Comment by thechristine | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thechristine | Hacker News Reader

I really wish men and women could body swap for a day so we could better empathize with each other. Most men don’t really see that the world tells women “the most important thing you can be is pretty”. Whatever else you might have accomplished in life really pales in comparison to your looks. It’s just the way it is. This holds especially true outside the Bay Area bubble. Many of my wonderful male friends are just astonished at how much time and energy and money that I spend to be beautiful. I don’t think they understand how much society judges me on my looks. How it forces me to constantly compare myself to other women. How awful those moments are when I feel that I don’t have it. How women are acutely aware of and expected to “fix” our physical “shortcomings”: the hair on our face and legs and armpits and bikini lines and backs, our even-slightly-blemished skin (how dare we have pores), our thick ankles, our fleshy arms and stomach, our facial features (everything from thin lips to nose shape can be “fixed”), our hair color and texture, cuticles and unpainted nails on both hands and feet, callused feet, moles, under eye darkness and bags and wrinkles, thigh cellulite, breast shape, flabby arms, creased forehead and cheeks, short or saggy neck, unlifted lashes, low cheekbones, eyebrow shape, jaw and neck definition, etc etc. and especially, any signs of aging. We don’t ever become “silver foxes” or look “distinguished”- aging is the enemy.

In today’s world, the scrutiny of men’s appearance will never even come close to the microscope that women live under. Truly. An ugly man can make it way further in life than an ugly woman.

And worse, women are brought up to really care what others think of them, and to make everyone else comfortable at their own expense. So you can’t just “stop caring what people say”. That would really screw you over in this world.

I imagine that beauty is for women what money is for men. It’s our currency and often what makes us valuable to the group of the shallow “others” in this society.

I used to think like you, until my brother committed suicide from loneliness and rejection. I look at his suicide note every so often,and worry about my boys. Most men absolutely care what people think, and want to make other people comfortable. My brother, my father, your wonderful friends, probably do too.

Women and men have very different burdens, and its extremely clear the grass is not greener on the other side. Most people are not the high performing ruthless psychopathic type A personality common in Silicon Valley, New York, Miami, etc.

I'm a Korean woman that grew up in a white Surburbia, the meanest people to me were brown haired "average" white girls. They insulted my hair, my eyes, my nose, and my lack of nasal bridge, literally everything you can think of.

I believe the primate social hierarchy at play, and at our core many of us are trying to "win" that hierarchy. At the same time, I think certain types of people gravitate to cities and certain lifestyles.

I am touched by your very thoughtful comment, and I'm sorry about your brother.

> We don’t ever become “silver foxes” or look “distinguished”

While perhaps a little more crude, doesn't "MILF" convey the same intent with respect to women? All of the above speak to an attractiveness found in those who are considered older. There are plenty of women in their later stages of life who are still considered very attractive.

> aging is the enemy.

I posit that becoming "boring" is the ultimate enemy. Indeed, becoming boring is correlated with age. People tend to settle down as they become older, and that is what is considered least attractive. The movers and shakers don't want to associate with someone who thinks watching TV on a Saturday night is a good time.

> An ugly man can make it way further in life than an ugly woman.

It does appear to be true, statistically, that it takes men longer to mature. In fact, stereotypically, there is an idea that men will never grow up. The longer you keep at doing "stupid kid things" the greater the chances that you will eventually strike gold.

> The longer you keep at doing "stupid kid things" the greater the chances that you will eventually strike gold.

This is somewhat the key to success as a man, and what they're evolved to do.

Men don't get to live a life staying safe in the cave. Men are the species' tool for throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. That's why the bell curve for male success/failure is much flatter than it is for women. More extreme successes and more extreme failures. Men are the element of the human tribe that take on huge risks to discover new and valuable things. When it works, the success can be massive and disproportionate. When it fails, it fails hard, often in death. And usually, there's no (or little) safety net for men. There's a reason why 75% of the homeless are men.

This does seem like a necessary outcome of the harsh reality of supply and demand of sexual reproduction, that eggs and wombs are scarce and valuable while sperm is abundant and cheap.

Angela Merkel pretty solidly disproves this. Granted there aren't a lot of women like her, but even a single counterexample is sufficient to disprove broad assertions.

Women communicate in a variety of ways. One of the prime ways they communicate, even with other women, is through looks. So enhancing looks is the first step of communication. And so there is also competition. I have noticed in a large group of women, if there is someone who comes to work highly focused in looks, the other women begin to do the same. And in similar style too.

Men don’t really study that much into looks. They are less sharp about it. But ugly men get less attention too. If they don’t dress well, they get less noticed. In such cases, the surviving men who don’t look great have something else that sets them apart: high level of intellect.

What sets women apart, if not looks, is discipline and reliability.

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