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Notes -
So the Bezos-Sanchez wedding took place, and by all accounts it was exactly as overblown, tacky, and vulgar as anyone's little heart could desire. I haven't watched any of it myself, so why am I mentioning it in the Culture War thread?
Well, because Tina Brown commented on it, and it's at least tangential because we've often discussed on here "what do women want/dating apps/men get the rough end of the stick in divorce/other such delightful War of the Sexes fodder".
I get the impression that Tina wasn't on the guest list so there may be an element of sour grapes here, but in general I think I agree. Jeff Bezos, fourth richest man in the world (depending on the day and the ranking) could have pretty much any woman in the world he wanted. So, who did he blow up his marriage for and before we get into the complaining about his wife taking him to the cleaners, it was he who caused the divorce (actually, divorces because his inamorata was also married at the time)?
The woman next door, a triumph of grinding determination to keep her figure through diet, exercise, and plastic surgery. She managed to find a classy wedding dress so kudos for that, as well as showing off the results of all that effort.
Back to Tina's commentary:
Ouch. But also, yes. What am I trying to say here? Mostly that the next time there's yet another post about reversing the fertility decline by putting obstacles in the way of women going to higher education, steering them to marrying early, and good old traditional 'the man is the head of the house and women should work to please their husband and that includes sex whenever and however he wants it', remember this. Male sexuality is a lot simpler than female sexuality. Jeff could have destroyed his marriage for a nubile twenty-something with naturally big assets, but he went for tawdry 'sexy' with the trout pout and plastic boobs (though once again, I have to salute her commitment to starving and exercising in order to keep a taut muscle tone). It's not much good to criticise women for being shallow in the dating market when the fruits of success are to dress like this and hook your own billionaire.
This Tina Brown seems awfully bitter and judgemental about another woman's appearance for a supposed feminist. I wonder what her problem is.
I think it's a perfectly coherent view - the point is that she (Sanchez) is condemning herself (and in a small way all women) to infantilisation. Getting fake tits is essentially indulging and perpetuating male chauvinism - she should be satisfied with her own personhood without having to surgically alter herself in order to please men. The broader point has been a feminist theme for centuries.
Wollstonecraft:
Perhaps.
But I've also been listening to rhetoric along the lines of "My body, my choice," "We look pretty for ourselves, not for men", and "my outfit is not an excuse" which all go towards that idea that women can dress up as sexy as they want and make whatever changes they feel like to themselves and are all but immune from judgment for it, for over a decade now.
Hence they can get trashy (in my eyes) tattoos everywhere, as many piercings as they like, they can go with fake boobs, butt, and lips, and all of this is just a celebration of their femininity or whatever.
Its a bit discordant for feminism to actively police its own side for doing things that incidentally appeal to the men in their lives, when there's no evidence that it was the result of coercion but rather her own desires... even if those desires were executed with the male gaze in mind.
As always, relevant TLP: No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up
Yeah. Not to get into the weeds of the evolutionary biology of it, but
"The way I dress/makeup is solely to feel good about myself! That it happens to 90% coincide with what makes men lust after me is completely irrelevant, its not about men's desires!" is the purest cope imaginable.
I've now seen it countless times, women who abjectly refuse to leave the house without putting together a cute outfit and doing at least minimal makeup. And when pressed (politely) its usually waved off as a matter of self-confidence or personal preference, and I just want to whisper "from whence does the preference come? Self-confident in whose eyes?"
Going to the gym, going to the store, going to grab takeout Chinese food, can't risk you might be seen in a state that might cause a man to overlook you. Especially if other women might put in 10% more effort than you and win the status game.
I don't think it has to be cope. Evolution isn't transparent to us: it is totally plausible that women naturally want to look good without actually 'feeling' the evolutionary reason why it benefits their genes to do so.
I'm just saying. Women have almost universally settled upon their conception of what 'looks good' by way of what makes men pay them greater attention. In the west, at least, nobody holds a gun to their head to make them wear tight clothing that emphasizes curves and shows strategic amounts of skin, even when those outfits are less comfortable to wear. But they do wear such outfits.
Pull up photos of women attending music festivals. And I mean, regardless of genre, from (warning: Semi NSFW) Metal to EDM to Country, and see that while the aesthetics are different, women generally converge on outfits that are revealing and eye-catching and tight and emphasize the secondary sexual characteristics. (yes, admittedly this is prone to selection effects).
I don't think they 'feel' the biological basis, but its the rare woman who can ignore their own impulses and dress in a way that is actively repellent to men and feel truly satisfied and healthy about it.
Yes, there's some large amount of culturally-transmitted information about what is 'attractive' in the other sex as well, but we haven't seen so much divergence between humans as you'd expect if it were solely culturally informed.
Anyhow, humans are just responding to impulses and they don't really think a lot about where those impulses come from. If you're hungry, eat, if you're thirsty, drink. If you're horny, put on the standard mating display and see if you get any takers.
But humans also have brains big enough to create elaborate, usually post-hoc justifications for actions they take, and so they can pretend that dressing and acting in a way that effectively short-circuits the other sex's thought processes (b/c horny) and claim its all solely motivated by self-empowerment.
Is that really hypocritical though? Suppose evolution makes it enjoyable to dress in a way that's sexy to men. Why can't women now take that system of enjoyment nature has given them, and use it to intentionally get enjoyment for themselves with attracting men becoming a side effect? It seems kinda similar to evolution making us like certain flavours to help us get the right range of nutrients. Modern foodies taking that capacity for enjoyment given to us by evolution, and employing it for their own non-survival ends. At least in theory, the original evolutionary cause of the impulse can be acknowledged, but then co-opted.
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