I was talking to a female friend of mine yesterday; she’s just started dating a new fella, and the budding relationship appears promising. My friend is about 5′8″, and her new boyfriend is 6′5″. I knew her last boyfriend, who was her height — and so, as we chatted, I asked her if the height differential in this current relationship made a difference.
“Yes, I suppose it really does”, she said. “Being with a man so much taller and bigger makes me feel smaller, more feminine. Being in his arms feels wonderful because I feel the difference between us so much more than with Jack (her ex).”
My friend, who knows I teach feminism, asked “Do you think that makes me less of a feminist, wanting a man who can wrap me up and make me feel so feminine and protected?”
Almost from the start of 2006, the broad feminist blogosphere has been engaged in an intense period of self-criticism, culminating in October’s infamous “waxing wars.” I have no interest in reviving a lot of talk about feminist credentials. But my friend’s sense of delight in the size differential between her and her new guy — and her mild discomfort at what that delight might symbolize — is worth a post.
Of course, y’all know I’m going to share the inevitable personal anecdote. In college, I had a huge crush on a gal who lived in the same co-op as I did. She was my height (6′1″) and a broad-shouldered swimmer who had started her college career on an athletic scholarship but who had tired of the intensity of the competition. She was the consummate jock, and if I could be said to have a “type”, it was always the very athletic, tomboyish women. “Lisa” and I tried a romantic relationship, but it ended quickly; my interest in being more than friends exceeeded hers.
Lisa told me, even before we started dating, that she had doubts about our chances together: “I really like big guys”, she said; “I’m a tall strong girl and I like being with a man who makes me feel petite and feminine.” She liked dating tall linemen, and I was going through one of my “skinny stages”. I was already taking women’s studies classes at that point, and in order to make my case, I quite shamelessly used what I thought were sincere feminist tactics, saying something like:
“Lisa, you only want a stronger, bigger man, because you’ve been brainwashed by a sexist culture. You’ve been taught to be uncomfortable with yourself as a tall athletic woman, and so you want to be with an even bigger guy who can make you feel more traditional. You’re surrendering to the patriarchy!”
There might have been one or two grains of truth in what I was saying, but it was evident to both of us that my exhortation was colored less by a commitment to feminist principle and more by naked self-interest. And I had no reply when Lisa told me off, saying (and this I remember more vividly than my own words):
“Don’t be an asshole and assume that what I want stems from my oppression as a woman. If you were a real feminist man you would never try and channel my feelings and desires to serve your needs, and you’d never try and use feminism to guilt me into being with you.”
That was an uncomfortable “aha” moment, and it taught me an enduring lesson. Few things are more indefensible and pathetic than a self-proclaimed male feminist using the rhetoric of gender justice to try and “get” a woman to be attracted to him. Been there, did that, grew out of it.
Of course, this argument is really raising a very old question: to what extent are our romantic and sexual desires shaped by cultural and familial expectations, and to what extent are they genuinely organic, original, and unique to our “truest self”? (Yes, philosophers, I know, we can’t even be sure we have a “truest self” independent of outside influence!) I’ve raised this question before, writing about men, women, homosociality, and weight. There, I took men to task for being overly concerned with how the weight gain of their female partners would reflect upon their status as men.
So is wanting a “big strong man who will make me feel delicate and feminine” something feminists ought to try and talk women out of? Can we presume to distinguish between a woman whose innate sexuality gets turned on by “big guys” and a woman who likes being with bigger men because she’s uncomfortable with her own size, and longs to feel smaller? Can we insist that women’s erotic desires be shaped and informed by their feminism — and thus work in conjunction with their ideals, not in opposition to them?
Here’s where I drive many of my male critics in the men’s rights movement nuts. When I write about male heterosexual desire, I am adamant that it can be channeled. When discussing what men want, I am quite comfortable — because I am a man — in suggesting that men can master and redirect their libidos. I post a lot about older men and younger women in this regard, and regularly make the case that one key thing men can do is match their desires to an age-appropriate partner. I’ve also made a case against porn, and against male fat-phobia. But I am not willing to make the same demands on women.
Is it because I think women ought to be held to a lesser standard? Of course not. But I’m a great believer in the notion that men ought to hold other men accountable. When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one. Too many women have been told too often what to do by too many men. Women’s transformation and accountability needs to take place in community with other women, not at male behest. Do I think that women ought to think critically about the ways in which our culture shapes their erotic drives, particularly when it encourages pleasure in submission and a sense of “being small”? You betcha. Am I troubled that we live in a world where so many women are taught to find particular pleasure in being overpowered, overwhelmed, “swept off their feet”? Of course. It may be my place as a teacher to raise uncomfortable questions, but that’s as far as I ought to go.
Explicit judgment and direction are things I choose to reserve for the men in my life, not because I am filled with self-loathing or dislike masculinity, but because I believe in the importance of same-gender accountability. And, most of all, I am leery of having any man — no matter how well versed in feminist rhetoric and praxis — telling a woman what she “ought” to want. Lord knows, I spent years wishing that more women would eroticize cross-country runners instead of football players! It’s damned hard for any man to ever escape the charge of blatant self-interest when this topic comes up, and though it’s been nearly twenty years, Lisa the swimmer’s cutting words still echo in my brain.
I’m sorry, but I can’t cry “Shenanigans!” loud enough on this one, particularly the part about challenging men but not women. Call it what it is, Hugo–a double standard. Whether it’s a double standard derived from male self-loathing I won’t pretend to know you well enough to determine, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
The whole “channelling heterosexual desire” thing is nonsense as well. Once we get past puberty our sexual preferences are more or less hardwired. I’ve had a number of therapists tell me that one of the reason they have such a lousy record of treating pedophiles is because they’re mostly not treatable. If you reach young adulthood being attracted to children you’re probably going to be attracted to children forever, which is why long prison sentences are pretty much our only defense as a society against pedophiles. The same holds for being attracted to large men, skinny women, whatever (as a man whose late wife nearly doubled her weight after we got engaged I admit I’ve got a bit of an axe to grind here–I’ve written Hugo about this and will probably comment about it on my own blog soon).
And even if people can be “conditioned” somehow to be attracted to somebody outside their normal range of height, weight and appearance, how do you propose to do it? Gonna strap them in to some “A Clockwork Orange”-type chair, tape electrodes to their genitalia and make them watch movies? Give him a shock every time he gets aroused at the sight of Kate Hudson but a Scooby Snack every time he gets it up for Camryn Manheim? Shock her every time she gets turned on by Matthew McConahey (sp?) but give her a treat if she can get hot for Woody Allen?
Lastly, even if heterosexual preferences can be “mastered and redirected,” on behalf of men particularly I gotta ask–why should we? I hear all the time that heavy women are under no obligation to lose weight to please a man. Fair enough, but by the exact same token men are under no obligation to somehow recalibrate their libidos so that obese women will have more dating options.
When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one. Too many women have been told too often what to do by too many men. Women’s transformation and accountability needs to take place in community with other women, not at male behest.
And you think that a community of other women would not reflect any misleading systemic biases? You would no doubt agree that it would be a mistake for men, even pro-feminist men, to take it upon themselves to singlehandedly define women’s attitudes and responsibilities, because those mens’ efforts would clearly be colored by unconscious bias as a result of their own gender. But women will exhibit biases of their own, and their motives can be self-serving as well.
