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Survival of the prettiest (Evolution rules rush at Duke U.)
Duke University Chronicle ^ | January 12, 2005 | Matt Gilium

Posted on 02/08/2005 6:34:37 PM PST by gobucks

No matter how much some ladies doth protest, a woman's beauty best predicts her spot in the social hierarchy at Duke, and at no time is this fact more naked than during Sorority Rush. Only at this instant is it possible for the Inquisitors to make their opinions overt, to relegate the un-pretty to the un-groovy bottom Žlans of the popularity pyramid. For those who find Homo sapiens more boring a species than, say, animals with mating seasons one can literally smell, this part of the year scores well on drama. Bursting with frippery, bedecked and baubled, bobbing boobies bulging from bras, nubile East Campus females are a sight. With more than a little feminine anxiety, they have commended their spirits to women who will select them largely on the basis of their attractiveness, pedigree and affluence. Not coincidentally, the principal attribute up for judgment--beauty--is what the Duke Man most treasures.

But what is beauty, and why does he cherish it? To the contrary of what some feminists have argued, beauty is remarkably stable between cultures, and as Nancy Etcoff reports in her riveting book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, hunter gather bands like the Ache of Paraguay are likely to agree with Westerners about the attractiveness of people from cultures other than their own. We value beauty and catapult those who possess it to the top of our social hierarchies because it indicates qualities important to the reproductive success of its possessors.

As Etcoff points out, beauty is more valued in cultures that have problems with parasites, suggesting that men initially preferred 'beautiful' women because they were parasite free. She also argues out that the well-known female obsession with eradicating all traces of acne--and the male aversion to women with it--have adaptive significance; pimples reveal the presence of androgens, which are male sex hormones, and it has been demonstrated that women who seek acne treatment are significantly less fertile.

But the most telling fact about beauty has to do with what is know known as the waist to hip ratio, the circumference of a woman's waist divided by the circumference of her hips. This measurement is a fairly accurate gauge of the hormonal status of a post-pubertal female, and thus her fertility. Etcoff reports the work of Devendra Singh, a psychologist who has found that this number is more important to men than weight or--astoundingly--breast size. Less surprisingly, she reports that Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe had the ideal ratio (.7), as do most contemporary supermodels. ('Top' Duke sororities are probably in this ballpark, too.)

Fascinating though it is to know that sororities subconsciously select their members based on breeding ability, health and freedom from parasites, it is simultaneously pathetic. Men escape such torment. Although more attractive males receive somewhat higher esteem in the eyes of their peers, there is more of a meritocracy, with their social status hinging on their level of 'dominance,' which depends on skill, intelligence, athleticism and resources-categories that are far more malleable than beauty. For women, ugliness never pays in our culture, no matter what. Perhaps this explains why SAT-acing, genome-sequencing, archive-combing girls cram themselves into ridiculous clothes and parade themselves before organizations that select members based on male preferences established many thousands of years ago when humans still roamed the earth and bivouacked on the margins of tar-pits.

Women need to kick the Iceman out of their sororities and put a stop to the psychological spear throwing that makes bid day so distasteful. Humans are now, as biologist E.O. Wilson suggests, fast approaching a point where it will be possible to 'decommission' natural selection and promote happiness for more than just those at the top of the social ladder, by working to recalibrate the seedier segments of our DNA. To do this we will need female scientists, not the scores of sobbing girls whose sense of self-worth--both social and intellectual--will be demolished to our collective detriment come Sunday.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: North Carolina
KEYWORDS: campus; coeds; dukeu; evolution; gender
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To: martin_fierro

OH! It's NO WAR...at first, I thought it read NO WAX.


21 posted on 02/08/2005 7:01:30 PM PST by muleskinner
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To: martin_fierro

22 posted on 02/08/2005 7:12:13 PM PST by SquirrelKing (Guinness for strength!)
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To: martin_fierro
I'd hit that.

Just joking.

23 posted on 02/08/2005 7:12:19 PM PST by elmer fudd
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To: martin_fierro

Aren't these French women? They don't shave their under arms you know.


24 posted on 02/08/2005 7:12:57 PM PST by Goodgirlinred ( GoodGirlInRed Four More Years!!!!!)
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To: martin_fierro

Belly hair?


25 posted on 02/08/2005 7:13:53 PM PST by Petronski (Lately I haven't been all that cranky. I'll tell you about it someday.)
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To: martin_fierro

If the ratio is >1.25, then you end up with somebody in a Lou Reed song.


