The assault on the world’s beleaguered male majority continues, at least in the tiny minds of the readers of lady-hating internet garbage fire Return of Kings. The latest insult to all that is male and good?
Regular RoK contributor David G. Brown answers that question loudly and clearly in the title of a recent post:
His evidence? Two non-white women he doesn’t think are super hot won state-level contests in the Miss America and Miss World pageants: Magnolia Maymuru, an Aboriginal woman who won the title of Miss Northern Territory, Australia in the Miss World pageant; and Arianna Quan, a Chinese-American woman who won the Miss Michigan title in the Miss America pageant.
As Brown sees it, both of these “winners’ (he puts the words in quotes)
are so unbelievably plain and even ugly that the “beauty” in beauty pageant should have been removed from the contests they each entered.
Actually, for what its worth, the Miss America pageant already has removed the word “beauty,” famously referring to itself as a “scholarship contest,” while Miss World likes to talk about “beauty with a purpose” and the charity programs their contestants support. But most people think of them as beauty contests because, well, that’s basically what they are.
The real point here is that Brown is complaining that these pageants, to some limited degree at least, reflect the diversity of the real world, a complaint that seems especially ironic when applied to the Miss World pageant, given that every single country in the world contains some portion of people who are not white, and that in many countries these “minorities,” as Brown calls them, are actually, you know, the majority. Shocking, I know. While the Miss World pageant started off with all-white winners, it has awarded numerous women of color the crown since the 1960s.
Racists may think of the US and Australia as “white countries,” in which white men should have a lock on political and industrial power and white women should have a similar lock on beauty pageant crowns, but the world is a bit more complicated than that.
Nearly a third of those living in Australia’s Northern Territory are indigenous Australian people. Meanwhile, there are 18 million Asian-Americans living in the US, nearly 6% of the total population. God forbid one of them win a pageant title once in a while.
Now, to be fair, Brown’s complaint isn’t that women of color have been winning beauty contests; it’s that “ugly” women of color have been winning beauty pageant titles. So how exactly does he determine “ugliness?”
On the street, neither of these girls is going to turn heads. Another test, whether women would want to look like them or straight men would want them, would also result in very few takers.
Has he done some sort of scientific poll to test either of these propositions? Nah. He’s just taking his own preferences and projecting them onto the world around him.
Brown insists that he’s not being racist, because, as it turns out, some Chinese people think Quan is ugly, too! An article on Shanghaist (discussed in a Roosh V forum thread I couldn’t bring myself to read) reports that “the reaction from Chinese netizens [to Quan’s crowning] has been overwhelmingly negative with many writing in to criticize her looks.”
Brown is quick to use these Chinese critics as, yes, a shield to protect himself from accusations of bigotry. “In the case of Quan, the biggest criticisms came from her ancestral homeland of China,” he writes.
Chinese netizens need not fear the kind of racism accusations that would be leveled at white Americans questioning whether she deserved the Miss America title for one of America’s most populous states … .
But from the comments Shanghaist quotes it’s clear that the issue isn’t Quan’s deviance from some universal Platonic ideal of beauty; it’s that she looks too “American.”
“She’s ugly AND she isn’t Chinese,” one Chinese commenter wrote of Quan, who was born in Beijing. “This is probably the American standard of beauty,” wrote another. “She looks exactly like Mulan in Disney.”
Yep. Chinese people can be parochial bigots, too.
As for Maymuru, Brown is convinced that political correctness is cowing potential critics into silence.
Media coverage of Maymuru’s crowning was ecstatic, namely because, in the words of many racial quota-leaning commenters, “it was about time” that an Aboriginal Australian won such a title. Few online respondents dared to call her unattractive due to the near certainty of them being labeled as racist bigots.
Brown has no need to worry on this front. The author of such lovely previous posts as 3 Reasons I Will Never Apologize For Being White, Only White Countries Are Expected To Let In Hordes Of Illegal Migrants, Why Isn’t Anyone In The Establishment Talking About Jewish And Asian Privilege? and The New Star Wars Movie Spinoff Reaffirms Disney’s Hatred Of White Males has already made pretty clear how he should be labeled.
Speaking of universal beauty standards, there is someplace on the ‘net a mathematical formula for artists wanting to draw a beautiful face that is actually beautiful. (If I could recall what the name of this thing was, I’d link to it.)
If I recall it correctly, it was stuff like the eyes needing to be a certain distance apart, the nose and mouth a certain size and distance from each other, ect. And the best thing about this formula was that it worked no matter what race the model was. From the palest white to the darkest black, this formula worked. Now if I could just remember its name so I could link to it…. 🙁
Also, this discussion reminds me of something a professional portrait photographer once said about faces. He mentioned that there was a tiny percentage of people who had perfectly symmetrical features (most people don’t), and that these people are the ones who usually become models.
Things to think about when it comes to (trying to) measure beauty.
@alan
I read a bit more of the story, and there are things which are uncomfortable on both sides, unfortunately. No one should get send rape threats and have to live in fear of real life violence. The fact this is being used as a tactic against female politicians is low, and absolutely disgusting. However, I do not like the language Phillips has used about ‘knifing Corbyn’, her use of violent imagery brings her down to the same level as the abusers. There is no need to use violent language. If somebody used this kind of language in our local CLP they would be cautioned, or at least spoken to harshly.
I think it’s a bit of a case of live by the sword, die by the sword. People should steer well clear of provocative language and inciting violence against anybody, regardless of gender.
@ Buttercup
Aww thanks. At the risk of this becoming a mutual admiration society I really like your posts; you’ve got a very dry wit.
