And, as a corollary, any woman who wants to be more successful would spend a reasonable amount of effort and resources seeking to maximize her attractiveness as a way of enhancing her competitive positioning in a broad range of activities.
This can very easily be read as "and any woman who knows what's good for her will get with the program."
Julia
I can understand the confusion inherent in my posting. However a few things are clear.... I have REPEATEDLY said that I do not support appearance based discrimination... and actually I oppose it.
Let's consider an analogous situation in politics. I say "Any politician who does not actively support Israel is crazy." (and by the way I do think that is true.) Does that mean that my view is that the "proper" policy of the US government is unqualified support of Israel? No, it does not. My statement recognizes the political reality that a politician must construct a coalition of broad support... and such a coalition would likely be blown apart if an American politician was indifferent, or in opposition to the very many people in this country that fiercely support Israel. Being indifferent to Israel wins a politician no friends and cements many virulent enemies. And so the "reality" that American politicians face is that they essentially have no option other than to actively support Israel.
In the context of this discussion, I was saying that that women face a similar choice in their career/social path. A woman can ignore appearance related issues on principal... and in doing so she gains nothing other than satisfaction of conforming to her inner principals. Or, alternatively a woman can take note of society's active discrimination against people (and especially women) who do not play the appearance game. A woman can take not of the real benefits to anyone (and especially women) who plays the appearance game well. And having noted the above, a large majority of women will come to my stated conclusion which you quoted..."any woman who wants to be more successful would spend a reasonable amount of effort and resources seeking to maximize her attractiveness as a way of enhancing her competitive positioning in a broad range of activities."That statement is no different from my parallel position that "any American politician would be a fool not to actively support Israel"
Neither is a statement of how the world SHOULD be. Both reflect my estimation of the way this world actually works.
And speaking of code (!) how many of us, as rebellious young women, were told by our mothers "Oh, if you would only do something with yourself/your hair/your weight!" (I've also known women who got these remarks from abusive husbands and/or fathers.) When one tells a woman to "make an effort" one is treading on thin ice that is already heavily cracked by a long parade of people who think they have a right to say how she should look. (It's not right. It's just the way it is.)
Yes Julia, I completely agree. But it does seem to me that people face such challenges on a regular basis. Again, to take an example... I am quite sure that a lot of people involved in the whole sub-prime mortgage fiasco realized that the whole process was moving in an extremely bad an unsustainable direction. People realized that they were making "bad" loans. Other people realized that they were selling bad loans to investors. And those people also realized that it was in their best interest to keep quiet and "go along" People who objected to the sub prime mess damaged their career and walked away from huge profits. Likewise, people (and especially women)who ignore our society's appearance mania put themselves at a significant disadvantage within this society. And so
any woman who wants to be more successful would spend a reasonable amount of effort and resources seeking to maximize her attractiveness as a way of enhancing her competitive positioning in a broad range of activities.
