From the NYT:
To test evolutionary explanations for envy, Dr. Hill and her colleagues looked for differences between men and women in their reactions to the photos and the interviews of peers of their own sex. It turned out that women were more likely than men to be envious of a physically attractive peer, a result that jibed with evolutionary psychologists’ theories about beauty being more important to women for reproductive success.
Or maybe, just maybe, women were envious of other good-looking women because there’s current social pressure on women to be good-looking…which is exerted by the same society that defines what “good-looking” means. Naaah, that can’t be it. Must be our genes!
The article is titled “An Upside to Envy” – the real upside is that women’s efforts and resources are diverted by concerns over attractiveness, continuing to reduce women to the status of decorations in a man’s world. No, thank you.
There’s not enough “Duh!” to apply to this one. Do evo-psych people have to stop looking at the world they currently exist in to get their degrees?
I think they just have to swear on a stack of anthropology textbooks that everything is genetically determined and culture is irrelevant, which sort of amounts to the same thing.
Or, through process of becoming evo-psyches they systematically detach themselves from the wonderful thing we call reality and take up residence in the Kookie Spice rack.
Of course in the spirit of the feminism I have been raised to embrace (Yes, I was more or less raised as a feminist and yes I am a genetic and biological male, please don’t loose your heads over it), I feel I should point out that the premise of the article is based, or more specifically seemingly based on the foundation that men do not feel envy. Or am I the only one who noticed that not only were there no statements from any of the male participants but also the following:
“It turned out that women were more likely than men to be envious of a physically attractive peer, a result that jibed with evolutionary psychologists’ theories about beauty being more important to women for reproductive success.”
Of course, it never occurred to the evo-psyches conducting the study that perhaps it is not the trait or emotion or state of Envy that differs between men and women but rather the expression of it which alters/differs. What bloke wants, or indeed even is able to, see a guy that they are envious of and say ‘Oh woe is me, I wish I looked like him…’? None, mostly because they will be teased and derided by their peers, but also because they can just as easily follow that person as a fan if they are a sports star, read their books if they are a writer and it is the writing they are envious of, and so on. The expression of envy changes from what is held or understood to be the only expression of envy, into one expressed as hero worship of sorts. How else does current society expect a man to explain why he knows every, I don’t know… body statistic, game history and achievement of their hero/favourite sport star?
I raise that point because by blatantly ignoring any kind of male factors in their study, or at least in their responses in the article, and focussing entirely on the female aspect they are doing nothing more than perpetuating the idea of ‘a wicked woman coveting the handsome man she wants to be lewd and loose with OR the town beauty who could have any man she wants but joins a nunnery, that bitch…’, an idea however sarcastically expressed I am sure is understood.
Well, the article discusses that the psychologists were looking at more subtle markers of envy – such as attention to detail, remembering characteristics, etc – and not specifically on verbal expressions of envy. So they were actually trying to control for the issue you raise, but your point is a great one in another way: what if some of the images had been of the kinds of men that men feel more pressure to look like, such as sports stars?
In another part they oversimplified men by saying that men envy each other for monetary resources, not-so-subtly linking this to the Shiny Rocks Theory of gender relations (men give women shiny rocks and women give men sex), which is just degrading to everybody.
Looks like whoever raised you in your feminism did a good job, by the way.