This post took an interesting turn–I had thought that you were going to give us some of the ins-and-outs of the relationships between attraction and gender inequality, but instead you branched into the larger question of the place that men might have in feminist movements, really. In effect, when your friend asked if being attracted to men who are larger than her makes her less of a feminist, your response is that it’s not your place to make such a judgment.
I like the tenor of that, but I’d also say that it doesn’t mean you can’t chime in on the question; chiming in has more of a tone of putting for possibilities, rather than speaking in absolutes and the like. I think that your ideas about how men might guide their own sexual desires sort of informs what your opinion about women doing the same might be about, but you’re also explicitly saying that such a view is really up to women to figure out/comment on, which seems sound to me.
On another note, cries of a ‘double standard’ like The Chief makes totally crack me up, given that they ignore facts about the world that you are going out of your way to point out, Hugo (i.e. power relationships between men and women in various cultures affect how we ought to prescribe judgments). If only the world were as simple as The Chief would like it to be, we’d all have all of this worked out already!
Look, it’s not a double standard to say that the message needs to be delivered by the right messenger! Ultimately, we bestow more credibility on those who are like us than on those who aren’t; men are often more likely to listen to other men than to women and vice versa.
It’s not my place to tell Snoop Dogg he can’t use the word “nigga”; it is my place to tell another white man not to say “nigger.” Who I am, and who I am speaking to, has everything to do with how what I say will be received. We all have our biases indeed, but it is wise to begin with the logs in our own eyes before pointing out the specks in the eyes of others.
Chief, I have no interest in shock therapy. Rather, I am interested in asking people to think critically about what it is that they consider arousing,and to ask themselves honestly about what is at the seed level of that arousal. Too often, it is media-imposed cultural ideals that can be overcome by sheer hard work of redirecting energy and thoughts.
And I sure as hell can’t imagine finding Woody Allen attractive, not for his age or his body but for his very identity. And he’s about as far from a feminist ideal in his private life as I can possibly imagine.
One of the problems here is a false dichotomy between “talking people out of” their preferences (not gonna happen) and not examining those preferences at all.
I think it’s possible to separate out “nice guy” calls for examination (i.e., “if you’re not attracted to me there’s something wrong with you and you need to change”) from calls for examination that are less self-interested. It’s not about telling people what they “ought” to want so much as exploring why they want the things they do (and not the things they don’t). And I think that the latter is necessary, and not inappropriate coming from men to women (or vice versa), as long as entitlement is off the table.
Hugo: Ultimately, we bestow more credibility on those who are like us than on those who aren’t; men are often more likely to listen to other men than to women and vice versa.
True enough. And I’d generally agree with the notion that women should have the first and foremost say in the debate about women’s lives. But I can’t agree that men would best have no say in it, because any group homogenous along those sorts of lines (gender, ethnicity, class, whatever) is likely going to reflect some biases - biases that get more magnified and ingrained when unchecked. Should women have no say in the effort to shape men’s attitudes? I wouldn’t agree with that, because I would scoff at the notion that men are somehow capable of total objectivity about their own lives and thought processes, while women’s view of the same will always be imperfect.
By the way: your argument that Lisa was yielding to social conditioning about gender roles may indeed have been self-serving, but was it wrong? In your story, she didn’t contradict you.
There, I took men to task for being overly concerned with how the weight gain of their female partners would reflect upon their status as men.
I find this to be highly puzzling; why would my partner’s weight reflect on my masculinity?
I mean, I can understand being concerned about what weight gain means for my partner’s health, and I can understand finding my partner less attractive after a weight gain … but that’s not what you’re talking about. :)
When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one.
I think you may need to modify this to say “When straight men …”; it’s hard for me to imagine that a gay man’s motivation for holding a woman accountable is self-serving … unless you want to argue that there is an element of being self-serving to all attempts to hold others accountable, which I think is not the argument you are trying to make.
(Although there’s something to be said for that argument: if I am holding others accountable, is it not because I can gain something thereby?)
Jeff -
And I think that the latter is necessary, and not inappropriate coming from men to women (or vice versa), as long as entitlement is off the table.
Part of the problem is that entitlement is really hard to get off the table. To completely abuse the metaphor: entitlement isn’t a dish or the big, awkward, ugly centrepiece. Entitlement can be the tablecloth, or even the stain in the table itself.
I do like your distinction, though I think we should push it further. So I want to suggest that we should distinguish between calls to reach a certain conclusion — `follow my reasoning and conclude X’ — with calls to compare the ways we think about different things — `how does your attitude towards Y compare with what you think after reading Andrea Dworkin?’ To use some Platonic terminology, one is a call to eristic — where the goal is for one side to win — and the other is a call to dialectic — where the goal is for both sides to get a little bit closer to truth (whatever truth may be in this postmodern age of ours).
Your conversation with Lisa was cringe-worthy, no doubt. A player in feminist clothing. So it is with being young, I s’pose.
But although I think in that particular situation you were deeply out of line, it’s only *because* of your personal interest. You had serious conflict of interest, which made the discussion “unethical”, if you’d like - you needed to recuse yourself from the discussion.
However, I think it’s fair to bring those topics up with other women you’re not trying to sleep with. Your female family members, students in your class, etc. You don’t need to recuse yourself if there’s no conflict of interest - and at 6′1″, you won’t be dismissed as having a chip on your shoulder.
I think it’s true that women generally experience non-specific preference for men taller than they are: but I have a number of examples in which women swore this was the case and then went on to fall in love with men their height or shorter. I have found that “type” is pretty flexible, once love gets involved. My husband wasn’t my “type” when I met him, but he sure is now.
My husband is bigger than I am (taller and broader), and I found myself feeling “feminine” when we first started going out, and yes, that was a bit of an aphrodisiac. In the short term, at least: then it started interfering for me. The issue I personally had to struggle with is the idea that I must feel “feminine” to be entitled to my sexuality. My sexuality isn’t particularly feminine - nor manly, for that matter - it’s sort of messier than either of those stereotypes. I had to challenge the need to feel “feminine” in order to have my sexuality be what it was. Or, I suppose (being a woman), feminine had to conform to me rather than me to it.
Which means that now I find myself more able to be attracted to shorter/same height men. Interesting?
A lot depends on a women’s experience. Growing up with an abusive father and in a violent L.A. neighborhood, I made a conscious effort to date small men; I thought that would be safer. I gave that up when a) I was almost raped by 5′3″ former longshorman (he finally understood kicking, and screaming for help as no before anything other than ripped clothing happened) and b) I realized even a 5′4″, 115 lb man was stronger than me (he could lift more than I could). But please explain to me why 6 footers always find the little women irrestible. I had 5′10″ female roommates and I felt terrible when the 6′ guys would approach me at a school event and ignore my taller friends???
I’m guessing men are more attracted to women who are shorter than they are for the same reason women are attracted to tall men - it accentuates the differences, making the partner seem more feminine and the man more masculine. All of our cultural expectations around men being strong, protective, or dangerous, etc., are enhanced by a size differential.
My own personal experience is that I’m not limited in terms of what height of man I can like, but I do experience tall and short men a bit differently. But I can appreciate it either way (kind of like a hairy chest or a smooth chest - whichever you get, you can like).
