Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General The Political Gender Gap:

Heh heh heh! You said "broad range". Heh heh heh!:-)
Yours in a B&B moment,
Issodhos

Actually, you raise an extremely relevant point that further illustrates exactly my point!

What is there about Kucinich's appearance that might be improved? If Kucinich has exactly that same physical appearance... except his height was changed to 6 foot 3"... in that case would you make the same comment about Kucinich being more successful? For me, the answer is clear. It is not Kucinich's face, or hair.... it is his height. He looks like a puny shrimp stranding beside his wife.

Now examine the obverse. Doe anyone care how tall a woman candidate is? Not as far as I know. So why the difference? It is clearly a gender based difference in intuitive evaluation where people think that taller men are more powerful.... but not so for women. So again, it illustrates my point that men and women are evaluated on different scales... right or wrong, I propose that is a fact.

By the way, I have tried to sate my view clearly. If need be I will re-state that view. I would like someone to state the opposing view. IE are people maintaining that men and women are judged by the same standard in the context of appearance? Are we saying that an overweight woman will be treated equally to a man with a beer belly? Are we saying that a woman with a dirty blouse and a man with a dirty shirt will be equally evaluated? Are we saying that a man with wind blown hair will be evaluated equally to a woman with wind blown hair?

I agree, Ardy, that the measure of baseline appearance for women is different than for men; my only point was that there is appearance based bias for both genders.

Yes, absolutely true. In fact, the evidence shows that (for men) it is very important to appear more "masculine"... just as I am suggesting that there is a bias toward women who appear more feminine.

I guess my real question about this study, Ardy, is -- I don't get it.

The fact that attractive people, male or female, get paid more, get jobs more quickly, get promoted (and probably elected) more easily -- that's not news. I'm not sure what the study is supposed to be saying, unless it's echoing work that was done decades ago.

The reason it set me off earlier is because the wording of initial post suggested that women (specifically, not men) should work hard on their appearance if they want to succeed. That is, women, more so than men, will be judged on their appearance and "should" be ready to compete on that level.

Julia,
In the first place, IMO the study came up with a lot of "findings/data." That data was not "designed" to prove anything specific as far as I can tell. The study was just trying to find what ever patters existed. In that mass of data, different people will have different interpretations of what it means. Maybe my interpretation is wrong, or maybe the study is wrong, or what ever....

So, all of those caveats and qualifications aside....

In reading the study, I understood that they had evidence that showed that women and men are judged to a different degree on different metrics. And so while it unarguably true that ALL HUMANS ARE JUDGED ON APPEARANCE... I understood this study to provide some evidence that appearance is a larger component of the way that people judge women politicians, where as "perceived approachability" was a more important factor in the assessment of male politicians.

It is clear that people assess each other frequently
The exact criteria they may use to assess each other are highly variable depending upon the specific context and the individuals involved. Never the less it is possible to make some broad generalizations... generalizations that may not be true in every case, but which are true on average (IMO).
Appearance is a criteria that is frequently used as one component of an over all assessment of others . Both genders assessed by their appearance. My assertion (and what I think this study shows IMO) is that the importance of different factors varies between genders. And so, for example, apparent masculinity is an important factor in assessing male politicians, while it is not an important factor in assessing female politicians. As previously noted, approachability seems to be an more important factor in assessing male politicians and less so for female politicians. And it seems that "attractiveness" is a quality that is relatively more important for people when the assess female politicians and relatively less important when they assess male politicians.

I am sorry if the above sounds arcane and legalistic. I just want to be completely clear and unambiguous in saying exactly what I mean.


My opinion is that ANYONE who wants to compete for just about anything will be well served if they pay attention to their appearance. As I have indicated in my above response in this positing, IMO the evidence shows that different factors have greater or lesser importance depending upon one's gender. And it appears that appearance is one of those areas that is of "relatively" greater importance for success of female politicians.

I have tried to support my position on the above by providing a link to this study which I feel does support what I am saying.

Then, beyond that, I have also tried to provide anecdotal and common sense illustrations that also support my view. Here is another such argument....

Look at humans in general. IMO you will see more boys/men who seem careless about their appearance. And generally you will see more women who have taken great care to polish their appearance. This dynamic seems pretty much unchanged across time and across cultures. For me, this is compelling evidence that women in general have some reason to be more concerned about their appearance. And this reason has apparently existed before the beauty industry and it's marketing machine existed.

The common misperception is that Kucinich could never win a major race because he is too short... But he and John McCain are exactly the same height! Get out there and check on their various web bios yourself, if you don't believe me. I did.

Kucinich is perceived as short because he is not self-concious about being photographed standing next to his supermodel-tall (6') wife.

Cindy McCain is also the same height (5'7") as her husband, so with the proper footwear selection, she doesn't make John look short.

It seems to me that this thread is misnamed. The primary problem seems to be an "attractiveness gap," at least as seen by our members. That that gap affects women differently from the way it affects men has been documented for some time now.

One more post: It blows my mind that no one seems interested in the fact that what we're talking about is at best, shallow and inaccurate judgmentalism, and at worst, prejudice.

That is, it's wrong. Wrong. It's always been wrong. It's wrong whether applied to men or women, it's just that this particular stick happens to be used against women more than men.

And to suggest that we should go along with it rather than try to work and/or educate out of it is even more wrong.