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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To want to wear make up and high heels

262 replies

WheresTheCat · 31/01/2012 11:42

Harumph. Have just skimmed through Julie Birchill's article in the weekend papers (I know - I'm running behind!) Apparently women only wear heels and make up as we are slaves to men.

I am so fed up with all the judgements about what women wear. Surely we should wear what we want as long as we're happy. For me it's high heels and make up, for my BF it's trainers and jeans. It doesn't matter.

And, Julie Birchill, it doesn't make me a bad person/anti-feminist/unintelligent if I choose to dress the way I do.

OP posts:
Whatmeworry · 02/02/2012 23:21

I think claiming biology is often a cheap rhetorical trick used to try win an argument.

As opposed to claiming a mishmash of pop sociology, crap anthropology and The Patriarchy?

lovesadirtylie · 02/02/2012 23:30

eh??

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 03/02/2012 00:00

So, what... It's 100% down to biology then? Entirely biology? What we find attractive is hard-wired into us and is consistent across all cultures, all humans, all ages, all generations, all nationalities? It never deviates? It's completely pre-determined and developments, progress, fashions and societal ebbs and flows have absolutely zero impact on our outlook and perceptions at all.

Is that actually what you're saying?

At least offering up theories via 'pop sociology', 'crap anthropology' and 'the patriarchy' are attempting to scratch below the surface, question and understand the blatant differences.

They may not ultimately be correct, but it's got to be better than offering up 'men attract women in different ways than women attract men' as an explanation...

lovesadirtylie · 03/02/2012 00:23

human behaviour is largely learned...everyone knows that! Grin

kickassangel · 03/02/2012 01:37

The 'soft sciences' (sociology, psychology) attempt to use scientific, quantifiable methodology to investigate humans & their behaviour. However, they are dealing with matter (people & how they act) which does not lend itself readily to scientific observation - it's not like we can cut a brain open & prove that someone did something for reasons x,y,z. Whereas the hard sciences are provable, e.g. what goes into an atom, gravity etc.

Using scientific methodology, it is the accepted method that to assert a hypothesis as factual theory, then not only does it have to be proved, but it also has to be proved that it cannot be dis-proved.

e.g. If I put forward the idea that people with blue eyes like pink clothes, I could carry out a survey using water-tight scientific methods which backs that up. If someone else comes along with an equally rigorous survey which proves otherwise, then my survey & its findings are discounted.

So, if you assert that people like big breasts, manly chests etc, because biology makes them want that, then it doesn't matter how many examples you can come up with to back that up. As soon as anyone can come up with a legitimate example of people NOT finding big breasts attractive, then the theory has been dis-proved and is no longer taken into account.

There are a huge number of examples that show there is NO ONE TYPE which is universally seen as attractive. Therefore, it cannot be something that humans are born with, like their DNA, it can only be the society they grow up in (unless you can think of another factor). So then you have to look at the society you live in to understand why/how this has come about.

Our society is predominantly patriarchal, so that is what you have to investigate.

(Sits back & waits to start the debate on whether it really is a patriarchy, after all look at Maggie Thatcher, or even for people to think patriarchy is natural/right/best)

Yank shimmering mossy green - not too bright, but will bring out the hazel in your eyes.

kickassangel · 03/02/2012 01:50

Good summary & review of 'The Woman Racket'
The Woman Racket - a book claiming evolutionary psychology as its provable scientific basis for why society is how it is & us women should all count ourselves lucky.

"Even if a dominance hierarchy functioned in sexual selection, how could a single hierarchy select traits with very different kinds of excellence, such as intelligence and physical strength? And how could this theory account for society valuing one over the other at different times? Further, given that women of widely different degrees of attractiveness and nubility seem to have little trouble conceiving, isn't it overly simplistic to connect beauty and youth with fertility?"

If you can't be bothered to read the whole article.

Whatmeworry · 03/02/2012 07:49

So, what... It's 100% down to biology then? Entirely biology? What we find attractive is hard-wired into us and is consistent across all cultures, all humans, all ages, all generations, all nationalities? It never deviates? It's completely pre-determined and developments, progress, fashions and societal ebbs and flows have absolutely zero impact on our outlook and perceptions at all.

That's not what I said and you know it, I have said multiple times that biology defines the what, the society of the time defines the how it is expressed. It's not an either/or.

Being wilfully obtuse, and linking to whacko crap on the web does not an argument make....

So, I will continue to happily wear high heels and slap totally guilt free and safe in the knowledge it's not The Patriarchy what is forcing me, but my own selfish genes that want.

lovesadirtylie · 03/02/2012 11:10

but my own selfish genes that want.
Dawkins has been widely criticised for his anthropomorphic and misleading use of the term 'selfish gene'
after all, genes cannot have intentions

lovesadirtylie · 03/02/2012 11:14

(Sits back & waits to start the debate on whether it really is a patriarchy, after all look at Maggie Thatcher, or even for people to think patriarchy is natural/right/best)

A patriarchy is a society where men have most of the power, men have more power and status than women in our culture, so yes we live in a patriarchy.

Thats not to say that men have all the advantages, they are far more likely to be subject to violence, commit suicide for example.
There are downsides for men and women.

CheerfulYank · 03/02/2012 14:02

I haven't got any hazel in my eyes though. :(

kickassangel · 03/02/2012 23:45

sorry!
what is your hair color - looks blonde in the wedding pic but i assume naturally dark.

i have blue/grey eyes & wear a lot of brown eye shadow, or blue. green sometimes. gold & sparkly if going out.

CheerfulYank · 04/02/2012 01:14

It was blonde at my wedding, it's a reddish brown now. :)

Ooh, like the sound of sparkly gold.

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