But I’ve been driven to reject “femininity” since early childhood, so I’m probably not entirely representative, though even feminists are not immune to the dominant patriarchal culture (duh), and I tend to respond to most of the usual crap in most of the usual crappy ways ;-)
Noumena: This is true. Basically my rule of thumb is that if I’m discussing these kinds of preferences with someone, I’ve declared them “off limits” - and I probably won’t raise the topic at all if the preferences have been expressed with respect to me. Even then, I have problems - it’s a lot easier to take someone to task for being unwilling to consider someone who’s like me than it is to discuss being biased against a group I’ll never be a part of.
I also think this sort of examination should be two-way. It doesn’t make sense to ask someone else to explore their possible prejudices while deciding that my own are “just the way I am” and not worthy of delving into.
Hugo–”Too often, it is media-imposed cultural ideals that can be overcome by sheer hard work of redirecting energy and thoughts.”
“Hard work?” Last time I checked, dating was supposed to be fun. I still fail to see why we should. And again, I’d like somebody to explain why men particularly should be expected to do all this “hard work” and broaden their body type preferences just so heavy women will have somebody to date. Try to suggest that heavy women should instead lose the weight to attract a guy and you’ll get smacked with a carton of Ding Dongs…..
To be honest, Hugo, I think you’re off base.
Either you have wisdom and a message to deliver, or you don’t. The fact that you share skin tone or genital shape with the recipient of the wisdom, or not, is immaterial.
I do agree that if you’re trying to get into someone’s pants, then you can’t ethically be giving them advice about the kinds of people they should be having relationships with.
But if you don’t have the stones to tell a black man that he shouldn’t say nigger, then you’ve got no right to come around and tell me that, either. If it’s wrong for him and it’s wrong for me, and you know this and want to share your wisdom and be a guiding person in the world, then step up and share your wisdom. If you strongly believe that people should adhere to a certain sexual behavioral standard, then say so, to anyone who you see not adhering to the standard.
Or hush up and mind your own damn business. One or the other, though.
Posts like these aren’t just wrong, they are dangerous. Unlike others, I am not surprised by your combination of Christianity and Feminism: Both ideologies seem convinced that one’s personal appetites are deeply moral decisions. As Lawrence Olivier said in Spartacus, “These are not questions of morality, these are questions of appetite.”
I like Asian girls. Is this because of a post-colonial orientalist construction of a fetishized “other”? Probably. Do I give a s**t? Not really. Constantly worrying about the moral values of aesthetic or sexual choices is a recipe for neurosis. As long as feminists are worrying about whether their fantasies are politically appropriate, they are not fighting the power.
While we’re on the subject, though, I don’t like black girls. Does that make me a racist?
The Chief: one reason why it’s worthwhile to examine your preferences is that you tend to come out of it with a better idea of what it is you actually want, which can make relationships a lot more satisfying.
I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I regret how long it took me to figure out what I wanted in a partner, and how much time I wasted chasing/pining after the homecoming queen in high school (for homosocial reasons as much as attraction - I saw dating a popular person as a ticket to social acceptance) rather than spending time with people who would have made me far happier.
More cynically, another advantage is that when your preferences are your own rather than what society has told you they should be, there’s a lot less competition - you’re not chasing after the same tiny subset of women that every other guy is.
And again, I’d like somebody to explain why men particularly should be expected to do all this “hard work” and broaden their body type preferences just so heavy women will have somebody to date. Try to suggest that heavy women should instead lose the weight to attract a guy and you’ll get smacked with a carton of Ding Dongs…
But Chief, that kind of whining isn’t limited to women. There’s practically a whole web community dedicated to whining about how women don’t like shallow chested, broke, dweebs. Google “ladder theory” to see what I mean.
OK, let’s try this then:
I’m not attracted to girls who are too skinny, probably because it looks unhealthy. I’m not attracted to girls who are too fat, probably because it looks unhealthy and represents a lack of self discipline. I’m not attracted to girls who are extremely short (we’re talking “mini-me” short here) probably because it would be too jarring, feel too much like I was with a child. I’m not attracted to girls who are bald probably because I like running my fingers through a woman’s hair.
There. All done. Didn’t have to pay any money, take a class, lie on a therapist’s couch. More importantly I don’t have to listen to somebody try to tell me I should be ashamed because I like what I like. Most imporantly of all I don’t have to live in a neurotic state of constant self-second guessing as Joe Smith describes.
Actually, I think the Ladder Theory is brilliant. Most men I’ve known have always been pretty honest about the fact that it’s mostly about looks for them. The Ladder Theory forces women to be honest about the fact that it’s mostly about money for them.
Oh, and whining is one thing. Being attacked and called shallow for having a personal preference is a different matter altogether.
And I sure as hell can’t imagine finding Woody Allen attractive, not for his age or his body but for his very identity.
Oh, I can imagine finding Woody Allen attractive easily enough: he’s smart and funny and rich. It’s no surprise to me that he can find women who find him attractive (not that I’m personally one of them - being able to understand how someone else could find a particular man sexy is a very different thing from actually finding that man sexy yourself).
But if you don’t have the stones to tell a black man that he shouldn’t say nigger, then you’ve got no right to come around and tell me that, either.
I can’t believe this. It has nothing to do with stones; nigger doesn’t mean remotely the same thing coming out of a black man’s mouth as it does coming out of a white man’s mouth. And I darn well will tell any white person who uses the word where he can put it.
So you have different standards for black men?
On the flip side, I’m a very short woman (barely scraping five feet). Generally, I prefer to date someone who’s closer to my own height, because I don’t like feeling doll-sized. I’m not going to get any taller, and yes, I’m sensitive about my height (though not as much so as I used to be, thankfully). My sensitivity may be a part of why I prefer to date guys closer to my height - but I don’t think that makes my preference invalid or bad, or is a sufficient reason why I should reexamine it and open myself up to dating tall guys. Wanting to feel comfortable with who I date is perfectly legitimate; and a tall woman wanting to feel comfortable with who she dates is, too.
I get a lot of what you’re saying (or what I think you’re trying to say) here. It’s problematic when your society damages your self-esteem, and that damanged self-esteem can play a large part in who you do or do not perfer to date. But at the same time, I still get an, er…icky feeling from your post that you’re urging women to have better self-esteem, and thus be willing to consider dating more guys who they might not otherwise! Which, intended or not, still comes across as, “‘Cause, hey, one of those guys might be me (or someone who looks like me).” –I don’t think you intend this at all, given your experience and comments, but it’s still how it reads to me.
The goal shouldn’t be healing self-esteem so tall women can feel comfortable dating short guys (and vice versa), it should be healing self-esteem so tall (and short, and overweight, and underweight, and etc) women (and men) can be comfortable, period.
I suppose you knew this post would bring them out of the woodwork, but I think it’s pretty much spot-on. The only exceptions I could imagine are, of course, that there are particular situations in which the nature of the friendship between men and women might make this sort of challenging OK. I have a good friend who can’t bring herself to date men smaller than her–not because she doesn’t find them attractive but because the thought physical intimacy with someone smaller than her fills her with anxiety. I’ve challenged her on this a fair amount over the years, in support of her challenging herself in that way. The combination of the nature of friendship (close, but with no meaningful possibility of intimacy) and her own openness toward being challenged make this, to my mind, an exception to Hugo’s generally sound rule.
First, congratulations on your new blog! It looks great and I look forward to exploring it.
