For years I've been keeping an eye on the attractive men I pass, but apparently I've had it all wrong. If I want to be truly happy, I need to find me an ugly man.
A recent University of Tennessee study of 82 newlywed couples found that long-term (heterosexual) relationships are more successful when the woman is more attractive than the man. Various news sources around the world have reported on the survey, first published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
It's an interesting study that should raise important questions about gender relations. But media outlets from Tennessee to South Africa reported on the survey in the same way. As in much of today's science reporting, they oversimplify scientific research without raising any new questions about some problematic assumptions in our society.
Most of the stories mention how the study said that the success of such relationships is evolutionary in nature. Women are seeking a reliable mate with whom to reproduce, while men are pickier because they are programmed (in the words of Fox News) to look for a partner who can help them pass on good genes. The less attractive man is more likely to be proud of his beautiful catch, and the more attractive man tends to be dissatisfied because he knows he can do better.
Little else is said in the articles, and we are left to conclude that, biologically, men care more about looks than do women. That may be true ' I am not a psychologist or a scientist and I am not questioning the validity of the study's findings. What I am questioning is the media's failure to address the underlying social factors. They whittle such surveys down to simple biological conclusions, effectively saying that things cannot change.
Articles on studies about the differences between men and women occur on a regular basis, from reports that women naturally eat less meat than men to reports that men are more likely to drown. The common culprit in all of these findings is evolution and the tagline for each story can often be something along the lines of Men and women really are different!
Hormones and other biological factors undoubtedly play a role in creating differences between sexes. But when it comes to preferences, there are often greater differences within a sex than there are between the sexes. I know women who love hamburgers and women who won't go near red meat. The same with men.
Stories that sum up the scientific findings by creating neat little average man and average woman packages only lead to more justification for gender policing. Women are told they have to like the color pink to be feminine, and men must eat lots of steak to be manly. What some media ignore is how we are told from a young age what acceptable behavior for our gender is. We are socialized into believing this and then act on that assumption, so that it becomes self-perpetuating.
These oversimplifications are harmful to both men and women. In the case of the Tennessee study, the articles had a common theme that can be summed up by the headline in the British tabloid the Mirror: Dishy lads make bad husbands. The men are commodified as women are given tips on where they can obtain a good husband. A blog called Mom Logic (with the interesting subtitle For thinking moms who don't have time to think) includes a picture of a man with a newspaper covering his face. What if that had been a woman?
For women, the news stories imply that true happiness is having a faithful husband. But what about a career, friends and family or even physical attraction? The success of the marriage is entirely dependent on him and his fidelity. If his eyes stray to other women, do we blame evolution instead of him? And what about the fact that women have to contend with much higher and more unfair beauty standards than men?
I don't expect media outlets and reporters who are not experts in either sociology or genetics to give solid answers to these questions. But they are certainly not asking the questions in the first place.
Amanda Teuscher is a senior journalism and political science major. Send her an e-mail at at156604@ohiou.edu.
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Amanda Teuscher
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