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• Thursday, June 7, 2007 11:18 AM

  women's body styles that reflect status will not go away for health reasons

  Hi, I'm an anthropologist, and I can tell you a simple thing. Human society is a higher primate society, and as such falls within the patrilineal pattern found in the other ape groups. However, human females have something very important - mate choice. This means that ultimately, their main competition issues are for status amongst themselves , rather than for males. The latter will compete with each other for access to females, but otherwise male-male competition is low. I believe that most of the marketing aimed at [heterosexual] females in our society subconsciously appeals to their desire to acquire status markers. For instance, stick-thin models continue to appear at fashion shows as well as in films, adverts, etc, despite the oft-expressed preference of men from all ethnic and racial groups for somewhat curvy women. Clearly this is not a response to sexual cues, but to a different set of needs - status markers. Fatter standards happen to give the same or similar visual cues as those required by successful child-bearing and hence sexual success - but the randomness of fashion shows that these are not strong enough to always prevail. To recapitulate, women's fashion (including body styles) relates more to intra-sexual competition for status than to competition for mates. This competition is strong enough to overcome sexually-related signals going in the opposite direction, as well as those correlated with a superior state of health. Therefore, unhealthy high-status body styles will continue to exist unless the correlation of a different style with high status becomes apparent. Therefore, if you are concerned about women's health, send signals of status that reflect healthier bodies.

  —ivitagata Read ivitagata's other letters
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