I wanted to address the first half of this post. All my girlfriends felt as your 5’8” friend did. I admit I felt – and still feel – the same way. There is something to be said for height and size differences and how they can accentuate difference and increase a woman’s sense of feeling feminine and a man’s sense of feeling masculine. There is nothing wrong with feeling feminine, or feeling female; femininity does not have to be equated with weakness. Even wanting to feel protected does not have to be equated with weakness. Even the strong want to feel protected.
While I think it’s admirable to think critically about one’s sexual preferences, I don’t think it’s good to get too caught up in it, nor do I think it’s a good idea of try to force one’s sexual preferences through the sieve of gender theory.
Is it only OK for a feminist woman to play the role of the dominatrix in BDSM-tinged relationships? Does she somehow lose her feminist credentials if she plays the submissive? Should we consider male feminists not so feminist if they find themselves drawn to the dominant role in such relationships? I realize the intersection of sexual and social dynamics I describe are a tad bit different from the topic of women who prefer big guys, but if you think about it, they share similarities. In each case, there is a sexual preference. We don’t necessarily know how or why these tendencies came about, but well, there they are. So what do we do with these tendencies if they don’t happen to adhere to our ideas about gender construct and relations?
Sexuality and one’s sexual preferences don’t always comply with one’s ideas about gender, society, and politics. While I do think humans are flexible and can learn to take on new sexual preferences, kinks, or whatever, I think everyone has core sexual tendencies, and it is upon those tendencies that each of us builds our sexual profile, so to speak. (I’m no psychologist; I speak only as a regular individual.) Forcing those tendencies – whether innate or socially constructed — to conform to some kind of feminist or other ideals only creates sexually frustrated individuals, who in my opinion, are not the happiest people in the world and who eventually find other (not always healthy) ways to channel their sexual energies.
IMHO, people should be free to be drawn to whoever they are drawn to and pursue their sexual desires as they want – not as they think they should want – provided all involved parties are consenting and old enough and of sound mind to consent.
BTW, I’m glad your friend Lisa set you straight. :) Thanks for sharing the anecdote. Hilarious and insightful.
So you have different standards for black men?
Right. If a white man cheated on me, I’d give him the boot, and if a black man cheated on me, I’d be all over myself to make excuses for him. Not.
Words have meaning in context. I take that context into account in interpreting the meaning of the word. It has nothing to do with having some sort of globally different racial standard where I let black people off the hook. It has to do with recognizing the reality of how people use words.
This post caught my attention.
I’m a 5′10″ female athlete, and probably built much like Lisa — very solid, broad shouldered and muscular. There’s not much in the way of fat on me, but I am definitely a big girl, both stronger and larger than most guys. And so, without examining it too closely, I always assumed I’d need a “bigger” guy, though the preference wasn’t so much due to innate attraction. It was created mostly out of what I perceived to be social expectations, and then further confirmed by an ill-fated crush that ended in the guy, who was scarcely and inch shorter than me, admitting he found my height off putting. That stung, and convinced me I needed to be looking for taller partners.
Six months ago, I met a boy. Though we immediately clicked as friends, the thought of it being anything more quite literally never occured to me, because at 5′5″ he was a good five inches shorter than me. Luckily for me, he worked up the courage to make it clear his interest wasn’t just in friendship, and we proceeded to fall madly in love.
I’d say it’s been happily ever after, but though I hate to admit it even to myself, I haven’t always been able to treat the height differential as a non-issue. Not in terms of physical attraction, because god knows I couldn’t be more attracted to the guy, but because seeing a girl with a much shorter guy seems to warrant a lot of attention from others. (More uncomfortably, when out together, he’s often assumed to be merely a male friend, leading guys to mistakenly hit on me.) And in the female equivalent of homosociality, female friends of mine have often make comments, sometimes in concern or confusion and sometimes teasingly, over why on earth I’d choose a guy so much shorter than me.
In the long run, I don’t think it’s going to be much of an issue — being giddily in love makes it easy to not give a damn about a little thing like height. But I wish I could say I never think about it at all, and that’s not true. Yet.
Hugo wrote:
Last time I checked, dating was supposed to be fun…And again, I’d like somebody to explain why men particularly should be expected to do all this “hard work” and broaden their body type preferences just so heavy women will have somebody to date.
Someone already answered this, but the reason doesn’t have to be to give heavy women someone to date. If you can broaden your preferences, you will have a bigger “pool” to draw from, and a greater likelihood of finding a compatible person. But it is also an ethical issue. To the extent that our own preferences support oppression, we have a duty to ignore or work around them. (I know you don’t agree that the feminine ideal supports oppression, Hugo, but I do think that it does.)
Joe Smith wrote:
While we’re on the subject, though, I don’t like black girls. Does that make me a racist?
Yep. That’s not to say you bear moral responsibility for the preference itself (we have all been shaped by our environment in ways we can’t fully control), but it is a racist preference.
The Ladder Theory forces women to be honest about the fact that it’s mostly about money for them.
So women are all gold-digging bitches, and if they say otherwise they’re lying, gold-digging bitches? Is it hard to type with that brick on your shoulder?
Hugo, you ask the wrong question. Feminism isn’t about challenging women on whether it’s OK for them to like certain things; it’s about challenging women (i.e. getting women to think about, and decide for themselves) why they like those things.
Your friend, for example, sounds to me less like somebody with a height fetish and more about somebody who has highly eroticized ‘difference’. But I would hardly scold her that she shouldn’t feel that way.
“So women are all gold-digging bitches, and if they say otherwise they’re lying, gold-digging bitches? Is it hard to type with that brick on your shoulder?”
Mythago, how many heterosexual couples do you know where the woman made more money than the man when they started dating? I’m not necessarily talking about later in the relationship, when the winds of fortune can change (he may lose his job, she may get a promotion). I’m talking about the beginning. How many couples do you know where she has (or at least had) more assets than him? You may know of a few where they started out on a more or less even keel, but how many do you know of where he was the more financially disadvantaged of the two? Can you honestly say even 10 percent?
Or, let’s try this. I’ve skimmed your blog (which I like, FWIW) and have gleaned that you’re either a lawyer or a paralegal (sorry, I haven’t had the time to really go through it and determine which). Any comparitively young female lawyers in your office? And if so, are any seriously interested in dating the waiter or barista at their favorite cafe? I’m not talking about hooking up with the cute waiter–I’m talking about making a serious, long term commitment to a waiter, a guy who presumably makes considerably less money than they do?
I wouldn’t necessarily use the phrase “gold digging bitches.” I will say that most women are interested in the guy who can protect the family unit (this used to translate into the guy who could most accurately throw the spear at the mastodon, it now translates into the biggest paycheck) whether they will admit it or not. Guys, in the meantime, are mostly interested in young, fertile women with the accompanying physical characteristics. Sorry, we’re just wired that way. Some can overcome this, but not everybody. Nor is everybody all that interested in even trying.
Tam, you’re ascribing the wrong things to me; you’re responding to The Chief, whose views and mine are nearly diametrically opposed. What he sees as hardwiring, I see as rewritable software.
I think Joe and The Chief have failed to realise that Ladder Theory was originally meant to be satire.
Mythago, I really, really like this: `Feminism isn’t about challenging women on whether it’s OK for them to like certain things; it’s about challenging women why they like those things.’ I would add that feminism is about challenging men just as much as women, except then it wouldn’t sound quite so pithy.
