The outrage is due only to the fact that it is a totally ridiclous thing to say.
The best looking Black women are as good looking as the best looking blondes,
other Europeans, Asians, Indians, Polynesians, and all the rest.
I dislike much accusation of racism that I run across, and seldom make such
charges myself, but on this subject I will say that the only way anyone could
think black women are less good looking than any other is that his preception
of reality is warped by his racism.
Of course it isn’t all of it. Those are just the three traits (clear skin, youth and symmetry) that is supposedly found in all cultures when it comes to standards of beauty. The Mayans practiced artificial cranial deformation probably because they felt it produced a more attractive looking person. So as far as the grapefruit things goes, you might win some beauty contests if a grapefruit like nose was regarded as attractive for some reason.
My take is that there is no scientific way to objectively evaluate attractiveness in an entire group of people. Where would you even start? How would you evaluate the responses? How would you account for the filters that the media has given society, especially western society? Heck, what does it even mean to say that ‘Black Women’ are ‘Less Attractive’? Which ‘Black Women’? Lighter skinned or darker skinned ‘Black Women’? From Northern African descent or Southern? Or Central? Or Blacks transplanted in the new world? Or in Asia? Or Europe? Do mixed race ‘Black Women’ count? And what does ‘Less Attractive’ even mean? How do you judge such a diverse group as ‘Black Women’??
I haven’t read the study, though I read an article on (I think) CNN about this by a black man responding to the study and giving his take on it all…and he seemed pretty insulted, overall. As he should be, considering someone was telling him that his mother and sisters and other female relations were ‘Less Attractive’ than…something.
I think that a lot of our perceptions of what is or isn’t attractive comes from the media and societies fixation on European or Asian beauty as some sort of ideal. WRT black women, MY opinion is…it depends on the woman. Just like with white women, hispanic women, Asian women or any other type of woman. Either an individual woman does it for me…or she doesn’t. My own preference is for more well rounded and shapely women, so a lot of black women would be more attractive to me than skinny white or Asian women…but that’s just my personal preference and has less to do with the color of their skin as to how large and shapely their bottoms and breasts are. How would my own participation in such a study impact some dubious finding that ‘Black Women’ are or aren’t ‘Less Attractive’ though?? It would be meaningless.
I will say that there is some hang ups concerning ‘Black Women’ even in the black community about…their hair. At least it seems to be the case based on what some of my black friends have told me and such things as Good Hair. Hair is certainly a key feature that some males respond too, and European or Asian hair does seem to be more desirable (to many males) than kinky hair. Perhaps that’s the basis of whatever dubious data this is based on, if it’s not just a complete load of bullshit?
-XT
I doubt you have a single statistic to back that up. At least Kanazawa had something.
Hey random6x7, social scientists are the last people on Earth who should be criticizing other people’s science. The rest of what you wrote is gibberish, pseudoscience at its best.
Got any statistics for us? You pointed out that stats analysis that counter’s Kanazawa’s assertions, so now give us some to back up what you say about the entire field.
I had this great research student last semester, she was interested in a social psych type of study. She showed me some of the previous research from her topic. Huge data sets analyzed with alpha set to .10. There, I got my one shitty study like Kanazawa’s. I guess stats abuse is common in the social sciences.
Yeah, stats abuse is common in the social sciences, and I’m very glad my program has a stats class specifically for anthropologists. However, there’s a difference between setting the alpha to 0.10 (which is weird anyway; 0.05 is considered standard for us at least) and doing bizarre things like Kanazawa and Rushton do.
And I am sorry that I probably overgeneralized. I see these problems in Rushton, Kanazawa, and pretty much every article published in the popular press about ev psych. It’s not necessarily fair to paint the entire discipline with a broad brush, considering the state of popular science reporting in the US anyway. I still have serious issues with the idea that our behaviors are genetically predetermined, and I fail to see how that’s pseudoscience. Can you explain to me why you think it is?
After reading stuff by Rushton and Kanazawa, and about the “girls like pink because berries” and “rape is a valid reproductive strategy” and sex roles that look alarmingly like 1950’s middle America, it’s hard to take the discipline seriously. Do you have examples that are better?
<Asking for clarification>
What do you mean here?
Research can’t be racist; only the way you present it. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with the way he presented his research. Political correctness run amok, I say.
I just want to say that chick who wrote the blog isn’t hot.
Edit: Actually, I’m pretty sure there have been previous studies which found pretty much the same thing. Let’s see if I can find them.
ISTM that “attractiveness” is about as subjective as can be.
Besides, people tend to find people of their own race attractive, and members of other races less so. Therefore, globally, if there are (roughly) one third white, and one third black, and one third Asian. then almost by definition two thirds of the populace will find one third less attractive. That is no different for blacks vs. whites vs. Asian.
In cultures where standards of physical attractiveness are influenced by the mass media, then whoever is presented as attractive in the media will tend to be seen as more attractive than other kinds.
For features that are cross-culturally attractive, like clear skin or symmetrical features or a hip-to-waist ratio of 1.3, then I would need to see studies that show that such features are less common in one group than another. Even if such studies were available, that doesn’t mean that the group is inferior - there can be all kinds of factors influencing that. Maybe members of group X are less commonly possessed of a desirable hip-to-waist ration because they belong disproportionately to socio-ecomic groups that have difficulty maintaining that ratio.
