It helps if she is funny.

Opposites attract?

“Which is why I said “The problem I have with explanations like this is that there are so many layers of culturally and genetically accreated ‘beliefs’ on top of and under anything anthropological.”.”

Oops, I’m sorry– I misread your posts. Was skimming too fast I thought that you were proposing cultural explanations, when in fact you were critiquing it.

So, I agree with you.

n my opinion, there is SOME truth to this assertion, but I personally am careful to not dump everything on “culture” as an explanation for everything.

Which is why I said “The problem I have with explanations like this is that there are so many layers of culturally and genetically accreated ‘beliefs’ on top of and under anything anthropological.”. Pick any of ‘cultural’, ‘anthropological’ or ‘genetic’, add a few more qualifiers, keep swapping their positions and the statement would still hold true in my opinion.

Whilst there is some truth to some stereotypes, I’m not not trying to sweep this entire issue under the carpet of cultural conditioning. I just think that in most instances – except the most obvious and least interesting – people’s reasoning in this area is not easily reducible to a set of rubrics of the form ‘light skin connotates fertility on the part of women’. Who can tell what goes on in the heart of most relationships? Well, I can – as I’m always right – at least until I realise that I used to be wrong but NOW i’m definitely right.

A few weekends ago I went to a wedding held in the quintessentially English setting of a CofE village church in the backends of one of the home counties. The bride was down to earth, short, english and blonde, the groom was tall, south asian and a dreamer. Out of the matrix of all possible prejudices what values can be assigned where?

A guy you can “reason” with doesn’t really mean that you can successfully convince him to do his share

“Any male from this day and age knows that unlike his father and his grandfather who had a full-time wife who took care of the house and kids, this time around things are different.”

Knowing doesn’t necessarily translate into DOING. I’ve met many men who claim to know this, and that they like “strong women” and they believe in “equality” etc etc but very few can actually put their actions to words.

“‘Light/blonde’ might be connoted to fertility to a lot of European men for the reasons I stated above, but to claim that these associations are universal is one more example of euro-centrism. (I know you didn’t say it, but I have heard this theory before).”

I completely agree with you here– which is why I stated in my post that I myself wasn’t convinced when my professor offered this explanation, and neither was he, for the very reason that you point out– Eurocentrism.

In my opinion, there is SOME truth to this assertion, but I personally am careful to not dump everything on “culture” as an explanation for everything. Because the truth is, “culture” itself is not homogenous and static, providing us with a fixed database. Problems if we talk about “cultural explanations”:

1. We risk reifying “culture” (ie South Asian culture is like this and that; in South Asian culture, it is like this)

2. There is the danger that we assoicate genetics and ethnicity to phenomenon when there are obviously other factors in play– such as class, socio-economic status.

3. The trap that we start essentializing culture (In South Asian culture, men are chauvenist, as opposed to Western culture)
4. “Culture” does not have an evenly distributed and pervasive influence; that is to say, people pick and choose what they want from “culture”, or certain aspects of a given culture affect each individual in varying degrees.

Ofcourse I am not saying that culture as a concept and practice does not exist and that it does wield influence; but I am also saying that when we attempt to come up with “cultural explanations”, we don’t get very far. So for example, if one were to say, “In South Asian culture, fair women are valued”. This could be true, but it discounts diversity. For example, I know some South Asian men (few, admittedly) who find South Asian women who are not so fair extremely attractive.

“The truth is no one likes to receive orders.”

I should have never made this joke about giving orders to men to do their share of the housework.

Sheesh, people, LIGHTEN UP

The problem with these theories is that they are over-simplistic. There are gazillions reasons why we find someone attractive and it’s individual and based on our past experiences. A lot of cues are taken from our parents and friends. If our mothers are warm, we associate her physical traits with that feeling. And according to Freud, we will try to find a partner that resembles her.

My point is that physical appearance means different things to different people. ‘Light/blonde’ might be connoted to fertility to a lot of European men for the reasons I stated above, but to claim that these associations are universal is one more example of euro-centrism. (I know you didn’t say it, but I have heard this theory before).

Or you can try finding a guy you can reason with. Any male from this day and age knows that unlike his father and his grandfather who had a full-time wife who took care of the house and kids, this time around things are different. It seems logical that women cannot be expected to do everything. I think it works best if both men and women agree in advance what chores to be performed during the week, rather than operating under a boot camp scenario. The truth is no one likes to receive orders.

quick question in countries where there are whites tans are a must for the summer, actually most times of the year hence sunbeds, holidays, over exposure in the sun, chemical tanners, airbrushing using gravy. So why when asiana, africans etc etc wish to lighten their skin is there an outcry?

fairer people want to tan to look more sexy (and more fertile? in doing so? i mean thats the point right to attract a mate?) so why is the opposite wrong and has to be labelled as harking abck to collonial days yadda yadda yadda.

it is what it is today and these attitudes will be very difficult to change no matter how many bipashas and rimis or giselles or laetia castas there are – i think people should concentrate on the health issues of tanning and skin lightening more than anything else.

bingo. in any case, anything can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. what’s clear is that people are generally dumb and will believe whatever you tell them

Or at any rate – if you tell them what their ‘underlying motivations really are’ – they’ll extrapolate and backfit all past and future behaviour in that light.

bingo. in any case, anything can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. what’s clear is that people are generally dumb and will believe whatever you tell them

one of the theories I’ve heard (in anthro class as well, strange) is that fairer women are perceived to be more docile and yielding in their opinions and demands from relationships than women who are not as fair.

The problem I have with explanations like this is that there are so many layers of culturally and genetically accreated ‘beliefs’ on top of and under anything anthropological.

From this years silly season alone; do brits like blonde/brunette women because they are more/less Germanic/Breton – which submissive/dominant buttons are being pressed? Or is it because they all lived in caves and therefore preferred women they could see?

.. and I know a few evolutionary psychologists who would explain it by .. you get the idea.