Chief: so not only are women lying gold-diggers, but you’re going to prove it by anedote? This gets better and better.
I’m not talking about hooking up with the cute waiter–I’m talking about making a serious, long term commitment to a waiter, a guy who presumably makes considerably less money than they do?
Actually, yeah. Sorry.
It’s comforting to believe we’re all merely hard-wired (though women immorally so; chasing young hotties apparently being ‘natural’ while chasing money is selfish and greedy), because we can avoid thinking about why people make their choices; we can simply shout “Biology!” and go back to our Jean Auel porn.
In response to the Chief’s comment, I know quite a few women earn more than the men they date or marry. I, my sister-in-law, and several of my good friends fall in that category.
As for professional women wanting to date cute waiters, barista, etc., why yes, a friend of mine who is a journalist dated a guy who worked at a café. Another friend of mine, a lawyer, dated a guy who worked in a lower level, less-paying job. Another friend, a doctor, married a guy who earned less.
I won’t say all women are OK dating men who earn less than they do, but I also won’t say all women require men to earn more than they do either. Different women have different criteria. And sometimes (not always), women who are self supporting want more than just money from a man. They can get the money by themselves, thank you very much. Some women have been known to select men for assets other than money: similar values, similar interests, companionship, religious compatibility, admiration of his spirituality and relationship w/God, the seeming appearance of good genes, perceived potential as a good father, earth-shattering sex, etc.
As for men who are “mostly interested in young, fertile women with the accompanying physical characteristics,” I would recommend they alter their approach if fertility is the primary concern. In high school and college, I knew a number of women who had very problematic menstrual cycles and consequently, had infertility issues right from their early 20s when they tried to conceive. They looked attractive, healthy, and young, but they were not fertile. A better way to gauge fertility would be to seek out single women of standard child-bearing age who previously have given birth to healthy children. Last time I checked though, single moms weren’t exactly high on most men’s list of potential dates.
Mythago-”we can simply shout “Biology!” and go back to our Jean Auel porn.”
JEAN AUEL WROTE PORN?!? Holy crap, I’ve been missing out! Sigh. And I so loved Racquel Welch’s fur bikini in “One Million Years B.C.” too! ;)
Seriously, I defy anybody to find where I have used the terms “selfish” or “greedy” prior to this point in this thread (or the term “gold digging whores” before Mythago brought it up). As far as I’m concerned, it’s neither moral or immoral–it’s just the way we are. Hell, I’ll even go far as to say there’s nothing wrong with a woman assessing a guy’s moneymaking capabilities if she wants to have a baby with him. He should be both able and willing to contribute financially. I work with single mothers to a certain degree (I’m a child support worker), and believe me, I’d love it if some of our gals would set their sights a little higher than the unemployable knuckle draggers we keep seeing.
And Mythago, Sidney, it sounds like you know of some women who seriously date or marry less wealthy guys. Great, but again I’ll ask–what’s the percentage? We can trade anecdotes all day, so I’ll just say that if it even gets close to 50%, you live in a far, far different world than I do.
I’m not sure the “hard wired” explanation fits here. Remember, that until fairly recently, women were entirely financially Dependant on men. Sure there was your odd schoolteacher or secretary, but for the most part the career track for a woman was wife or prostitute. Given that, seeking out a rich man has lest to do with genetic memories of mastodon spearing, and more to do with simple common sense. I suspect rich woman/poor man will be more common as society progresses (at least I hope so!)
Chief, you live in a different world than I do. That’s fine.
Yep. That’s not to say you bear moral responsibility for the preference itself (we have all been shaped by our environment in ways we can’t fully control), but it is a racist preference.
Fair enough. But clearly I can’t do anything about it. My preferences were shaped by a racist society. To worry about it is nothing but hairshirt-wearing.
Chief, you implied that women are both dishonest and ‘mostly about money’; if you meant the latter to be neutral, that was sure news to everyone else.
We can trade anecdotes all day
And we still wouldn’t have any data. You’ve created an unfalsifiable premise, you see: we don’t know such women, and if we do, they aren’t 50%; and if we do know 50%, then we’re just in a weird little minority from another planet. QED.
But let’s turn it around: how many men do you know who would happily date, or marry, women who made a lot more money than they did, and were in a higher socioeconomic class? I’m not talking about guys who talk about it, but guys who actually do so, and are OK with it. (If you want to keep playing anecdotes, I assure you that not every guy who SAYS he would love to be ‘kept’ or have the bills paid really digs giving up the Power of the Wallet as much as he pretends he does.) Women can’t marry down if men won’t marry up, and vice versa.
It’s comforting to believe we’re all merely hard-wired (though women immorally so; chasing young hotties apparently being ‘natural’ while chasing money is selfish and greedy),
You’re putting a lot of words in people’s mouths. I don’t think anybody used those words. Actually I think the point of ladder theory is not to accuse women of being immoral, rather to convince beta males that they are the victim of societal/biological circumstance, and that they should stop pretending/wishing that the world was otherwise. (This does not constitute an endorsement of Ladder theory, (although it is an interesting read.))
I’m not talking about guys who talk about it, but guys who actually do so, and are OK with it.
Thats a good and an important distinction. I am aware of several “starving artist”/”Wealthy patron” type releationships. There is a lot of social stigma against such relationships (witness Hugo’s screed against starving poets).
A female professor I know is married to a pizza deliver driver. A friend of mine who is making six figures as a trial lawyer picked up a bartender about a year ago. They’ve been living together for the last 6 months. I know of several other female professors whose husbands are HS teachers; it’s quite likely they are making more money. My aunt, who has a successful chiropractic practice, recently married a carpenter. A few years back, as a lowly grad student, I dated someone making three times my stipend for a while. Since your theory is literally that we’re hardwired this way, except when we’re not, it’s unfalsifable, so I don’t expect any number of anecdotes to convince you of anything. Still, you might consider the possibility that the gender attitudes of your social, familial, and professional circles might not be universal exemplars of human behavior.
Mythago-”But let’s turn it around: how many men do you know who would happily date, or marry, women who made a lot more money than they did, and were in a higher socioeconomic class?”
I honestly don’t know, because most of my friends don’t talk about single women in those terms. The conversation usually revolves around some variant of “how hot is she,” not “how wealthy is she.” I’ll answer for myself and say that I wouldn’t mind dating a wealthier woman. I just started dating again in the middle of last summer and forgot just how expensive it is when you’re always the one expected to pick up the tab.
Nice new digs, Hugo. I’ll ave to bring a bottle of Scotch for the housewarming.
I’m 7′ tall, and about 300 pounds, give or take a few. I have to tell you, as often as not Isome of the tall women I have dated have felt threatened by me, being used to being the larger partner in a relationship. Some, true, are tickled to death, but….
How many couples do you know where she has (or at least had) more assets than him? You may know of a few where they started out on a more or less even keel
Actually, that “even keel” would be where most of the couples I’ve known started out. After kids, the modest starting difference in incomes turns into a much larger gulf. And I’ve known a significant minority where the man made much more right from the start, and a smaller minority where the woman made much more right from the start. Obviously other people’s mileage may vary.
I honestly don’t know, because most of my friends don’t talk about single women in those terms. The conversation usually revolves around some variant of “how hot is she,” not “how wealthy is she.”
