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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Women (or some women, rather) don’t oppose these ads because they’re worried men will realize hotter women are out there (that much is as obvious even if one enforces the hijab).

Men also know that height is an advantage and there's always someone hotter. But enough also seem to be reliably triggered enough at seeing Stacy on a Youtube channel saying she won't date a 5'11 man to actually make harnessing their resentment a viable business model for people.

These women also obviously knew that models were much fitter. Apparently them flaunting it still didn't play well.

Making intrasexual competition - or someone's allegedly lower place in the rankings - more salient seems to cause some people to get demoralized, resentful or to try to lash out and control the message. The same basic argument against social media status games in general tbh.

They opposed them because being constantly reminded that one’s primary worth as a woman is in being sexy on a billboard while driving to work or taking the subway every day can be demoralizing or just kind of sad.

Okay. Then this theory predicts that this'll stop being an issue when the...I dunno, female objectification waterline is brought down to that of males.

I'm not convinced that's going to happen though. As I said: people have an ideological belief that "objectification" is wrong as such. Both ScarJo and Chris Hemsworth were sexified for money (knowing absolutely full well what they were doing), only one of them complains because of little kids will see it*. Such things gain a life of their own. For another, it's a very useful argument. There'll always be people of the sort I describe above. Not sure why they'd put aside a tool.

* Even though Hemsworth's ridiculous use of steroids and refusal to admit it is arguably worse for body image issues due to how little it's interrogated in comparison and how bad the potential health risks of taking these drugs are.