Gender
Moderators: Calilasseia, ADParker
Nicko wrote:TMB wrote:Nicko, you said,TMB wrote:
I partly agree, I think the males attractiveness is linked to their success in the sport just like people find Woody Allen sexy because he has charisma and talent but no aesthetic appeal. A woman similarly endowed would have no chance of being seen as sexy, talented perhaps but no queues of admiring men. Status and power in men is physically attractive to women. This means that if the man is notat the top of his game his objective looks will fade in the eyes of the beholder just as a male with lesser physical looks but who is at the top of the game will be seen as more attractive in the eyes of the beholder.
I would say that its more complicated than this. Men are seen as "love objects", as it appears possible that groupies imagine themselves to love celebrity males and assuming the superior form of this emotion does not seem possible to occur with someone you only know from their media image, but knowing the males superior status appears to overcome this problem. They are also seen as "resources objects" which is directly related to success but progresses it further to explain why success is relevant to male attractiveness.Nicko wrote:Fair enough, but my point was that the differing standards of beauty in men and women tend to mean that a man who develops a physique that enables him to compete at an elite level in any sport or athletic activity will increase his physical attractiveness. A woman who develops a similarly athletic physique may not necessarily experience the same gain in attractiveness.
Agreed.Nicko wrote:Whilst the factors influencing overall attractiveness are of course important, but what I'm saying is that just in terms of pure physical attractiveness, male athletes get an increase in that as a side effect of being male athletes. Even an elite male competitor who is not particularly successful relative to his peers will still have an athlete's physique.TMB wrote:
Agreed, the female body building industry spends a lot of time arguing the case of how sexy and feminine their performers are but generally men and other women do not find muscle bound women, with square male like features attractive or sexy. This is not too say that all women find muscle bound men to be attractive or sexy but a significant portion do and if they are someone like Arnold Schwartzeneger who have charisma and status they become even more attractive. As I noted earlier groupies is essentially a female behaviour. I have seen thousands of teenage girls (almost no males) line up to see a male performer, an equivalent female performer got far les interest and an even mix of male and female but no real hysteria or obsession.Nicko wrote:I'll get to the difference between male and female performers in a sec. Just on the issue of bodybuilding though, I think it's an excellent example of what I'm talking about. The considerations for a male bodybuilder pretty much end at the top of their neck. Not the case for female bodybuilders.
Agreed.TMB wrote:
As I have noted, the major hurdle, that of performance relative to males, has been overcome by giving women their own event so they are poised to get the same benefits in some sports (swimmers, tennis, golf, athletics – however not in baseball, cricket, soccer, rugby etc). The added advantage if they have the looks is that they do not need to be the best to get benefit. However some will run into issues when their looks are judged and found wanting like a recent winner of a grandslam tennis tournament, or Serena Williams who gets compared to Sharapovas looks and comes off second best, although she wins more tournaments. The contention is between the women themselves, yet it gets thrown back as men somehow getting unfair benefit.Nicko wrote:Well, male sports are more financially rewarding than female ones, so it's not really the same benefit.
I agree in general this is the case, eg rugby, baseball, basketball, cricket but not in the case of tennis, golf they are widely different but closer to tennis that most of the other sports. Swimmers appear to rely upon endorsement money more than prize money and I am guessing men and women are pretty even here given the similar status they are given, and this is what drives endorsement dollars.
Nicko wrote:Disclaimer: The remainder of this post is entirely speculation on my part. I'm not sure whether I've really convinced myself here, let alone whether I have any reasonable expectation of convincing others.
But that brings me to the point you made earlier about male vs. female performers. Perhaps it might be more helpful to conceive of professional athletes in our era as a kind of performer.
I agree they are all providing a show to the rest of society as they demonstrate a socially designed way to show some rather odd skills and thus reflect their status in society. The game of squash gets very little coverage despite once being a very popular participant sport. Tennis has plenty of status and following, hence aspiring young men and women want to excel and show their excellence in this particular format.Nicko wrote:Someone once, talking about rock bands, said words to the effect that, "Men want to be the singer; women want to be with the singer." That is, there is a large factor of "wish-fulfillment" fantasy in all entertainment.
I would say this is generally true, however there are very visible minorities of both genders that want to reverse this and I think this is due to the inherent desire both genders have for power. Both men and women see the apparent power held by the celebrity and want to have that same power. For men, they would like to be that power, for women they would like to be with the person who has that power and benefit indirectly with less responsibility.Nicko wrote: I think this does reverse to some extent as you reverse the genders, but then you run into the differences between what makes a man attractive and what makes a woman attractive. You may have noticed that there are very few female singers who hit the big time without being - to be blunt - hot as fuck. Men don't want to be with a female singer, nor do women want to be that singer, unless the singer is hot.
I do not agree with this, I would say that big time female singers work very hard at being hot, but sheer musical or acting talent does still have a place even for women that do not have the looks. Having said that women can get further on looks alone, and when they have both talent and looks its a winning combination. With men talent seems to be sufficient in many cases.Nicko wrote:If this is true, and if a large segment of the sports audience is actually motivated in a similar way, this would explain the differing popularity of men's and women's sports (and hence the monetary rewards). Male athletes already meet the requirements for many men's "fantasy self" and many women's "fantasy partner" by default. Female athletes do not meet the requirements for many women's "fantasy self" or many men's "fantasy partner" just by being athletes. In order to meet the requirement, the female athlete must also possess certain characteristics of "feminine beauty".
