>>> kelley at interpactinc.com 03/14/01 04:59PM >>>
Justin Schwartz wrote:
>To him they are better looking. De gustibus, etc. --jks
i'd assumed charles was kidding, so i teased him back. but if not, i'll say this: it's the classic thing that men in my classes say when we talk about why women's bodies are more prominent in various media than are men's. OF COURSE! it's because men are naturally ugly while women are naturally beautiful. men are dirty and stinky, as well! heh. criminy!
no de gustibus about it! it's like when women friends who say, "oh my nanny (or my at home mom neighbor) is soooooo great with kids. i don't know how she does it, staying at home all day with the kids. it would drive me mad. i couldn't do it, but she's a saint!" (you can see same re: comments associated with race, disability and even in the valorization of manual labor)
contemporary versions of the phenom. encompassed in the Victorian pedastal.
(((((
CB: I disagree with you in this sense , Kelley. I think that in fact, and in general , women pay more attention to personal hygiene and aesthetics , and these are genuine and actual superiorities of women. My attitude is to emulate them, learn from them in these respects. They are not naturally more attentive to hygiene and aesthetics, but rather socially conditioned by custom and , perhaps , a sort of historic feminist seizing of a realm of U.S. and probably other Western culture and holding power in it. And these things _are_ important for a better quantity and quality of life. This generalization is not perfect, but it is not worse than average in terms of generalizations about differences between women and men, certainly in the U.S., but my guess is that it is wider than that.
And in fact , the life expectancy of women is longer, so they are longer living, as I said, which might have some natural aspects. See _The Natural Superiority of Women_ by F. Ashley Montagu (Montague Francis; Ashley Israel Ehrenberg ) .