Or maybe they belong to a minority sub-culture that values something else more. Maybe they are in some culture like pre-industrial Europe where obesity was a social marker of high economic status, and therefore Rubenesque figures are valued.
Or tattoos are considered “hot”, or facial scarification, or bound feet, or any of the myriad other things that one culture or another has decided is a clear marker of a desirable woman.
Regards,
Shodan
Piffle. I would have to conclude, from this that you have never been involved in any research.
Skewing statistics, (as noted in the article under discussion), or comparing unlike results as though they measured the same thing, (as in The Bell Curve), can be racist.
There are any number of ways to do bad research and a person who engages in bad practices while influenced by racist assumptions can certainly skew the research in racist ways.
I don’t have cites, but yeah, there is a lot of variation in face shape among blacks of African descent. Among Bantu peoples specifically it may be more narrow, I don’t know. Sorry, I’m out of my depth there.
The term “Caucasian” traces back to the 18th Century, & one specific anthropologist, if Nell Irvin Painter’s The History of White People is to be believed. (There are some other minor inaccuracies in her book, I believe, so less than perfect cite.) Scholars have never seriously considered European, Mediterranean, & South Asian phenotypes to have arisen from the Caucasus. It’s just a term of convenience for a phenotypic range.
In my experience it is common everywhere. For a proportion of researchers stats is a gatekeeper that can be bribed to give them what they want.
Setting it to .10 is abusing an argument put forth in balancing type I and type II error. I am not familiar with Kanazawa and Rushton. I am more used to the type of work by Martin and Margo.
I think you nailed the problem: Reporters are easily swayed morons (or maybe their editors are) and some scientists can’t resist a sexy story.
Simple: nobody involved in the fields of evo psych or behavioral genetics (the other end of the spectrum that also gets a lot of shit from the same circles) thinks that at all. Perhaps pseudoscience is over the top but in the end the argument you are putting forward is a popularization of what scientists think. For example, my adivsor’s advisor was highly interested in gene x environment interactions in the 1940s.
I am no expert but you might want to read Buss’ work or Martin & Margo’s work for yourself. They test hypotheses, they know the limitations of their work, and they don’t try to bullshit you.
Couldn’t agree more, but when so much of what makes a scientific finding is “the way you present it” then for you to view the anger over the finding as “PC run amok” betrays your own politicking and inexperience with science as it is practiced.
That article then links Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman’s analysis which itself is a great example of cherry picking. He discounts people age
He also discounts the OK Cupid data.
IIRC (forgot where I read it) there are two, and only two, measures of attractiveness that are universal among humans as determined by science.
Youth and health. (“Youth” not meaning pre-pubescent but rather a sexually mature person)
Those are the traits which we’ve unambiguosly found. I doubt many researchers in the field would claim that this list is exhaustive. For one thing, those three do not include any distinction between the genders. Is men liking women and women liking men (generally) purely cultural?
Whenever we have a thread about something subjective the implication many make is that as it’s subjective, it must be arbitrary. For beauty this idea is especially popular, as many find it preferable to imagine it is culture which chooses who is attractive, and its tastes can completely change over time.
But subjective =/= arbitrary. And whenever someone tries to give an example of another culture’s “completely different” tastes, I either find the cited example attractive, or can easily find other examples of models from that culture / era that are to me. (except remote tribes of course, which have a rather limited genepool / choice).
OK Cupid data? Well that site discounts me and my friend Tom who’ve been chasing sexy black women since we could walk (side note, Tom recently emailed me a new model Ow…Yowza! SFW). In the end the only thing the “OK Cupid data” proves is that OKCupid might be a lousy place for black women to find dates. Funny how your link isn’t using data from interracialromance.com or blacksingles.com or whatever.
Claims like these are prime examples why we have peer review; he can shout “PC” all he wants, Kanazawa’s shows himself to be a bad scientist in addition to being a sexist, racist asshole. There is good news though, not everyone at Psychology Today is incompetent.
I believe the source of his research was every black comedian ever.
“Damn, there’re some fine ladies in the house. Fellas, give it up for the sistas.” -Every black comedian ever or at least far more than any who would base his set on the homeliness of black women
Anyone find it ironic that the guy who wrote this piece of BS is an Asian male? Just me? Okay.
Some titles of Kanawaza’s other blogs include ‘Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes?’, ‘If Beautiful People Have Daughters, Why Do Posh and Becks Have Three Sons?’, ‘More Intelligent People Are More Likely to Binge Drink and Get Drunk’ and ‘Girls Are More Intelligent Than Boys, But Men Are More Intelligent Than Women’.
To me, it sounds like he’s trying to trying to be an edgier, more provocative and un-PC version of Malcolm Gladwell. Sounds like he overplayed his hand this time, though. Just skimmed his article and there’s so much WTF?ness in there I question how he managed to get a PhD.
As a black woman, everytime I see opinions like his getting airtime and respect, I’m reminded of that Twilight Zone episode with the beautiful “ugly” lady living in a land peopled by the pig-snouted. And then I laugh.