Have you noticed how this recent spate of “evolutionary psychology” research all seems to be saying the same thing? Namely, that men are jerks because it’s in their genes (they just can’t help it, yall!), and women are hardwired to like jerky behavior. And also to enjoy mopping, baking cookies, and popping out offspring; as opposed to doing anything else that’s even remotely self-fullfilling.
Where all these articles fall down is in presupposing that women enjoy this patriarchal bullshit because it’s part of their DNA, instead of being forced to accept it because most of us are trained from Day 1 to do so. “Women are hardwired to like pink!” Are they? Or is it more likely that if you wrap a baby in a pink blanket the day she’s born, then subtly pressure her to like the color in a thousand different ways for the next several decades, she’ll eventually start to think she likes it? I know anecdotes are not proof; but my parents never gave a damn what color I wore, and I’m a 33-year-old woman who really doesn’t care for the color.
Nice guys knew it, now two studies have confirmed it: bad boys get the most girls. The finding may help explain why a nasty suite of antisocial personality traits known as the “dark triad” persists in the human population, despite their potentially grave cultural costs.
This recent article in New Scientist, that purports to prove–basically–that women dig assholes, makes a lot of the classic douchebag-based science mistakes. Foremost, and most ridiculous, is the usage of fictional characters to confirm their hypothesis:
James Bond epitomises this set of traits, Jonason says. “He’s clearly disagreeable, very extroverted and likes trying new things – killing people, new women.” Just as Bond seduces woman after woman, people with dark triad traits may be more successful with a quantity-style or shotgun approach to reproduction, even if they don’t stick around for parenting.
Jesus H. Christ, you guys are supposed to be scientists. James Bond isn’t real. The reason his popularity has endured for 50 years is precisely because he’s a total male fantasy.
Jonason and his colleagues subjected 200 college students to personality tests designed to rank them for each of the dark triad traits. They also asked about their attitudes to sexual relationships and about their sex lives, including how many partners they’d had and whether they were seeking brief affairs.
And we all know that people who score high on the “dark triad” of narcissim, deceit, and exploitation are totally trustworthy and not at all likely to conflate or lie about their number of sexual partners!
The study also makes the time-honored male-centric error of thinking women only fuck guys they love and want to marry and have a hundred babies with. This may come as a big shock to you white-coated dorks, but sometimes women fuck guys just because they want to fuck. You know, kind of like you seem to take for granted most men do.
It’s easy to brush these articles off as so much poorly-researched, causation/correlation confused crap, which they certainly are, but the trend is troubling to me nonetheless. They’re strengthening the feeling that women not only deserve to be abused, but somehow enjoy it. I’m sick of this “science” that seems intent on proving that our proper place in society is being mistreated by jerks. It’s bullshit, and it’s dangerous, and I’m going to continue to call it out for the lazy intellectual garbage it so obviously is.
Hat tips to Feministe and Pandagon.
ETA: While I think it’s adorable that a bunch of neo-troglodytes have stopped dragging their knuckles long enough to want to tell me how wrong I am, you should know that I consider the one comment I approved and replied to to be a more than sufficient representation/rebuttal of the MENZ RITEZ!!1! faction. All further comments from them will be unnaproved and ignored. In case your unfrozen caveman misogynist brain hasn’t grasped it yet: I have comment screening on this blog, which means none of your comments will show unless I want them to. If any of you circle jerkers could ever refute me without voicing grotesquely crude opinions about my intelligence, pulchritude, or sexual preference, I would probably approve your comments. But until the magical day when you show yourself to be capable of rational rebuttal without resorting to poo flinging, you can all go fuck yourselves.
