be done by performing? Why do rules have to be bent, made lot more easier? Its like a foot ball game, where you remove away the defenders so that they can score a easily. This sort of defeats the very whole purpose of empowerment. Empowerment is to give strength to something so that it can compete with challenges as they are, not remove away the challenges so that can be easily met.

cafard 15y ago

This same item, but from an American publication, was posted to HN a couple of months ago. Reheated, it still does not impress.

mrpsbrk 15y ago

Compare with http://jcs.biologists.org/content/121/11/1771.full http://jcs.biologists.org/content/121/11/1771.full another post at HN at around the same time, about the importance of stupidity in science. Two very different conceptions of dumb. I would also like to stress that it is not really about looks, only, but about being always "in character" for the woman, which is pretty and dumb, true, but would be much better described as "good marrying material". Finally, please, anyone who cared about this, check out "Ada Lovelace Day", to happen this year a month from today. http://findingada.com/about/ http://findingada.com/about/

Tashtego 15y ago

Man she's been shopping that column around for a while. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html?ref=fb&src=sp http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-litt...

amalcon 15y ago

I mostly agree with the sentiment, but this line stuck out at me: 25 per cent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Only 25%? That's spectacularly good compared to their male counterparts. What percent of young American men do you think would rather win the Super Bowl than the Nobel Peace Prize? It's got to be at least half.

SapphireSun 15y ago
How many of those women responded to the top model because the Peace Prize is a heavily politicized prize given to the most expedient person of the hour? Maybe they should have asked something like "Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology" (not to say that there isn't politics in science prizes, but it's a lot better than a newly minted President Obama receiving a prize and going, Um, thanks? What did I do?).

rhygar 15y ago

The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering. Have any of you ever actually talked to a woman? I'll boil down the argument into one that favors women: Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men. After all, it's their biology. And thus all men should be regarded as likely violent in the right circumstances. Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing.

orangecat 15y ago
The amount of ignorance and misogyny in here is staggering. Suggesting that biological factors result in statistical differences between men and women is not misogyny. "Different" does not mean better or worse. Men are biologically programmed to be violent. We should find it as no surprise that the vast majority of violent criminals are men. Essentially true. "Biologically programmed" is a bit strong, but in a sexism-free utopia would you seriously expect 50% of violent criminals to be women? Also we should not trust men to care for small children, because they have no idea what they are doing since they lack the biological drive for child-rearing. Strawman. Nobody is saying that women should be discouraged from or can't excel in any area. It's just that if individual choices result in more male than female tech startup founders, and more female than male preschool workers, it may not be due to the all-powerful patriarchy.
- rhygar 15y ago
  I find it amusing that you took a parody of the group-think displayed here as a serious argument.
johngalt 15y ago
Most of the people on here are debating the degree that gender affects life choices and goals (obviously it does to some degree). It's not misogyny to debate the differences between men and women. No one is advocating that women should be categorically denied access to certain societal roles. If I said: "Because of X, Y, & Z it's possible that biology has had more effect on female career choices than the 'patriarchy'." Does that make me a misogynist? Could there be any answer to why genders cluster around certain careers other than the 'patriarchy'? If that's the only answer you could ever acknowledge and anything else is "ignorance and misogyny" I think you should examine that. And your argument is exactly how men are treated, and many of those biases are institutional. Imagine if women weren't allowed to seek protection from domestic violence, and had no reproductive rights at all? That's the world every man lives in. It's a little insulting to be admonished how to properly speak to women, while men are imprisoned every day because of their gender.

