Teen boys rated their female classmates based on looks; the girls fought back - SFGate

generallobster · 2019-03-29T05:12:10+00:00

I don't know where the lines are drawn these days about what can be said in public and what should not be said, but I am struck by the social changes that are occurring, and it is interesting to think about what society will be like in 100 years. Let me preface this by saying that I agree that ranking classmate by order of attractiveness is childish and in poor taste. But I was and still am guilty of doing this in my mind almost unconsciously on a very frequent basis. In many ways, how to behave correctly in society is very difficult for young males today. This is partially because the target continues to move regarding what ideal male behavior should be, and without a clear definition, it is hard to model the correct behavior. This is evident by Gillette commercials teaching us that it is wrong to even bother speaking to a woman you find attractive, and that it is the place of a good friend to stop you from initiating a conversation. Then there is the message sent by articles like this. That males make decisions about who they initially find attractive based on appearance is a fact. To argue otherwise is disingenuous. To argue that it should be otherwise and to fight for change is fine. However, I see this as an uphill battle against 1. culture, 2. psychology influenced by not only culture but genetics, 3. forces of evolution which are predicated on principles of natural selection, and 4. one's predetermined genetics of having an X or Y chromosome and the phenotype that becomes expressed as a result of that inheritance. When it comes to attractiveness as a concept, acting on both male and female sides of the equation are principles behind Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene, as well as many other evolutionary concepts which have tried to explain the differences in sexes from the perspective of behavior, and the differences in behavior when selecting mating partners. The more difficult battles when it comes to social change are the battles against the forces compelling this behavior, which I listed later rather than earlier. And I don't know if this battle is winnable because I don't know what winning means in the context of the arguments behind writing this article. My read of this article is that quantification of attractiveness is not ok, while on some level accepting the fact that boys will continue to discuss the attractiveness of girls among themselves using language and words rather than numbers. Or is that not ok as well? The article states in the last line, "I wasn't surprised by the list, the kids like the kid who made the list aren't the outliers. It's the people who speak up about it that are. And that culture needs to change." So, are we arguing (and wishing) that the behavior of comparing one person to another based on attractiveness is not ok and should change, or are we accepting that use of language and nuanced discussion of attractiveness is fine, just that a reduction to a simple quantification is not? It’s going to be impossible to argue that people should not compare people to each other, so I assume the issue that is offensive is the reduction of this comparison to a number, and the objectification of this practice. But if that’s the case, why is quantification of one's intelligence (IQ, SAT, GRE), or ability to follow instruction and complete assignments (GPA) any different conceptually? And yet it is practiced universally and arguably just as outside of one's direct control as one's appearance. Sure, the distinction between male and female is absent in those examples, but the reduction of a whole person into a quantifiable quality which others in society find desirable is still occurring--and these kids are all in an institution where this is being taught and practiced. Quantification of male traits has historically occurred as well: every sports statistic does this and males are ranked accordingly. Salaries have historically been used to quantify the hierarchy of males within society, and it plays a role in determining their attractiveness to society as a whole and to females to this day. Of course, females play sports too, but since the beginning of sport being accepted as a ritualized replacement for war, the introduction of quantification as a reductive practice in the comparative performance between males has been accepted—whether this was the amount one could lift, how fast one could run, or size and weight of one’s body as stand-in measures for potential performance. Arguably there is not much a male could do to change those numbers and improve their social standing, so they would have just as much justification to feel objectified unjustly. Just some thoughts I had from reading this article as it has left me more confused about these questions raised.

Title	Teen boys rated their female classmates based on looks; the girls fought back - SFGate
Author	generallobster
Upvotes	1
Comments	1
Date	March 29, 2019 5:08 AM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/b6t96j/teen_boys_rated_their_female_classmates_based_on/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/teen-boys-rated-their-female-classmates-based-on.880828 https://theredarchive.com/post/880828

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