That’s generally true of single women’s conversation, as well. What’s maybe different is that a minority of my single female friends were very blunt about the attraction of wealth, for them; I haven’t encountered the same open pursuit of money among my male friends. But all the same, the talk about the relative hotness of various guys far outpaces the talk about how much they make - women aren’t exactly uninterested in the shape of a guy’s body.
Just reread this, and I have a point unrelated to what I or anybody else has said so far: Hugo, you tell us that “she had doubts about our chances together: ‘I really like big guys’, she said; ‘I’m a tall strong girl and I like being with a man who makes me feel petite and feminine.’”
She actually said THAT to you? Was she the single most self-centered, insensitive witch on the planet? I mean, I’ve occasionally gotten interest from women who aren’t my physical type and I’ll at least try to apply a little tact when I tell them we won’t be dating. I’ll even outright lie and tell them I’m with somebody else or taking a break from dating before I tell them “sorry, I like skinnier gals.” Can you imagine how a man would be castigated for that sort of douchebag bluntness?
Chief, Lisa was my friend as well as a gal I had a mammoth crush upon; she was being blunt but not cruel. That was her style, and in the context of our relationship, it was appreciated.
The epistemic gulf between those whose understanding of sexuality is one that sees our desires and our wants as under our control and those who see them as written too deeply on our hard drives to be mastered is a vast one, ain’t it?
Vast to put it mildly. I’ve hiked the Grand Canyon, this is wider. Still, never a dull conversation around here, and that’s to your credit. Gonz, pass the rotgut…
how many heterosexual couples do you know where the woman made more money than the man when they started dating?
Ooo, my turn for silly anecdote sharing. It’s actually really, really easy to get lots of examples of straight, middle class couples of young professionals where she supports him financially. Just look through any post-baccalaureate program in the country, whether law school, med school, Ph.D or MFA programs. And, among us over-educated types, it’s not at all uncommon for her to be a lawyer, doctor, or corporate ladder-climber while he’s pursuing a career in the humanities or arts* — cases where everyone obviously expects her to always make much, much more than him.
Another good example is my Director of Graduate Studies, who’s married to a house inspector.
Are we up to 50% yet? No-one ever said what population we wanted 50% of.
* I don’t mean starving artists. The two prototypes I have in mind are creative writing teachers and professors dancers.
I understand the logic of each gender practicing self-examination of its reasons for attraction–let men judge men and women judge women.
The problem with that is I’m not able to reach a conclusion about men who prefer shorter women without knowing what feminist women think of women who prefer taller men. I mean, if I had already decided that this preference (one that I don’t think I have myself) was morally wrong, then I wouldn’t care about the intra-women squabble, but given that any physical attraction is going to involve discriminating against certain physical characteristics, I simply have no moral calculus I could use to judge my own or anyone else’s attraction other than by metaphor to a symmetric situation.
without knowing what feminist women think of women who prefer taller men
And again, the issue is not “what” but “why”.
All this business about men not having any right to hold women accountable (seemingly, for anything) is merely a double standard, essentially rooted in female supremacism. Hugo seems to have no problem whatsoever with female demands that men engage in or refrain from engaging in certain behaviors. It will work both ways. MRAs insist upon it.
More anecdotes…
My husband was unemployed when I first met him. I lent him money within the first month of our relationship.
Depends what you’re looking for. I chose someone based on respect, chemistry, and compatability. Of course, I have the knowledge that I can earn my own keep, freeing me up to actually, you know, choose someone based on something other than his wallet.
Funny; I went for a date when I was about 22 with an older man with lots of money. I didn’t realize it was a date until I got there. He wouldn’t shut up about the amount of money he had; then he complained that he was having a dry spell, and when he did find a woman she just loved the size of his wallet. Given that he was “pitching” himself like a marketer selling investment real estate, I told him that that didn’t much surprise me. Then he asked me if I’d sleep with him. Gargh. I explained no, that I didn’t find him attractive. To which he said, “Women aren’t worried about physical attractiveness. I’m taller than you, I have money, I have my hair.”
Obviously the pitch wasn’t working for him with the younger set. You know. The ones who are allowed to have things like jobs and educations and brains and orgasms.
If men weren’t so concerned with repeatedly presenting facts about their own financial security/ wealth, women probably wouldn’t care so much about it. I tune out immediately when a guy begins talking about how much money he makes. In fact, I’d prefer to date a guy who didn’t make very much money at all or had less of an education than I do. I suppose that my willingness to “marry down” financially is a way to prove that women aren’t golddiggers and that gender roles can be reversed without the world ending… I’m so self-sacrificing!
“But let’s turn it around: how many men do you know who would happily date, or marry, women who made a lot more money than they did, and were in a higher socioeconomic class?”
I have.
“Women can’t marry down if men won’t marry up, and vice versa.” —Mythago
The question is why many women REFUSE to marry down. Yes, there are exceptions, but the exceptions are not exactly making a significant dent in the trend, are they?
Wow, in the boys-versus-girls dispute, the girls clearly win here 1:0.
Usually, with regard to “marrying up” on Internet message boards, the Girl Team vaguely mentions that some women somewhere may marry up, but they themselves would certainly never think about it, nor would any of their upstanding friends.
Here, we get a kind of parallel universe where female professors marry male pizza-delivery drivers and the like. Like, always, not even sometimes. There is no sign of marrying up anywhere.
Wendy McElroy provided some figures once about the degree to which women marry up. Other information is available, although I tend rely on my own eyes, because I don’t trust sociological “studies” for the most part (everyone has their own agenda).
Anyway, congratulations on the big victory for the Girl Team.
the Girl Team vaguely mentions that some women somewhere may marry up,
Vaguely? I’ve said that I’ve heard women talk openly about wanting a guy, in part, for his money. “I can fall in love with a millionaire just as easily as a poor man,” are the words I remember from one friend. But I’ve also heard women talk openly about the appeal of a guy’s height, or the state of his body hair, or his sexual technique, or his brain, or his sense of humor, and, on the whole, for women who can actually make their own money, the size of a guy’s wallet isn’t the be all and end all. It doesn’t necessarily outweigh the size of his other attributes (whichever ones a woman may happen to prefer). How a thread about women (some of them) liking to be held by a big, strong man turned into a thread about how women (apparently nearly all of them) don’t care nearly so much about cuteness as they do about money is beyond me.
although I tend rely on my own eyes, because I don’t trust sociological “studies” for the most part
I’d tend to rely more on sociological studies more than my own eyes, since my own eyes may be observing a skewed sample. Provided, of course, that the sociological studies are peer reviewed and methodologically sound, and bearing in mind that sometimes you need to look at multiple studies to draw a conclusion. To the best of my knowledge, sociological studies indicate that most people (men as well as women) tend to seek partners within their own socioeconomic class, rather than ones much below that class, but that women still marry “up” more often than men.
The mistake people then make in analyzing this data is to take any difference at all between men and women, on average, and look only at the difference, rather than the overlap. So that, if women are, on average, more likely to be drawn to wealth than men, that means that women are all about money, and if men, on average, make appearance a bigger factor, that means that women care very little about how hot looking a guy is or how good he is in bed. In fact, in a world where most people can make their own money, most people, women as well as men, will want a lot of features other than money in their partners.
I find the body size issue problematic - as discussed by others. In my experience men (I’m a man) often focus heavily upon the body shape/size of a potential partner, while they aren’t faintly close to their own standards.
