# Interesting observation about female attractiveness and gender obsession. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 24, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596 "2014-01-24T04:28:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/41 "2014-01-25T00:29:10Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > Society believes that the only value a woman has is in her looks. The discrimination comes into play at this point, satirized earlier in the thread for the male gender: > > And that pretty much sums up the relation between beauty and discrimination in regards to women. You can just leave the “on feminine beauty” part out of the sentence for maximum understanding. After all, it doesn’t matter how good a job she does or how intelligent she is, the first thing out of society’s mouth is, “so, is she hot or not?” and if she’s not, she’s disregarded. Female beauty as a measure of personal worth is one of the kernels at the base of female discrimination. _Wesley Clark rolls up shirt sleeves, pretends to be a decent human being_ Define society. I don’t think the physical appearance of Aung san suu kyi or Melinda Gates has ever come up for good or bad. Their goals and actions are what people care about. Then again with female politicians, musicians, etc it is usually brought up either implicitly or explicitly. Especially women in the arts like actresses or musicians. I remember a comedian (either Doug Stanhope or Bill Burr) remarking that there are no famous, unattractive female musicians. Either way I don’t agree that is ‘all’ society cares about. Some aspects of society (esp the media) care about it way more than they should but I do not think it is as widespread as that. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/42 "2014-01-25T00:40:11Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Then again with female politicians, musicians, etc it is usually brought up either implicitly or explicitly. Especially women in the arts like actresses or musicians. There is a bit of a Catch-22 here, just observing female friends on Facebook leads me to believe that the importance of looks is so ingrained in society that if every single new profile picture wasn’t absolutely inundated with at least 10 of their friends telling them how pretty they are they’d be pretty devastated. Okay that’s a bit of hyperbole, but I have noticed even though most accolades towards the women I know mention their looks (where comparable male-targeted accolades wouldn’t), on the odd occasion they don’t, the women legitimately wonder if something is wrong. It’s kind of a problem that if you compliment a woman on her looks when it’s not relevant, you’re contributing in a small way to a problem that perpetuates that a woman’s looks are important even in irrelevant contexts, but if you try not to contribute, you may end up triggering anxiety due to a complex that this same culture conditions women to have. It’s very similar to when kids are praised for being smart and develop into adults who get really flustered whenever they make a mistakes because “smart people don’t do that.” And I’m not talking about big sweeping things, a lot of women seem to notice just something as innocuous as not introducing them as “the beautiful Katie Black” or leaving “pretty” off the list when you say “Tamara is an excellent colleague; cunning, intelligent, and skilled.” I see no easy way to proceed. It’s tempting to say “rip the band-aid off”, but it still feels kind of jerkish to make a woman who legitimately cares (which is many of them) concerned that she’s not pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/43 "2014-01-25T02:28:14Z")
> [@citizenzen](#): > > Very little discrimination is about looks? > > Seriously? She actually said _not_ very little discrimination is about looks. I dont know if she meant to include the “not” but its there. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/44 "2014-01-25T02:39:33Z")
The OP might be right because I’ve noticed relationships like that. For instance I’ve noticed that men who think feminists are ugly also are more likely to believe that women who won’t go out with him are lesbians. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/45 "2014-01-25T03:01:51Z")
n/m ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/46 "2014-01-25T03:37:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Define society. I don’t think the physical appearance of Aung san suu kyi or Melinda Gates has ever come up for good or bad. Their goals and actions are what people care about. I’ve heard Melinda Gates’s appearance come up a fair number of times, and typing “Melinda Gates is” into Google just now the top three autocomplete suggestions were: [ul] [li]Melinda Gates is hot[/li][li]Melinda Gates is Catholic[/li][li]Melinda Gates is ugly[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/47 "2014-01-25T03:37:40Z")
> [@kstarnes](#): > > … as I was researching for the 2013 nominations for the most attractive female journalist … What the hell? Is that real? That can’t be real. > [@Colophon](#): > > I don’t think that’s entirely fair. The OP might not be expressed too tactfully, but I don’t see why it is so sexist to point out the fact that more attractive women probably suffer less discrimination, and are therefore less likely to write about being discriminated against. Because … women can’t write about anything they haven’t directly experienced? Or because they just can’t be bothered to? Hell, this could be real … Actually, it does seems to be a popular topic about sports journalists. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/48 "2014-01-25T04:22:54Z")
Try Googling “most attractive female journalist” – it’s especially rampant in sports. What a shock, eh? ---
**Author:** ![citizenzen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a8b319/32.png) [@citizenzen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/citizenzen)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/49 "2014-01-25T04:47:55Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > She actually said _not_ very little discrimination is about looks. I dont know if she meant to include the “not” but its there. True. Upon re-reading the post I’m left confused as to what was actually said. Perhaps they could clarify. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/50 "2014-01-25T11:06:16Z")
> [@citizenzen](#): > > True. Upon re-reading the post I’m left confused as to what was actually said. > > Perhaps they could clarify. Sorry, I was typing on my phone. I did mean that very little discrimination is about looks. It comes up in dating, advertising, and to some degree professionally. But all of these are overshadowed by larger concerns- career, health, motherhood, women in developing countries, household roles, etc. How hot random men find us is occasionally an issue, but rarely among the pivotal problems in out lives. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/51 "2014-01-25T12:51:54Z")
> [@kstarnes](#): > > Generally speaking, as I was researching for the 2013 nominations for the most attractive female journalist… > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > For whom were you doing this “research”? > [@j666](#): > > What the hell? Is that real? > > That can’t be real. It needs to be pointed out that the “nominations” are not for some contest in a magazine or on a website, but for a SDMB thread titled, appropriately enough, [“2013 nominations for the most attractive female journalist”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=713939). I will give you three guesses as to which poster started that thing. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596/52 "2014-01-25T22:10:34Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > It needs to be pointed out that the “nominations” are not for some contest in a magazine or on a website, but for a SDMB thread titled, appropriately enough, [“2013 nominations for the most attractive female journalist”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=713939). I will give you three guesses as to which poster started that thing. Thanks, but too late. I’d already googled it mid-post. I am profoundly depressed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-observation-about-female-attractiveness-and-gender-obsession/679596.md?page=2)