4 ms·

Interesting that the effect was stronger in males. It looks like the outcomes tracked were education, income, and occupation. I wonder if this is tracking the w

Interesting that the effect was stronger in males. It looks like the outcomes tracked were education, income, and occupation. I wonder if this is tracking the wrong things; e.g. women can marry into a higher wealth+prestige class without themselves needing to attain education, income, or a job.

willcipriano 3y ago
Could be evidence of matriarchy. If women outnumber men in HR departments and at school, being pleasing to a woman's eye would be helpful in advancing through life more so than being pleasing to men.
- gizajob 3y ago
  For quite a while I’ve been making an (admittedly fairly troll-ish) argument at my university’s philosophy classes that the whole “smash the patriarchy” movement might overlook that we actually live in a matriarchy, and this is just what it imperceptibly looks like. The argument was slightly more straightforward to make in the UK when we had a great-grandmother as head of state and a female head of government, however.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- hnbad 3y ago
  Except there's no data for that. I do however recall stats that "physically attractive" men are generally treated favorably by other men and despite decades of feminist activism we still have men disproportionately (relative to the general population) represented in key decision makers (unless you consider "head of HR" equivalent to a C-level position). There's certainly a "look" to many high income career paths and being conventionally attractive (though not necessarily "pretty" - high earners in business rarely look like models) is a factor. If the effect is stronger for men than for women this could also support the more established notion that there are more social expectations on women to "look the part", i.e. wear makeup and "the right clothing" (which covers a much wider gamut than what is expected from men, which depending on white collar career path is either a casual suit or t-shirt and jeans/khakis). Attractiveness alone is not a guarantee for higher status and may in some cases even have the opposite effect by drawing unwanted sexual attention from male superiors or coworkers.
- verisimi 3y ago
  Structural sexism
xgl5k 3y ago
Maybe the proper thing to track is household income, household net worth.
Spooky23 3y ago
Men pursue, women are pursued. If at 15, you’re a male locked in with a thought process that you aren’t attractive or confident, you will miss alot of opportunities. You gotta be in it to win it, as they say. Women can reinvent, often take different relationship roles, and some guys are into women with low self esteem.
bashwizard 3y ago
It's almost as if hypergamy is real. Shocking.
mindcandy 3y ago
Anecdotally, as a 6’0” moderately-attractive dude in SF: I’ve laughed at the statistically unlikely number of founders/CEOs/upper management who are not only taller than me, but also are not subtle when they use their imposing height in conversation to get everyone else to just go along with whatever BS they are spouting. Bonus giggles if they are part of the hoard with thick hair and a square jaw.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  No wonder they are forcing everyone to RTO
- ejb999 3y ago
  I am 6'2", very rarely not the tallest or close to the tallest people in groups I frequent - until I got invited to a c-suite meeting of the financial services executives for company I was at the time working for - I was a virtually midget in that room - first time in my life I was the 'short guy'; I found it quite humorous, and not a coincidence. Same company, one of the smartest, friendliest and hardest working guys I knew was short (maybe 5'6" and completely bald) - he deserved to be a VP or higher imo, but never made it very far up the chain and left - also not a coincidence.
bertil 3y ago
I would look seriously into how that attractiveness was evaluated, and the measurement might be more accurate for men: 1. Criteria for men and women are very different: tall vs. thin is key. If the profiles list height but not BMI, that would lead to discrepancies. 2. Heterosexual women are more likely to agree on which men is attractive then the reverse (which is a classic problem in dating apps: then attention of fewer women is also more focused) 3. Make-up: unattractive men don’t have that many commonly used options to be more attractive (growing a beard, painful surgery), while women are more willing to spend half an hour to change that. It levels the playing field making the original measure less relevant. 4. When the data was collected: > assessed when individuals are around 15 years old My memory of biology class is faint, but I believe that men change less after 15 than women do. In general, that’s an area that was understudied 25 years ago. I’m happy to read so many references, but couldn’t find my old sociology professor. He was struggling with the impact of height on one’s professional career. He published a lot using a sample of alumni from the other university where he taught (to control for education). Strangely, the impact of height became weaker over the decades… He had so many theories (computers, mostly)—only to realize (after two publications) that it was because the cohort was increasingly feminine. So, he published in succession that: 1. height was key; 2. the gender gap was more than explained by how women were shorter (that paper was not popular); 3. height mattered a lot less for women, therefore the gender gap thing was still a problem, but athleticism was (he had an athletics grade). (That’s how I learned that `log_salary~height*gender`, `log_salary~height+gender` and `log_salary~height:gender` meant completely different things.) 3 bis. strike that: athletics mattered for both, but less than expected; BMI was key for both but mostly women. (That was the example other professors used to teach us about the scissor effect in regression: BMI and height are related.) 4. Height and BMI were proxies for attractiveness that mattered for both but had to be measured differently. He had several sets of photos, one typically earlier and without and another later with make-up… More importantly, students were 23-24 at that point. But all that became obsolete when most students ended up studying and finding jobs abroad and that effect dominated everything. That professor moved to study accents.
- fho 3y ago
  > (That’s how I learned that `log_salary~height*gender`, `log_salary~height+gender` and `log_salary~height:gender` meant completely different things.) Interaction terms ftw :-) I would postulate that every analysis becomes more accurate if you consider the interactions ... but at the same time it makes interpreting (and presenting) the results more complicated.
rig666 3y ago
My guess would be that men aren't selective as women. Therefore, for the handful of men that most women find generally attractive the effect is a lot easier to measure. Yes men can have unrealistic standards at times but if you ever go to your local strip club and see the low attractiveness of your average striper you will notice men can be a lot more "accepting".