While I think it superficial, I can understand the “buff” man wanting a female partner who is similar in her body shape. I can’t understand the “paunchy man” who insists that his partners be “thin and attractive”. Sexist attitudes seem to support this - stereotype where money, age differences or simply the “shortage of available men” make this work for many men.
In some cases I think that men and women are visual, but in different ways. We men may look at a woman’s breasts or her face or other parts of her body and judge her by whatever. Women’s visual ties to men seem different often. I’m not sure I can accurately describe them.
With my partner - there is a shame - about her body size (she’s not thin) - which I think relates to sexism as well as to how her father was abusive towards her. I think that us men having shame about our bodies often relates more commonly to perceiving ourselves as short (”The Napolean Complex”) or otherwise as “not well endowed”.
Thanks!
‘I can’t understand the “paunchy man” who insists that his partners be “thin and attractive”.’
Regardless of finance, this is true. Likely because men aren’t judged on their looks nearly as often as women are/ have been for decades. A woman who is fat is worthless, lazy, stupid. A man who is fat (not “paunchy”, which seems to unilaterally be applied to men and avoids labelling men as “fat”) just “let himself go.” But he’s still the same guy, and apparently more worthy of love than a woman with a similar body. Until the same type of social pressure is levied upon men to look/ be perfect (which is slowly happening in recent years) things won’t change. Increasing rates of anorexia and bulimia in men attest to this gradual shift. I guess soon we may all be objectified equally…
Looking at my circle of friends, who tend towards the college-educated set (though not always,) there’s a good ~25% chunk who started out or are still in the point where she makes more than he. (Myself and my fiancee included.) There’s another ~40-60 chunk where they started out or are still at about equal sharing of resources. Which leaves the rest at he making more than she.
But, as Lynn says, this is all anectdotal and off-the-cuff; it’s not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already think that marriage patterns and partner choices aren’t undergoing generational shifts from what they have been.
Hugo, how is using the rhetoric of “gender justice” to try and make it with a woman any more dishonest and self-serving than when women/feminists use the rhetoric of “gender justice” to gain perks, more privilege, etc., than women already have had for decades now? Seems to me that you’re just behaving like a good “pro-feminist male” by aping the behavior of feminist women. And further, it sounds to me like Lisa was just PO-ed and jealous that you stole the feminist’s thunder by trying to use it to your advantage the way feminists have been doing so for decades. They seem to just hate it when the Ganders help themselves to what the Geese have been gorging on, but oh well, equality can be a drag.
You also said: ” But I am not willing to make the same demands on women.
Is it because I think women ought to be held to a lesser standard? Of course not.”
Um, well, of course yes. You advocate double-standards for men and women – and more strict, Draconian standards for men – every chance you get. Sheesh, do you really have such a low opinion of us that you think we don’t remember what you’ve written?
And I love this one: ” Too many women have been told too often what to do by too many men.”
Heh - pot, meet kettle.
Tam wrote: ” If you can broaden your preferences, you will have a bigger “pool” to draw from, and a greater likelihood of finding a compatible person. But it is also an ethical issue. To the extent that our own preferences support oppression, we have a duty to ignore or work around them. (I know you don’t agree that the feminine ideal supports oppression, Hugo, but I do think that it does.)”
What a pile of horse manure. “Oppression?” Oh please, spare me. Since when is exercising free-will vis-à-vis personal preferences of romantic partners “oppression?” It’s just as bad to try to pin this on women as it is to try to do so with men.
The term “oppression” is so hackneyed, abused and watered-down by feminists that IMO it has no meaning anymore in these conversations.
Noumena said: ” Mythago, I really, really like this: `Feminism isn’t about challenging women on whether it’s OK for them to like certain things; it’s about challenging women why they like those things.’ I would add that feminism is about challenging men just as much as women, except then it wouldn’t sound quite so pithy.”
So let’s see if I’ve got this right: On the one hand, feminism is about challenging men just as much as women, and at the same time (according to Hugo) men have no right to challenge women on these issues (see above)? Right. In other words, to the men in the audience: Shut the f*ck up about this – we feminists, women in general, and “pro-feminist men” know all there is to know about this, and your perspective and opinions are not only unwelcome, they don’t matter anyway because we know - (stomping foot) just know! - that they’re wrong. Same old same old. And so it goes…
Noumena also wrote: ” Ooo, my turn for silly anecdote sharing. It’s actually really, really easy to get lots of examples of straight, middle class couples of young professionals where she supports him financially. Just look through any post-baccalaureate program in the country, whether law school, med school, Ph.D or MFA programs. And, among us over-educated types, it’s not at all uncommon for her to be a lawyer, doctor, or corporate ladder-climber while he’s pursuing a career in the humanities or arts* — cases where everyone obviously expects her to always make much, much more than him.”
So, I’m assuming that feminists will stop whining about the “pay gap” (in reality an earnings gap) sometime soon, right? Uh huh…
As for all the anecdotes offered as proof, please allow me to quote mythago (even though in this case she’s remained comfortably and predictably silent on the matter): “Serial anecdote is not proof.”
And Hugo, I agree with Gonz – nice new digs!
Hugo notes: The epistemic gulf between those whose understanding of sexuality is one that sees our desires and our wants as under our control and those who see them as written too deeply on our hard drives to be mastered is a vast one, ain’t it?
And as usual, Hugo, you are smack in the middle of it.
I’m on the “under our control” side. Joe Smith is on the “immutable” side. You are on the “under our control” side when you are being a good pro-feminist–but not when thinking about same-sex attraction, or in your comments on the differences between a marriage lacking passion and one incorporating it.
as far as “under our control” vs. “immutable”, i’m not sure on which side i fall. like most aspects of our personalities, i’m guessing it’s some of both.
as long as we’re sharing anecdotes:
hugo, i’m definitely an exception to the norm of women described in your post. at some point in my mid-thirties, i realised that in my dating career i had dated quite a few men who were my height or shorter, and practically no men who were over 6′ tall. the one 6′3″ guy i dated was extremely thin.
this wasn’t a conscious choice; if anyone had asked me, i wouldn’t have said “i’m attracted to short men.”. but i thought about it & realised that, like rainbow, since i had grown up with a physically abusive father, i am to a certain extent subconsiously afraid of large men. my father was over 6′ tall & weighed well over 200 lbs; he played college football as a lineman back in his younger days.
and it wasn’t anything conscious at all. unlike rainbow, i didn’t think to myself “oh, if i date a short/small man, he won’t get violent with me.” i just realised that i feel safer with men who don’t tower over me in both height & bulk.
and i don’t know what to do about that. is it discriminatory? probably. is it immutable or under my control? i have no idea.
at this point i am happily married to a man who is an inch shorter than i am, and the height differential doesn’t really matter much to either of us. of course, there is the whole feminity thing, which is an issue. i’ve never felt terribly feminine, and being larger than my husband doesn’t help that much. but. we love each other, we trust each other, we value each other, and we’re happy together.
so i can live with it. all of it. it’s just the hand i was dealt, that’s all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/fema…in_page_id=1879
“Earlier this year sociologists as Virginia University, in the U.S study, found that those with traditional marriages, in which couples stick to old fashioned gender roles - with the husband as the main breadwinner - were happier.
