That is exactly what this thread it about- the point is the objectification of women. This thread is fighting that, not supporting this. It is trying to show that women’s self image of themselves has been ruined by Vogue magazine.
Well looking at the poll numbers it really ain’t helping.
That 85% are more beautiful than they think? Not bad. Us SDMBers - only 14% agree that only 4% or so of American women are beautiful. 85% think more are. You are totally wrong on that.
If you dont think negative self image is a issue, i direct you to: Body image | Office on Women's Health
BTW, recent research suggests that women are even more superficial than men at least initially when it comes to looks. That is why so many average looking men have very little luck on dating websites especially ones like Tinder and Bumble that are mainly about photos and first impressions.
Even average looking girls are competing for the top 10 - 20% of men at the most. Those types get the vast majority of the action while most others just pick up a rare crumb. I have done this experiment myself by choosing different pictures in ordinary poses and others in glamour shots on my sailboat in Hawaii (a rental). Guess how that went? If she actually reads your profile, some of the first things she will screen for is income, height and looks. I have all of that and have had good luck with it but that is as superficial as anything can be. I have given other people my profile minus the income and pictures and they get nothing.
Let’s not clutch our pearls because of human nature. It will only distort reality for you. People in general are as superficial as they come both male and female.
This is true. I knew a woman whose mother owned a upscale dating service. She had to help read the after date appraisals and overwhelmingly it was the women who turned down the male due to appearance. Height was the big one.
Does the OP mean naturally beautiful or beautiful when they have themselves all made up? Former I’d say 20%, latter I’d say 75%.
So why not report instead of derail?
Bullshit.
The thread is asking men to objectify women based on looks alone.
I don’t support the premise.
I think pretty much all women are pretty. Like, 80% at least. I’ve seen plenty of women who were a little chubby and thought, “Oh, she’s pretty,” while other men made fun of how fat she was. It’s pretty rare for me to encounter a woman so ugly that I can’t find something attractive about them.
If you are talking about actual movie-star good looks, I’d say its as small as 10%. The problem is that even among models and movie stars, many of them are actually quite plain before they get to the makeup trailer.
Rather than just call it gross, I’m gonna try to explain all the problems I see here. You may wanna tl;dr.
Folks [edit: not so much the OP as other folks responding] seem to be saying that there’s a problem when only 4% of women see themselves as beautiful, and that the solution is for a bunch of random dudes to take a poll saying how many women they see as beautiful.
- Who says there’s a problem? It’s possible that 96% of women said, “I’m not beautiful [according to whatever standard I’m using], and I’m okay with that.” I don’t think of myself as an expert driver, or as athletic or wealthy, and I’m okay with that. Can’t be everything.
- Who says women are answering honestly? There’s a lot of pressure not to brag, and a lot of folks may see it as uncouth to say, “Yeah, I’m beautiful.”
- Who says the 4% are answering aesthetically rather than philosophically? You probably have that Facebook friend who posts memes quoting Buddha saying, “You are Beautiful, You Are Loved, You Are Sacred” against a backdrop of kittens farting rainbows, right? That friend is gonna answer “yes” to the question, regardless of whether they could get a job as a model. And probably 4% of the population posts memes like that.
- Who says men are the metric by which beauty is correctly judged? Women who say they’re not beautiful may not be thinking of men when they say that, so why would they give a shit how men judge their beauty in response? The only model I know regularly tears men a new asshole when she posts about her body insecurity issues and men respond with “I THINK YOUR HAWT.” She hates that shit.
- Who says this poll is helping? DrDeth does some creative reading of stats, but it’s pretty bullshit. Folks tend to focus on the negative more than the positive, when it comes to others’ opinions of them. And there are plenty of negative opinions here locked and loaded, ready to shoot down someone’s self-esteem if they’re fucked up enough to calibrate their self esteem according to a bunch of randos on the Internet.
That said, the OP itself isn’t horrible (IMO). It’s mostly the posts that very predictably follow from the OP that get into super-gross and totally dumb territory.
I object to any thread that allows Shagnasty to spout his horseshit.
Yeah, and the comments will be really helpful to someone struggling with self image. The Dope sucks at this.
I voted less than 5%, but I believe the number would be significantly higher were it not for the obesity epidemic.
Well, no one in this thread did. We were asked. We answered.
I am pretty sure that exactly 0% of women* care if I think they are beautiful. That is why I tell exactly 0% of women* what I think of their personal appearance.
But if I get asked my opinion on an anonymous board, I will tell the board my honest opinion.
If you think the question is horribly degrading and offends you, either report it or don’t read the thread. Maybe the OP should have started it with a trigger warning (and I am being honest, not snarky).
*My wife excepted of course.
Well take tv. On “The Office”, really only Pam was attractive but not really what I’d say “Beautiful”. Angela - even less. The other older two - just average. Some women who guest starred were knockouts.
Now on the various incarnations of “Star Trek”, its a law every woman must be beautiful.
I know it’s trite to say all women are beautiful, but to me I find the majority of women I meet physically attractive at some level.
However “attractive” is not the same thing as “beautiful”…
But if we’re defining this in the sense of telling someone “I have a friend who is beautiful”, then that is a necessarily small percent, no? Descriptive terms like this are usually meant to be talking about a minority.
The people in this thread saying 20%+ of women are beautiful have never been to Walmart.
On a college campus, maybe 20% of women are attractive. But still not beautiful.
Out in the real world its a tiny number imo.
I don’t see why the answers need to be limited to men. Other than that, I think turning the question around is fair. “What percentage of women do you think are beautiful?” versus “What percentage of women think of themselves as beautiful?”
The question is not necessarily objectifying, even if some of the answers might be. The answers say more about the answerer than about women. Some people might find beauty unimportant. Some might find it common. Some might think it’s incredibly rare. Some people define it as a purely physical attribute, others might make concessions for “beautiful souls”.
Personally, I don’t think beauty means one-in-a-million, breath-taking, supermodel-level drop dead gorgeousness. I would take it to mean something more like “pleasing to the eye” or “inspiring pleasant feelings”. I think at least all above average women are beautiful, whether we take “above average” to mean just looks, or include other traits like intelligence, strength and charm. So I voted 41-50%.
That is much of the point of the poll.
In the linked thread, a survey by the Dove company said that only 4% of women think they are beautiful. In this totally non-scientific, hardly-better-than-anecdote poll, three quarters or more think the percentage is higher than that.
Does that prove anything? No, but I think it’s interesting.
Regards,
Shodan
Pam was cute, while Angela was pretty, if you take only their physical appearance into account.
However, Pam was way more attractive than Angela due to the personality of the characters that were portrayed. If you put both of these women playing characters with equivalent personalities, then I think Angela would be more attractive than Pam.
Amy Adams.