NY_Entrepreneur 15y ago

Folks, this thread has a lot of confused thinking that is dangerous; we need the thinking in this thread to be more clear. First reality check. There is an old remark about research in psychology, that all the results either (1) are solid science that, however, say next to nothing important about humans or (2) say something important about humans, however, are junk as science. Similarly, for the main issue here, that is, for what is necessary in sex differences, for the role of nature versus nurture, etc., the results from solid science won't be very important and the very important results won't be solid science. Net, to address the issue scientifically, so far we are STUCKO. Sorry 'bout that. Second reality check. On the issue of the OP, that is, how to treat girls, young women, and women, each person WILL necessarily take some position. That is, no one gets to decline to choose an answer. We MUST have an answer. We do not have the luxury of no answer, and, from the first reality check, the answer we take on the important parts of the issue will not be from solid science. Sorry 'bout that. Solid science is great stuff. However, quite generally in life, we have to make decisions without solid science. Sorry 'bout that. Third reality check. I can assure you that it is actually fairly easy to get things very wrong in treatment of females, and the consequences can be from awful down to fatal. I exaggerate not. I can use Google Earth to give you the coordinates of the tombstone. So, the issue here is SERIOUS. There is a moral issue: Men don't want to be unfair or cruel to the females. So, here's a practical resolution: Give the girls plenty of opportunity. Give them dolls and also erector sets, white bedroom furniture and also a basketball goal, tell them they are cute, sweet, pretty, darling, adorable, and precious and also explain TCP/IP, DNS, and POP 3, encourage them in both English literature and physics, in both art history and solid geometry, have them help you make chicken salad and also put the snow tires on the car, mop the kitchen floor and also sweep out the garage. Some people who have tried this practical resolution came to a conclusion: The little girls quickly, strongly moved toward the stereotype for cute, sweet little girls. They played with the dolls and ignored the erector set; they liked art history much more than solid geometry; they were eager enough to mop the kitchen floor but wanted nothing to do with the garage. They were much more eager to be a cooperative member of a group than to strike out on some curiosity driven, independent, creative investigation. Important information about the girls? Yes. Solid science? No. Did I mention that quite generally in life, we have to make decisions without solid science? But more is possible: If parents and society push and shove, keep telling the girls to 'perform' well at 'boy activities', then, girls, being eager to please and more obedient, often will. If push them to be independent, autonomous, assertive, self-sufficient, and equal and to resent dependency, passivity, membership, partnership, subservience, etc., then through, say, college, they will. My experience is that, then, too likely (granted, not always) you will find that you have created a VERY 'mixed up' young woman and a weak, sick, or dead limb on the tree and conclude that Mother Nature considered all such issues long before you did and that it's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature. Here's an easier approach: If only from an 'asymptotic' consideration, place value on her being a strong limb in the tree. Do a really good job taking care of her until can help her find a really good husband, and then help her husband continue to take very good care of her and her children. Have her be good as a wife and mother in a secure, strong family. This thought, perhaps now with feminism really offensive, is not original with me. Instead, in the "Foreword" to Maggie Scarf, 'Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage', Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-5585-X, 1987. Dr. Carol Nadelson, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, wrote: "Traditional marriage is about offspring, security, and caretaking." If want her to be quite active between her ears and especially busy and productive, then emphasize to her and help her in how much there is to know about helping her children with their emotional, rational, psychological, social, artistic, physical, practical, verbal, quantitative, manual, scientific, technological, and creative problem solving development and understanding of history, business, the economy, people, groups, society, politics, etc., how far and away the most important influence on them, for their academic performance and nearly everything else, is the nurturing they get at home, and how important it is to build and have a secure, strong family and how she can play a central role there. Indeed, she might just take on doing a good job home schooling her children through, say, the International Baccalaureate program, high SAT scores, etc. Let the children get through the Beethoven piano sonatas and the Bach unaccompanied violin pieces, Rudin's 'Principles of Mathematical Analysis', Royden's 'Real Analysis', Breiman's 'Probability', and the 'Feynman Lectures on Physics' -- should keep them busy for a while! What do you want? Lots of really healthy grandchildren or someone to sweep out the garage?

georgieporgie 15y ago

This is kind of weird and forced. All social interactions start in a superficial way. Kids don't show up in their own cars ("hey, is that the new Brotus Fundero?"). They don't (usually) wear t-shirts from their last trade show or vacation. They aren't toting new laptops in unique courier bags and holding exotic drinks. You're basically stuck complementing their dress, hat, or whatever. That's how social interaction works, regardless of gender. You can move on to TV shows, books, and political affiliation later, but you need an opener.

WalterBright 15y ago

Parents with one kid believe it's nurture, parents with 2 or more know it's nature.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago

I was under the impression that female educational attainment was WAY up and continuing to increase. Oh I'm sorry, is this article only about correlations that are convenient for your premise?

dimmuborgir 15y ago

If beauty consciousness in girls can be said as peer pressure then geek/nerd consciousness in boys can be said as peer pressure as well. Boys who don't play videogames or watch sci-fi/action movies or listen to some complex rock/electronic music genre or those who are not gadget freaks or those who're not into science/technology/engineering in general are seen as less masculine (at least in a first world society). I think the reason why femininity is looked down is the economic models of the last 150 years which have favored science over art, rationality over irrationality and utility over authenticity. I think the world needs a second romantic era to truly appreciate the feminine aspects of beauty/creativity/genuineness.

grammaton 15y ago

Ah, the comments section of just about any article on the internet, always a goldmine of inadvertent comedy. My personal favorite from this one, right at the top: "What's wrong with wanting to be hot rather than smart? Not everyone can be intelligent, and both beauty and intelligence are natural, requiring no work." Priceless!