Absolute Craziness

“this article was written to help a friend to complete a task, the title is deliberately translated to avoid several things to happen”

The society of the modern world might be seen as the society of equal rights. One may argue that in the present, every single person  has equal chance to reach success, regardless what race, or gender, or age. That argument is wrong, and to call our society as a society of equal rights is just a politically correct way to mask the truth.

As we can learn from the past history, from time to time, pretty girls always get a better chance to achieve something great, whether it is fame, or fortune, or whatever they want to achieve. We can deductively conclude from the stories of Cleopatra, Grace Kelly, or Diana the Princess of Wales, to name a few, that the premise of this article might have some degree of truth.

The cultural progression does not make it easier to reject that idea. We all know the story of cinderella, or the sleeping beauty, or current beauty contests, such as miss universe, as their modern counterpart. In every part of the history, there will be  pop-culture legends and folklores about how beauty will bring magic.

The modern media does not deny it either, as the matter of fact, they embrace that kind of stories and gossips, and elevate their level as the news of the year. The ink is yet to be dried on the newspaper about how Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank, used (or misused) his position to please his lover by raising her salary, or how Melinda Doolittle of the American Idol fame got voted out, probably just because she is not as pretty as the other girl, or Paris Hilton had her fans petitioned the ‘governator’ Arnold not to put her in jail, just because she is pretty.

It can be deducted from the news, that the premise of this article is widely embraced by the society, or may even be encouraged by the society.

Radical feminists might argue that the shallowness of the premise is the inherent proof, that the notion to relate beauty of the skin to the success of a certain few, is actually a form of oppression by their opposite sex. They emphasize the ‘fact’, that if women cannot free themselves from unnecessary tools to be pretty, they will never be free from the dominating system created by their male counterpart.

In simplistic way to say it: if women try to be pretty to please men, they will always be dominated by men.

The supporters of the movement adamantly say that the prettiness and its auxiliaries are not necessary, and must therefore be eliminated for the sake of human evolution.

Human kind cannot possibly be moving forward to the next level of their evolution, albeit only morally and intelectually, if humans still focus on shallow things, can it?

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the point of view), that is not the case. Beauty theorists have long argued that there is more to beauty than just complexions and good shapes. It is in fact a tool for gene selection, albeit unawarely done by our own kind, to help human to preserve itself and to progress forward in the evolution.

To understand the connection between them, first we must explore the notion of beauty itself.

A definition of beauty, quoted from wikipedia:

Beauty is a quality present in an object, or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (such as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (such as personality).
The same article about beauty in wikipedia also say:
The characterization of a person as “beautiful”, whether on an individual basis or by community consensus, is often based on some combination of inner beauty, which includes psychological factors such as personality, intelligence, grace, and elegance, and outer beauty, which includes physical factors, such as health, youthfulness, symmetry, averageness, and complexion.From those definitions, it is concluded that beauty is only present in the mind of the observer (Hence, the sayings: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”) Therefore, we might argue that beauty is actually the sum of qualities, psychologically and physically, as perceived by an observer. From this point of view it is easy to quickly say, that beauty is only about perception and has nothing to do with natural selection.

But by that definition only, there is no direct linkage from beauty to evolution. This is where another feature of beauty comes in, as wikipedia stated:
Another feature of beautiful women that has been explored by researchers is a waist-to-hip ratio of approximately 0.70 for women. The concept of waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) was developed by psychologist Devendra Singh of the University of Texas at Austin. Physiologists have shown that this ratio accurately indicates most women’s fertility. Traditionally, in premodern ages when food was more scarce, fat people were judged more attractive than slender.We can conclude, by the notion fertility, female beauty must have something to do with sexual attractiveness of the person, and the capability of them to continue the preservation of gene pool of their male counterparts.

It is theorized, that the concept of waist to hip ratio, indicate the levels of female hormones as they determine the fertility level. The more ideal the ratio, the more ‘womanly’ the person is, and the more attractive she will become. In other words, she is prettier.

It is also interesting to note about the averageness of face as the ideal perception of beauty. That the average outward appearance, of the individual theoretically characterizes averaged genotypes, thus indicating health and fertility. As wikipedia stated:
A strong indicator of physical beauty is “averageness”. When images of human faces are averaged together to form a composite image, they become progressively closer to the “ideal” image and are perceived as more attractive. This was first noticed in 1883, when Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin, overlayed photographic composite images of the faces of vegetarians and criminals to see if there was a typical facial appearance for each. When doing this, he noticed that the composite images were more attractive, than as compared to any of the individual images. Researchers have replicated the result under more controlled conditions and found that the computer generated, mathematical average of a series of faces is rated more favorably than individual faces.From this notion of averageness, one can say humans unawarely try to combine the genes of the  current population as the ideal perception of beauty, creating a way to guess the health conditions of their opposite sex, as total population is considered healthy.

In a more simpler way, for a male choosing a pretty woman is one way to guarantee the preservation of gene.

Other interpretation of the concept of averageness, is that human unconcsiously, or evolutively, tries to diverse their genes. Geneticists recently theorized that genetic diversification play a significant role on species’ toughness against biological threats, such as new virus, or illness that was also created by the same mechanism.

Simply, for a man choosing a pretty girl is actually an evolutionary arms race against illness.

By that definition, man will always pick beautiful woman over the rest, simply to make sure the progression of human evolution, albeit unawarely.

Using the same theory of sexual attraction to the male counterpart, we can easily conclude, that women will instinctively choose men which are evolutionary advantageous.

Parallel with the female hormones theory, women will choose men with high-level of male hormones, characterized by strong outlook, and the ability to provide basic needs for evolutionary progression.

By that, it is easy to draw the lines to why men always try to provide things to their opposite sex. Psychologically men want to be perceived as a giver to indicate their strong position in society and in the evolutionary tree.

Therefore, the Radical feminist point of view that the concept of prettiness as a product of the world male-dominated system which is existed to the advantage of males, is flawed from its own evolutionary argument.

From these point of views and arguments, as we have explored the premise of this article from social-cultural evidence, and from the bio-science point of view, one can surely say that, not only pretty girls always get what they want, it is in fact necessitated by the nature of gene selection, and psychologically facilitated by the desire of their male counterpart to provide, for the progress of human evolution.

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