From: sfjr@wam.umd.edu (Steve Russell)
Subject: People As Objects Of Desire ( was liberal men etc.)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 17:02:48 GMT

Article 2850 of alt.feminism:
From: schultz@unixg.ubc.ca (Stewart Schultz)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: liberal men are a hot item?
Date: 14 Nov 1992 20:49:54 GMT



>Second, it could be that there are a large number
>of women who want "successful" men who *also* hold egalitarian
>sex-role ideals.  I don't think there is a big contradiction there.

Stewart Schultz schultz@unixg.ubc.ca writes:

But a 'successful' man with not-so-egalitarian ideals will win out most 
of the time over an 'unsuccessful' man with egalitarian ideals.  This 
means simply that there's more of a payoff for being successful than 
egalitarian.  Just as there's more of a payoff to a woman for being 
'beautiful' than in being a long-time fan of William F. Buckley :).

	I agree with the observation you are trying to make in the
	above paragraph.  Im not assuming you do, but I long ago
	gave up trying to live like that.  I strive to be who I
	am most comphortable being, letting the "pay-offs" fall
	where they will.  I dont consider it pay-off having a woman
	notice me due to an image of "success" I may project, even
	if she comes to have a fuller of appreciation of who I am
	afterwards.  The fact that it took this image to attract
	her tells me one thing I dont like about her despite other
	positive qualities she may have.  

	Like I said, Im not saying you subsribe to these things,
	you are just making an observation, and I am making
	a tangental comment.  Thanks

Steve R.








In fact, your statistics also imply that 'conservative women are a hot 
item,' but I don't see you pushing that idea here.  Why aren't you 
saying that there's a 'large number of men who want "beautiful" women 
who *also* hold conservative political ideals'?  Wouldn't that be a de 
facto trivialization of the beauty myth?  Isn't the symmetrical claim a 
subtle brushoff of the success myth?

>Anyway, I don't think anybody's stastistics have really contradicted
>anybody else's.   I'm think we're both right, myself.

Well, all you've shown is that there's a mean difference between the 
sexes on general questions of division of labor; how and at what point 
these differences come into play in an intimate relationship is still an 
open question IMO.  I'm saying that they usually don't become an 
important issue until fairly well into a relationship, often after
several years.  That's where the numbers conflict.

Even assuming more liberal women than men, it doesn't strictly follow 
that liberal men are a 'hot item' in initial attractiveness, either in 
an absolute sense or relative to conservative men.  First, it's a 
certainty that the number of women who emphasize this criterion above 
all others is far smaller than the total number of men who satisfy it, 
which takes most of the wind out of the sails of any 'hot item'; and 
second, in relation to 'conservative' men, you're assuming that a 
woman's political affiliation is independent of her tendency to select 
on that basis.

For example, a case could be made that the population of women who 
select by political ideals is overrepresented by 'conservative' women, 
perhaps because of their generally strict adherence to religious and 
'traditional' values.  That overrepresentation could result in no 
overall difference in 'attractiveness' between conservative and liberal 
men, depending on how the numbers work out.

Of course there's also the assumption that people in general choose like 
rather than unlike or complementary mates, which is not the case at all 
in regards to personality and temperament attributes.  Couples are 
almost always polarized in fundamental ways, and they become 
increasingly polarized with time.  In fact, the polarization is often 
the reason for both the initial attraction and the eventual breakup.  
That political ideology doesn't conform to this sort of pattern is not 
at all clear.  There are plenty examples of religious and political 
mismatches in my experience, anyway.

It's an interesting question, but I think it would be news to most 
liberal men :-).

-S. Schultz


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