26 posted on 02/08/2005 7:17:21 PM PST by Dat Mon (will work for clever tagline)
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To: gg188
"Somehow I think there is more to it than this ratio..."

found that this number is more important to men than weight or--astoundingly--breast size

The stars might lie, but the numbers never do.

27 posted on 02/08/2005 7:19:55 PM PST by Valpal1 (Crush jihadists, drive collaborators before you, hear the lamentations of their media. Allahu FUBAR!)
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To: gg188
A 60 inch hip circumference divided by a 42 inch waist equals a hip-to-waist ratio of .7.

Well, you see now, you've got it exactly bassackwards. I'm gonna guess you were blackballed from the Math Sorority.

28 posted on 02/08/2005 7:19:59 PM PST by Hank Rearden (Never allow anyone who could only get a government job attempt to tell you how to run your life.)
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To: martin_fierro


Yikkes, are those the MoveOn.org Welcome Girls?

phewwww!


29 posted on 02/08/2005 7:20:38 PM PST by Barney59 (Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!)
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To: dukeman
How about the anger and the hairy pits

Maybe they're European. ... Just kidding, of course they're lesbians.

30 posted on 02/08/2005 7:25:16 PM PST by SittinYonder (Tancredo and I wanna know what you believe)
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To: martin_fierro

All I can say is...

31 posted on 02/08/2005 7:31:52 PM PST by LibertarianInExile (NO BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! Get the UN-ignoring, unilateralist Frogs out of Ivory Coast!)
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To: gg188

If you meet a human, let alone a woman, with 60 in hips and 42 in waist...you have found a true anomaly. There's probably surgery involved there.


32 posted on 02/08/2005 7:33:33 PM PST by LibertarianInExile (NO BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! Get the UN-ignoring, unilateralist Frogs out of Ivory Coast!)
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To: gg188

...........A 60 inch hip circumference divided by a 42 inch waist equals a hip-to-waist ratio of .7.......

BARF! Where's that picture of Hillary wiggling her fat backside, just trying to entice Billory to take a dance on a secluded beach! - In front of all the cameras!


33 posted on 02/08/2005 7:43:34 PM PST by aShepard
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To: martin_fierro
I'll see your hairy-armpitted one and raise you a sweatpants'd freak...


34 posted on 02/08/2005 7:47:02 PM PST by redhead ("Gee, Ricky. I'm sorry your mom blew up...")
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To: martin_fierro

An oldie but a GGGGAGAAARRRGGGH!!!!


35 posted on 02/08/2005 8:57:19 PM PST by Choose Ye This Day (America is a great country. 38 million illegal aliens can't be wrong.)
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To: Petronski

My wife and I once were on a rafting trip in the Smoky Mountains. Our guide, who was nominally a female, had visible CHEST HAIR growing on her sternum, which she thought she should show to everyone by wearing a bikini top.


36 posted on 02/08/2005 9:02:22 PM PST by Choose Ye This Day (America is a great country. 38 million illegal aliens can't be wrong.)
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To: martin_fierro

Those things are female???


37 posted on 02/08/2005 9:12:44 PM PST by Canticle_of_Deborah
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To: Choose Ye This Day

Oooooh . . . er . . . oooh. Eh.


38 posted on 02/08/2005 9:27:47 PM PST by Petronski (Lately I haven't been all that cranky. I'll tell you about it someday.)
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To: Petronski

That's what we thought, too.

She had some wicked sideburns, too.

[shudder]


39 posted on 02/08/2005 9:52:43 PM PST by Choose Ye This Day (This is a president who wants to leave his mark on more than a cocktail dress. --Steyn)
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To: gg188

"A 60 inch hip circumference divided by a 42 inch waist equals a hip-to-waist ratio of .7."


GRATEFUL DEAD BUMP!

"I Need A Miracle"

< snip >

...I need a woman 'bout twice my weight
a ton of fun who packs a gun with all her other freight
find her in a sideshow, leave her in L.A.
Ride her like a surfer running on a tidal wave.

And it's real, believe what I say, yeah
just one thing I got to say
I need a miracle every day.

It takes dynamite to get me up
too much of everything is just enough
one more thing I just got to say
I need a miracle every day,
I need a miracle every day,
I need a miracle every day, (got to be the only way)
I need a miracle



40 posted on 02/08/2005 10:00:40 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (ATTN. MARXIST RED MSM: I RESENT your "RED STATE" switcheroo using our ELECTORAL MAP as PROPAGANDA!)
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