Entitled What’s Love Got To With It, the report showed women who worked were more dissatisfied with their husbands than those who stayed at home, and the happiest were those whose husbands brought in at least two-thirds of the household income, regardless of how much they helped with domestic chores.” — From the UK article
It ain’t my work here—obviously, I have no problems dating/marrying up, but my own inclination doesn’t always reflect what women are doing, does it?
sorry to double-post, but this conversation has me thinking about the “immutable” vs. “under our control” dichotomy.
here’s the thing: it seems many in the “immutable” camp think our desires are genetic in origin, that they are something we are born with, and that the traditional sex roles are the result of some evolutionary advantage.
now i consider all these evolutionary psychology arguments a whole lot of goofiness. ev-psych explains why we are afraid of spiders but not electricity. it doesn’t explain why young skinny women are generally considered more attractive.
that said, looking back at my own personal history, and as the parent of a 7month old, i am very conscious of the way our hardwiring gets developed and formed by our environment in our infancy & childhood. i don’t know how much we are born with, but what happens to us as babies and children does affect how we are wired later as adults.
in my case, the physical abuse meted out by my very tall & heavy father resulted in a hardwired desire for smaller men that overrode the cultural definitions of feminity that also got wired in.
so is it immutable or under my control? again, i don’t know; i don’t know how much it is for any of us. being aware of the environmental conditions that affected us as we developed, and continue to affect us, is a good start.
but i’m inclined to conclude that the best consequence of us questioning these origins is not so much to effect a change in our own desires, but to alter the environment in which children, teens &c, today and in the future will be growing up, so that they will end up with stronger, healthier desires.
someone mentioned increased self-esteem in women being a factor in them not so strongly desiring larger men as partners, to reinforce their feelings of femininity. i think this is a laudable goal.
Mr. Bad: “So let’s see if I’ve got this right: On the one hand, feminism is about challenging men just as much as women, and at the same time (according to Hugo) men have no right to challenge women on these issues (see above)?”
Men are constantly hammered because our “fragile egoes” can’t handle a strong, successful woman (see Maureen Dowd) but women are completely let off the hook when their own fragile egoes can’t handle being with a man less successful than themselves (see Maureen Dowd).
Hugo correctly realizes that height is a characteristic of dominance and not only holds men accountable for their own want of dominance but also holds men accountable for female want of male dominance.
Congratulations on your progress from conniving to paternalistic.
More to the point, you should ask yourself whether men are going to ignore the elaborate set of rewards women offer for certain male behaviors in favor of whatever satisfaction comes from adhering to Hugo’s Way. The problem isn’t the “double standards” that some of your critics cite, it’s, do you really think anything can be accomplished without holding women accountable?
“I am opposed to men making it their job to hold women accountable.”
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What do you think of this combination: (*certain*) men making it their job to hold men accountable?
I can’t understand the “paunchy man” who insists that his partners be “thin and attractive”
What’s not to understand? Attrractive men want attractive women. Unattractive men want attractive women. Notice a pattern developing here?
What you want has nothing to do with what you deserve.
I don’t think its genetic. But things can be culturally determined and still immutable. You might be able to convince me of an evolutionary advantage to homosexuality, but whats the evolutionary advantage to a fixation on redheads? Or ladies underwear? Or amputees? But its pretty darn clear that sexual preferences are intractable. Witness the dismal record of therapies designed to “cure” homosexuals.
someone mentioned increased self-esteem in women being a factor in them not so strongly desiring larger men as partners, to reinforce their feelings of femininity. i think this is a laudable goal.
See what you just did? If a woman wants a big man, she has low self esteem. You’ve just pathologized somebody’s fetish. Its the same as saying “Men are homosexuals because of a domineering mother and a weak father.”
There is wisdom in Joe Smith’s comment about sexual preferences being immutable, even if they are not genetically driven. I do not believe that a woman who finds herself drawn to larger men necessarily suffers from low self-esteem.
We do need to examine our sexual preferences, explore them and their possible origins. It makes sense to ask why without torturing oneself about any contradictions that may arise between one’s ideals and sexual preferences. We should explore, yes, but we should also be kind and gentle to ourselves and others when we find ourselves passing judgment about what should and shouldn’t be.
Others may disagree, but I do not believe core sexual preferences are that easily altered. I do not feel feminists or anyone else have an obligation to change their sexual preferences in order to advance some kind of social cause (e.g. women who are drawn to taller men should go out of their way to date shorter men to further the goals of feminism). Doing so belittles people, as they are no longer seen as people, but as symbolic objects.
If a person wants to realign his/her sexual preferences to match personal ideals about gender, that’s fine, though IMHO, altering one’s sexual preferences to fit social or political ideals can often lead to personal unhappiness and sexual frustration.
The example brought up had to do with a woman who preferred bigger men, as bigger men made her feel more feminine. But other sexual preferences which may not align with one’s ideals also come to mind. What if a liberal white male only finds himself turned on by Latina immigrants who speak w/a Spanish accent? Black men who are pillars of the black community but who only find white women hot?
The sexual arena has always been a place to explore the taboo, the forbidden, the not so politically correct. Provided all involved parties consent and are old enough and of sound mind to consent, this can be a healthy outlet for such exploration.
It is possible to subscribe to certain social or political ideals and lead a life that adheres to those ideals, all the while having core sexual preferences that veer in a wildly different direction. That doesn’t make you a hypocrite; that makes you human.
FWIW, I’m 5′5″, and have been attracted both to men who are much bigger and taller than me (my husband’s about a foot taller and about a hundred pounds heavier) and to men who are about my height and not much heavier. I’ve never dated a man who was smaller than me, but men who are smaller than me aren’t that common to start with.
As for how mutable our attractions are, I’ve seen too many people dramatically change, for example, the race of the people they usually date, to believe that all of our attractions are unchanging. But some of them are really hard to change.
Otterick, I am not opposed to holding women accountable. I am opposed to men making it their job to hold women accountable. There’s a world of difference between the two.
Hugo: “Otterick, I am not opposed to holding women accountable. I am opposed to men making it their job to hold women accountable. There’s a world of difference between the two.”
I’m not sure how there can be a difference between something and something that doesn’t exist. Who are these men who make it their “job” to hold women accountable?
Even if these men do exist, what is this “world of difference” between holding women accountable and making it one’s job to do so? Is it really even holding them accountable if you merely point out that their behaviors may conflict with their goals? And, to ask again, how can you expect men to “transform” when the non-transformed behavior is the rewarded behavior?
otterick, Hugo believes that men have no right to hold women accountable but that both men and women have the right - and in the case of men, the duty - to hold men accountable. Even for things that they haven’t personally done. Or not done. As long as women find the action or inaction undesirable, then men must be held accountable by everybody, men and women alike.
On the other hand, us men need to butt out and leave women to be who they want to be, unless of course it goes against feminist dogma, in which case only other women can criticize and hold then accountable.
Mr. Bad: “As long as women find the action or inaction undesirable, then men must be held accountable”
Well, here he’s holding men accountable even though women find the attribute desirable.
Mr. Bad: “only other women can criticize and hold then accountable.”
I’m not sure where that accountability occurs. Integrity consists in holding your own to standards at least as high as you hold others and I see none of that in feminism. If anyone can point me to a single instance in which feminism holds women accountable for anything I shall be amazed. I’m wondering, too, why anyone so high on accountability would be drawn to something so lacking.