willcipriano 3y ago

Could be evidence of matriarchy. If women outnumber men in HR departments and at school, being pleasing to a woman's eye would be helpful in advancing through life more so than being pleasing to men.

gizajob 3y ago
For quite a while I’ve been making an (admittedly fairly troll-ish) argument at my university’s philosophy classes that the whole “smash the patriarchy” movement might overlook that we actually live in a matriarchy, and this is just what it imperceptibly looks like. The argument was slightly more straightforward to make in the UK when we had a great-grandmother as head of state and a female head of government, however.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
hnbad 3y ago
Except there's no data for that. I do however recall stats that "physically attractive" men are generally treated favorably by other men and despite decades of feminist activism we still have men disproportionately (relative to the general population) represented in key decision makers (unless you consider "head of HR" equivalent to a C-level position). There's certainly a "look" to many high income career paths and being conventionally attractive (though not necessarily "pretty" - high earners in business rarely look like models) is a factor. If the effect is stronger for men than for women this could also support the more established notion that there are more social expectations on women to "look the part", i.e. wear makeup and "the right clothing" (which covers a much wider gamut than what is expected from men, which depending on white collar career path is either a casual suit or t-shirt and jeans/khakis). Attractiveness alone is not a guarantee for higher status and may in some cases even have the opposite effect by drawing unwanted sexual attention from male superiors or coworkers.
verisimi 3y ago
Structural sexism

xgl5k 3y ago

Maybe the proper thing to track is household income, household net worth.

Spooky23 3y ago

Men pursue, women are pursued. If at 15, you’re a male locked in with a thought process that you aren’t attractive or confident, you will miss alot of opportunities. You gotta be in it to win it, as they say. Women can reinvent, often take different relationship roles, and some guys are into women with low self esteem.

bashwizard 3y ago

It's almost as if hypergamy is real. Shocking.

mindcandy 3y ago

Anecdotally, as a 6’0” moderately-attractive dude in SF: I’ve laughed at the statistically unlikely number of founders/CEOs/upper management who are not only taller than me, but also are not subtle when they use their imposing height in conversation to get everyone else to just go along with whatever BS they are spouting. Bonus giggles if they are part of the hoard with thick hair and a square jaw.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
No wonder they are forcing everyone to RTO
ejb999 3y ago
I am 6'2", very rarely not the tallest or close to the tallest people in groups I frequent - until I got invited to a c-suite meeting of the financial services executives for company I was at the time working for - I was a virtually midget in that room - first time in my life I was the 'short guy'; I found it quite humorous, and not a coincidence. Same company, one of the smartest, friendliest and hardest working guys I knew was short (maybe 5'6" and completely bald) - he deserved to be a VP or higher imo, but never made it very far up the chain and left - also not a coincidence.

bertil 3y ago

I would look seriously into how that attractiveness was evaluated, and the measurement might be more accurate for men: 1. Criteria for men and women are very different: tall vs. thin is key. If the profiles list height but not BMI, that would lead to discrepancies. 2. Heterosexual women are more likely to agree on which men is attractive then the reverse (which is a classic problem in dating apps: then attention of fewer women is also more focused) 3. Make-up: unattractive men don’t have that many commonly used options to be more attractive (growing a beard, painful surgery), while women are more willing to spend half an hour to change that. It levels the playing field making the original measure less relevant. 4. When the data was collected: > assessed when individuals are around 15 years old My memory of biology class is faint, but I believe that men change less after 15 than women do. In general, that’s an area that was understudied 25 years ago. I’m happy to read so many references, but couldn’t find my old sociology professor. He was struggling with the impact of height on one’s professional career. He published a lot using a sample of alumni from the other university where he taught (to control for education). Strangely, the impact of height became weaker over the decades… He had so many theories (computers, mostly)—only to realize (after two publications) that it was because the cohort was increasingly feminine. So, he published in succession that: 1. height was key; 2. the gender gap was more than explained by how women were shorter (that paper was not popular); 3. height mattered a lot less for women, therefore the gender gap thing was still a problem, but athleticism was (he had an athletics grade). (That’s how I learned that `log_salary~height*gender`, `log_salary~height+gender` and `log_salary~height:gender` meant completely different things.) 3 bis. strike that: athletics mattered for both, but less than expected; BMI was key for both but mostly women. (That was the example other professors used to teach us about the scissor effect in regression: BMI and height are related.) 4. Height and BMI were proxies for attractiveness that mattered for both but had to be measured differently. He had several sets of photos, one typically earlier and without and another later with make-up… More importantly, students were 23-24 at that point. But all that became obsolete when most students ended up studying and finding jobs abroad and that effect dominated everything. That professor moved to study accents.

fho 3y ago
> (That’s how I learned that `log_salary~height*gender`, `log_salary~height+gender` and `log_salary~height:gender` meant completely different things.) Interaction terms ftw :-) I would postulate that every analysis becomes more accurate if you consider the interactions ... but at the same time it makes interpreting (and presenting) the results more complicated.

rig666 3y ago

My guess would be that men aren't selective as women. Therefore, for the handful of men that most women find generally attractive the effect is a lot easier to measure. Yes men can have unrealistic standards at times but if you ever go to your local strip club and see the low attractiveness of your average striper you will notice men can be a lot more "accepting".