Female social scientists make astonishing discoveries about ogling

Female social scientists, having apparently never been ogled themselves, have difficulty understanding the behaviour in others. The women who never get ogled (such as the feminists mentioned in this article) are the ones who complain the most about being "objectified." The UWO professor is at the perfect campus to conduct such a study; I went to that university, and I found the women very oglable. Their taste in men, however, should be a subject for another study.

In experiments with more than 200 people, researchers discovered that when a female believes her body is being sized up by a male, she'll diminish her presence by speaking less. When a male believes a female is eyeing his physique, however, no such effect occurs.

The study, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, explains that our culture has so taught women that they're judged on appearance that they've come to evaluate themselves that way, ultimately self-objectifying.

Only a woman who has never attracted the interest of any men could come up with this howler (I laughed so hard when I read this, I almost needed medical attention):

Veronica I. Arreola, assistant director of the University of Chicago's Center for Research on Women and Gender, hopes this helps "dispel the myth that ogling women or staring at their chests should be seen as a compliment."

"Yes, we want to look nice and yes, we like to hear that we looked nice today," says Arreola. "But we also want to communicate our thoughts and ideas without wondering if someone is staring down our shirt."

That depends, of course, on whether there’s anything down the shirt worth looking at (or imagining). I have news for Ms. Arreola: Men are interested in what's inside the shirt, they're not interested in women's thoughts and ideas, and all the feminist indoctrination in the world isn't going to change that.

Meanwhile, this observation is positively Sherlockian:

"I'm often struck watching perfectly reasonable and attractive women hiding behind towels at the beach while men of all ages and sizes stroll up and down the beach smiling and looking happy in their skin," says Brennan, who studies gender equality.

"We don't teach men that they'll be judged on how their bodies look, and certainly there's much less emphasis on appearance in male socialization."

Another article on the same topic can be found here.

Big fat slobs don't get jobs...

...except maybe as "Before" models in weight-loss ads. This survey was done by a weight-loss organization in Britain; I suspect the results might be less dramatic in the U.S.A. and Canada, where the number of fat people has ballooned in recent years. Perhaps it might be a good idea to get the promotion first, then earn the "BFS" degree.

Overweight face a ‘catalogue of discrimination" in the workplace, shows survey

Overweight people are missing out on jobs because employers assume they are ‘lazy’, ‘lack self control’ and are ‘not hard workers’, according to a survey by Slimming World and YouGov.

When people who are very overweight do get a job they are twice as likely to earn a low salary, four times more likely to suffer bullying about their weight and six times more likely to feel their appearance has caused them to be overlooked for promotion, the survey of 2,000 people revealed.

In addition, while one in three people who are obese admit they feel like ‘second class citizens’, data from the survey’s 227 bosses shows that they’re right to fear discrimination – particularly from male employers. One in four male bosses say they would turn down a potential candidate based purely on their weight and one in 10 admit they have already done so.

Many people hated physical education class (and still do)

This doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us (including this blogger) who were usually the last ones picked to play on teams during Phys Ed class. It doesn’t sound as though much has changed in the teaching of Phys Ed since George Leonard’s article Why Johnny Can’t Run ( a chapter adapted from his book The Ultimate Athlete) appeared in the August 1975 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (pp. 55-60). I quit taking Phys Ed after Grade 10 in the first half of 1976, but my last Phys Ed teacher, Rick Capyk, was the best I had in that subject, because he had some sympathy for the non-jocks among us. He came up with the idea of intramural leagues in various sports where we could pick our own teams, with one level of play for the jocks, and another level for the rest of us (my junior high math teacher, Mr. Farrelly, had done a similar thing for some of us a couple of years earlier). I started a flag football team, and we had a lot of fun. I have no idea if such intramural leagues still exist, but the idea is still worth trying.

Gym class makes grown-ups shun sports

Bad memories of phys-ed linked to inactive lifestyles

By Elise Stolte, edmontonjournal.com
January 7, 2010

EDMONTON — The reason many adults don't play sports may be related to the humiliation they faced as kids in gym class, when they couldn't climb a rope with everyone watching.

That might seem obvious, but University of Alberta researcher Billy Strean said he was shocked by the painful, visceral reactions he got when he interviewed people about their gym teachers even 40 years later.

When a man's brain is turned on, so is another part of him

Why is it that the social scientists who are researching other people’s sexuality don’t seem to have any themselves?

Sexual response in women more subtle than men: Study
By Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service
January 5, 2010

The old joke goes that a man's brain is located in his pants, and according to an international study published this week, the adage may in fact be partly true.

The study, which appeared in the Archives of Sexual Behavior journal, examined more than 40 years of international sex research and found that in many cases, when a man's mind was sexually aroused, it was likely his genitals were too. But in women, sexual responses were much more complicated.

For the original article in academicese as opposed to English, go here.