I Blame 'I Blame The Patriarchy'

This is in response to this blog entry on the blog I Blame the Patriarchy.

Dear Jill,

I find myself very confused about this whole issue. I guess I just cannot imagine a world in which anyone, regardless of sexual identity, orientation, or identity does not prefer an attractive partner. I'm having trouble envisioning your goal here. In your ideal world, women would be judged more by who they are and the ideas they espouse than by their physical attractiveness. Great, I'm on board, that matches my ideal world. But I'm imagining a world that actually could be, so I'm constrained a little by reality. On this earth people still have hardwired genetic preferences. Most guys don't prefer skinny, busty, model-types because they've seen too many L'Oréal commercials any more than female peacocks prefer brightly colored males because they watch Sex and the City. There are conceptions of beauty which are hardwired into all of us.

Until we can remove our genetic predispositions to beautiful people we will always have people vying for each other's affections by trying to get closer to beautiful. The "patriarchy" does not force women to be beautiful for it's own amusement. I don't know anyone who would prefer an unattractive person to an attractive one. I don't know any single people, women included, who, if given the ability to craft their perfect soul-mate out of the aether would have that person be ugly. I'm excluding people in relationships because many of them would say that their ideal mate would be exactly like the mate they have. But I'd wager that before they met their partner, if they had the opportunity to keep their partner's brain, but transplant it into the body of their ideal conception of beauty damn few would refuse. You would have to provide the caveat that the beauty of the mate would not change in any way the way they interacted with them.

Even you Jill, you prefer attractive people too. I don't know, so I'm going to assume you're cis, but my next point will stand with only very slight modifications if you're not. It's possible you wouldn't admit it, but I'll wager that if we measured your heart rate and perspiration you'd react more to Brad Pitt stripping in front of you than Michael Moore. Unless you prefer chubby guys, but then that's just your conception of beauty, which wouldn't invalidate my point, it would invalidate my example. Imagine the perfect personality for your mate, now imagine the perfect body for your mate. Wouldn't you prefer to have both?

I hope that I have made the case that there is nothing patriarchal about preferring beauty. Pretending that people don't have these ideas about beauty is counter-productive, it hurts feminism by making people assume you're not interested in reality. Claiming that women who wear makeup are appeasing their oppressors has the same effect. That accusation is not based on reality, because it assumes that there are no benefits for the made up woman. This woman will get more positive attention from guys, including guys who are not in any way sexist. Because more guys will like her she will be able to pick her boyfriend(s) from a larger pool, ensuring she will be able to hold them to higher standards. Were this woman so inclined, one of those standards could be that the man had to be completely egalitarian. All other things being equal, a beautiful feminist woman has a better chance of finding a non-sexist partner than an ugly one, because even non-sexist guys have conceptions of beauty. It is not a fun truth, but it's still true.

I say all this as a guy who's not much to look at. Women have standards of attractiveness as well. My flirting is received much better when my hair is done and my shoes look fancy and I'm wearing nice clothes. This is true whether or not I'm talking to intelligent women. Everyone will always have standards and preferences and pretending that they don't or won't in the future is silly.