I knew there was a reason I changed my major
Uh, it took me a whole day to post this because I couldn’t stop staring and saying “what the fuck” in response to this.
Kevin over at Slant Truth wrote a great post about a truly horrible article from Psychology Today, Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature. He does a great job at calling bullshit on the impressive amount of bullshit in it, so check it out.
Among other things, in response to their assertion that men are predisposed to like big-breasted, blue-eyed blondes (don’t worry, it’s “science”, so they can say it), he says:
I have to ask; this article constantly talks about how men have a universal preference for this and that. Really? Seems to me that 3/4s of the world would be at a reproductive disadvantage if all the het men preferred, and were pushed by their genes, beyond their control, towards the hawt women (read: blonde and blue-eyed women with big breasts). Last time I checked, there weren’t too many blonde, blue-eyed women running around Africa or South America. What on Earth are they doing over there? How do they keep reproducing when their evolutionary drives are telling them that all of the women are not worthy of reproducing with?
But my favorite point Kevin makes is that just from the title you can tell you’re about to be fed a well “researched” pile of crap.
Mention “politically incorrect truths” and I will almost always hold you suspect. I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you fall on. It’s almost always a way of saying, “you won’t like what you read and any arguments against me are moot, not because I can back up my claims, but because you’re being politically correct.”
For real. Can someone tell me why it’s such a huge important thing for certain people to dedicate their lives to being apologists for stupid shit? I swore 5 years ago to smack anyone who talked about being politically incorrect like it’s a badge of courage. We get it. You think your opinions make you a sexy truth-teller. Congratulations. Now stop being a racist sexist asshole and study something useful to society. I mean, I can be an asshole at times. That doesn’t mean I’m going to write a book justifying it.
The (Natural) Psychology of Gender Stereotypes, With no Attention Paid to PoC Whatsoever
Posted on 6 December, 2007 by Kevin
Filed Under Feminism, Homophobia, Racism |
I spent some time checking out new blogs today and stumbled across this article from the Psychology Today website. Now, I’ve spent my share of time in the company of therapists and psychologists. I don’t mean to denigrate the profession. The profession has helped me a lot. There’s a lot of good work being done there, but articles like this, which purport to explain human nature and all the fucked up things that we do from a natural, or evolutionary basis always rubs me the wrong way. What strikes me as bad science is bad science. It’s not an attack on the science of psychology itself any more than my calling out bad modernist literary criticism is an attack on the entire profession of literary criticism.
This gem is titled Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature. Ok, I’m turned off from the beginning. Mention “politically incorrect truths” and I will almost always hold you suspect. I don’t care what side of the political spectrum you fall on. It’s almost always a way of saying, “you won’t like what you read and any arguments against me are moot, not because I can back up my claims, but because you’re being politically correct.” Mention that along with “human nature,” whatever the hell that means, and it’s almost guaranteed that I’m not going to like what I’m about to read. So. let’s take a brief look at this article that seeks to explain “why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn’t sexist, and blonds are more attractive.”1.
Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature.
Um, perhaps no one can define human nature precisely because it’s a myth. Oh, and now you just gave every bigot who hates immigrants a pass. It’s just human nature, right? Damn. First paragraph, two sentences, and I’m already sensing massive bullshit.
This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are shared, to a large extent, by all men or women, despite seemingly large cultural differences.
Pay attention to that last sentence. The universalism talk is coming, and if you’re starting to wonder how heteronormative, ablist, and racist this article can get, you’re right on track.
Human behavior is a product both of our innate human nature and of our individual experience and environment. In this article, however, we emphasize biological influences on human behavior, because most social scientists explain human behavior as if evolution stops at the neck and as if our behavior is a product almost entirely of environment and socialization. In contrast, evolutionary psychologists see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. Our preference for sweets and fats is an evolved psychological mechanism. We do not consciously choose to like sweets and fats; they just taste good to us
I have two problems with this statement. First, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of an innate human nature2. Second, I just can’t make myself believe that most of our decisions in life are based on trying to get laid (there’s that heteronormativity raising it’s ugly head again, too.).
The implications of some of the ideas in this article may seem immoral, contrary to our ideals, or offensive. We state them because they are true, supported by documented scientific evidence. Like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct.
Ugh, there we go again. Those two phrases in the same damn sentence! I shoulda stopped reading there.
Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)
Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. It is difficult to ascribe the preferences and desires of women in 15th-century Italy and 21st-century Iran to socialization by media.
Women’s desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features.
Men prefer young women in part because they tend to be healthier than older women. One accurate indicator of health is physical attractiveness; another is hair. Healthy women have lustrous, shiny hair, whereas the hair of sickly people loses its luster. Because hair grows slowly, shoulder-length hair reveals several years of a woman’s health status.
Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. Thus men are unconsciously seeking healthier and more fertile women when they seek women with small waists.
Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman’s breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman’s age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.
Alternatively, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason they prefer women with small waists. A new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (estradiol and progesterone).
Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.
Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females. One explanation is that the human pupil dilates when an individual is exposed to something that she likes. For instance, the pupils of women and infants (but not men) spontaneously dilate when they see babies. Pupil dilation is an honest indicator of interest and attraction. And the size of the pupil is easiest to determine in blue eyes. Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not.
The irony is that none of the above is true any longer. Through face-lifts, wigs, liposuction, surgical breast augmentation, hair dye, and color contact lenses, any woman, regardless of age, can have many of the key features that define ideal female beauty. And men fall for them. Men can cognitively understand that many blond women with firm, large breasts are not actually 15 years old, but they still find them attractive because their evolved psychological mechanisms are fooled by modern inventions that did not exist in the ancestral environment.
WTF? This one really threw me for a loop. Someone please explain to me what the practices of 15th and 16th century Italian women have to do with any thing today. And unless you’re going to point me to the supposed “study” of Iranian women, I’m not buying it.
Then, I have to ask; this article constantly talks about how men have a universal preference for this and that. Really? Seems to me that 3/4s of the world would be at a reproductive disadvantage if all the het men preferred, and were pushed by their genes, beyond their control, towards the hawt women (read: blonde and blue-eyed women with big breasts). Last time I checked, there weren’t too many blonde, blue-eyed women running around Africa or South America. What on Earth are they doing over there? How do they keep reproducing when their evolutionary drives are telling them that all of the women are not worthy of reproducing with?
Women’s desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features.
I bet all you women of color out there didn’t know that you secretly long to look like Barbie? It’s biology, damnit! It’s “realistic, and sensible.” Get with the program will ya and start dying your hair like those 15th century Italian women. And if you happen to be a lesbian, well damnit you should still want to secretly look like Barbie, because you…um…well, there was this study back in the day that proved that lesbians don”t really exist because biology says that all women want nothing more than to get it on with the rich and powerful dudes. Or something like that.
Yeah, not so much, huh?
The article goes on and on and traffics in every stereotype you can think of. It’s an apology piece for every heteronormative and racist stereotype you can imagine. Reading this article, you would think that everyone in the world is a heterosexual white male, except for those strange creatures called women that want nothing else but the undying attention of heterosexual white males. And science has just proven that everything that heterosexual white males do is fair game because evolutionary biology proves that is it natural for them to act like asses.
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