Agreed.I agree, it gets said that more attention and status should be given to various womens sports, like rugby and cricket, but audiences would rather be watching the mens version of the game and the endorsements and prize money will follow the audience appeal. The ultimate arbiter in these scenarios are the audience,and peoples real opinions are reflected in what they watch. The demand for audiences to award the same merit and interest to the womens game falls in deaf ears.Nicko wrote:Without the ability to be transformed into this fantasy character in the minds of the audience, a performer/athlete's appeal is going to be restricted to those who appreciate their chosen field for it's own sake. That audience certainly exists, it's just a smaller one. The performer/athletes who do meet this fantasy standard can gain the attention of both the "purists" and the "fantasists".
Do you see the same process in place for other stereotypical women institutions like beauty contests and modelling? Where the women in the audience want to be the desirable woman on the podium and catwalk and the men want to be that womans partner.
BTW, Rebecca is getting married later this year. It could be, notwithstanding the hurtful comments about her looks, that she simply thought about looking at her wedding photos in the years to come, and being reminded of it all, and thought 'right, that's it, I'm going to do something about this'. And who can blame her?
TMB wrote:You of course might choose not to agree with any of the above, but do me a favour if you do not, try and break it apart logically and resist the temptation to resort to an irrational smiley.
because that is not what I said. I did not say anything about 'should' and I'm not sure how you got there from my saying that if Rebecca herself had decided to get something done, then who could blame her. It's not up to me, you, or anyone else to tell her what she should or should not do in this regard.TMB wrote:So you say that if Rebecca (and presumably other women unhappy with their looks) is unhappy with her nose then she should get this addressed.
TMB wrote:By you (and other women and men) promoting the idea that she can ‘fix’ this by getting a nose job make you responsible, as members of society, for the effects upon people like Rebecca and all the women who suffer from low self –esteem because they think they have ugly noses, or their boobs are too small, or they need to wear makeup in order to appear in public.
TMB wrote:The issue is that we consider beauty to have any value at all.
TMB wrote:If you are a man, don’t be drawn to war for God and country or seduced by fast cars or fast women
TMB wrote: I have also given you the larger picture, to try and give you an idea not just of the way men and women interact (often violently) but of other social and existential factors that play a part in who we are.
Nicko wrote:@ TMB:
Your thesis in this thread appears to be that successful men in professional sports have access to a certain set of benefits based upon their performance and the fame that comes with it; women in professional sports have access to the same set of performance-based benefits plus benefits derived from an attribute I choose to call "hawtness" (should they possess it). According to this thesis, women therefore have access to more potential benefits than men in the context of professional sports.
The problem with this thesis is that women do not derive the same quantity of performance-based benefits from professional sports as men. There is just less money floating around in women's sport, both directly and in terms of sponsorship and endorsements.
I'm not sure I have enough life left to spend breaking all this apart and 'choosing' which bits to disagree with. Most of it seems to be the same old same old subtle sexist critique of women, all dressed up to appear as though it is some kind of rational sociological description of the ways in which women themselves are responsible for all the ills in society. Nothing new there.
I can, however, easily disagree with this bit
because that is not what I said. I did not say anything about 'should' and I'm not sure how you got there from my saying that if Rebecca herself had decided to get something done, then who could blame her. It's not up to me, you, or anyone else to tell her what she should or should not do in this regard.
Oh, I see. That's where the 'responsibility' or even 'causation' comes into play. I thought it might. So what are you suggesting that we all, as members of a society which you deem to not only bear some kind of culpability for the way that some people regard themselves, but also should (there's that imperative again!) bear some kind of responsibility for doing something about it, do about it? What do you suggest we do? Make ourselves as ugly as possible so that others do not have to feel bad about themselves?
What about, just as a for instance, the feelings of childless couples when they see those with several children? Should the children be hidden away, or should those feckless and unfeeling people not have had those children? Where would it all end?
Well quite obviously it does, it always has, and it probably also always will.
One big issue, the big issue, I have with your attitude to all this is that the vast majority of men and women simply do not fit your picture, your apparent conception, or your descriptions of what they are like. Go to any place where ordinary people congregate as a part of everyday life, a supermarket for instance, and you will see very few people who are obsessed with their looks.
The vast majority of women I know aren't. They may use a little makeup and make sure their hair does not look like a birds nest, but on the whole they seem quite happy with who they are.
The vast majority of women I know also do not obsess about celebrities, or read those stupid magazines, and in fact often think of the ones that do as rather sad, but that does not make them responsible for those people.
Seduced by fast women, eh? Isn't that just a tad old fashioned? Incidentally, I am seduced by fast cars, in fact I have a very fast one, 260bhp cunningly disguised as a boring little old 4x4, and I'm a woman. I have been known to use its capabilities to piss off the mostly male drivers who see my grey hair, the Subaru badge and the big tailpipe as a challenge to prove that they can drive better and much faster than I do. Does that make me a fast woman? Am I doomed?
I'm afraid I have to say that most of your post is nothing more than patronising preaching. I can see that you have put quite a lot of effort into it, but that doesn't make your conclusions any more right.
This, for instance, could be seen as almost offensive, but I'll let you off seeing that you can't really know who I am, how much I know about the interactions between men and women, or society in general. I will just say that it's more than you seem to think.
I think it's valid here to point out that it is always safer to assume that the person you are engaging with on this forum will have at least some basic knowledge about the subject under discussion.
I think you would be better off, rather than trying to find people who will agree with your current outlook on the state of society and women's role in shaping it, in spending some time wondering about your own obsession with women, celebrity culture, and your apparent need to criticise everything they do.
It's all so shallow to concentrate on their looks, clothes, even the way they shave or don't shave, which you have done in the past.
None of this is about women themselves, it isn't about who they are, or what they really think. It seems to be more about viewing them as objects, and I think you need to try to work out why you do this before you attempt any more sociological discussion.
That's my two pennorth, and I think I've already spent far too much time on this.
TMB wrote:Are you up to it?
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