@ redsilkphoenix
The symmetry thing supposedly applies only to photos. Apparently in real life encounters we only look at the right side (or is it the left?) of a person’s face. Thus so long as that side looks ‘ok’ then you’ll be considered attractive regardless of what your other side looks like. I’ll see what Harvey Dent says about that, but in the interim colour me sceptical.
@redsilkphoenix : for most people, symetrizing the face make it more beautiful. But for models and supermodel, sumetrizing it actually make it *uglier*.
The moral is that symetry isn’t the only thing in beauty in practice. I am similary extremely wary of anyone saying a single equation govern every possible beauty. It seem overstated, and the kind of claim that tend to crumble when tested.
Well, if the beauty pageants aren’t catering to his particular taste, there’s a solution: don’t watch. If enough people do that, there won’t be any more beauty pageants. Problem solved!
@ Virgin Mary
I get your point and as you know I’m not a fan of hyperbole in political discourse and especially violent rhetoric.
I did see her original comment though more as a rehash on the old “They’d never stab a colleague in the back; they’d always do it from the front” thing that’s pretty common in political debate.
Metaphor is one thing, and I don’t think it’s equivalent to actual threats. There’s absolutely zero chance of her really stabbing someone, whereas, post Jo Cox, I can see why she’s taking those threats seriously.
@Virgin Mary,
Bringing up Pixee Fox seems like a non sequitur; as far as I know she’s never won a beauty pageant, or even entered a beauty pageant.
Well, if you actually wanted to know, you could.
In any event, there’s reason to doubt that she really had ribs removed, let alone six of them: http://www.snopes.com/2015/12/01/pixee-fox/
There are a lot of successful models whose faces break those sorts of ‘rules’. Molly Bair is a good example:
http://s3d1.turboimagehost.com/sp/1fcd4677dbd4bea2dead605b083823a0/molly_bair_thesociety_18.jpg
Perfect can be sort of boring.
I remember seeing something that almost but not quite symmetrical was considered optimal, as perfectly so borders on the uncanny valley. Of course it also seems to be true that all of these studies contain the flaw in so much evopsych, that it is difficult if not impossible to control for cultural conditioning and the proliferation of Western beauty ideals though media.
@dontgiveahoot
I don’t know if you meant to harshly stereotype virgin women here but that is certainly how it came across to me.
@Alan Robertshaw:
Remarkable bit of dodginess by ‘Mike’ there, including the priceless ‘technically, it’s not murder yet’. I don’t think I’ll add that blog to my reading list.
@Ohlmann:
The ‘ideal’ facial features, including high degrees of symmetry that have been found scientifically probably work if an advert wants to evoke a majority of positive reactions to the actors in the creative. But apart from that, so many factors determine what we experience as ‘good’, ‘attractive’, ‘sexy’ etc that the science really ends there.
@Maxi & Nequam You’ve made my day! I am a rabid Price fan (have you seen Service de Luxe? Wow.) and maintain that Suchet has the most beautiful eyes ever.
@(((VioletBeauregarde)))
Yeah when I said “street harassment” I really should’ve said any form of harassment anywhere, because the abuse is the same…
On a somewhat related note, could you give details on what the nosy question was ? I’m actually aiming to be bartender meself (I’m still under the delusion that it’s the best job in the world, for reasons not even related to my alcoholism) and my plan is to ultimately open a place with a bunch of other like-minded people, so I’d like to know what kind of abuse co-workers might face in the event they DARED be women. Though please don’t answer and disregard the question if you’re uncomfortable with it in any way.
For the record, the place we want to open will basically be a volcano base for evil feminist overlady conspirators and their hordes of mangina flunkies, but with drinks. So we already know how to deal with harassers in there, and it’s probably going to involve witchcraft and/or laser-focused mind-control liberal media technologies. Or something.
And thanks for all the condolences on the insomnia thing – this is perhaps the only place where it’s regarded as what it is and I don’t get told off as lazy.
@CrysT: Service de Luxe is one of the Price films I haven’t seen… but shall I make you envious by saying I had the pleasure of meeting the man himself some years ago? 😀
He “jokingly” said “Shouldn’t you be single if you’re a bartender? You don’t want to hurt your boyfriend”
I said “I am very loyal to my boyfriend and would never cheat. Now please do mind your own business”
I was polite, if a little chilly.
I feel your pain on the insomnia thing. I have bouts with that myself having ADHD
I guess I watched too much anime as a child because I seem to have internalized the “handsome is as handsome does” meme from the 60s U.S. version of “Kimba the White Lion”. (I loved that one, plus “The Amazing Three”, also liked “Gigantor” and “Astro Boy”. “Speed Racer” not so much, though :p)
If all I know about a person is what they look like, they exist in a sort of Schrodinger’s ‘hot or not’ category until I have more info. For me, a person just isn’t attractive unless they have personal attributes that I find appealing. Thus, I’ve had the raging hots for guys I originally thought were kinda goofy-looking (and also smart, funny, and kind) and been left utterly unattracted by gorgeous physical specimens (who were also superficial, shallow, and really kind of mean). I know that I’m absolutely not unique in this.
I think even the menzers do this to some extent. They just have the two concepts far enough apart in their heads that there is a bunch of cognitive dissonance between ‘physically attractive’ and ‘has personal attributes I find appealing’. This seems to cause them to be angry because they think the two should always go together the way they want them to instead of taking people (women) as they come.
Then, of course, there’s also the infuriating double standard that these guys demand to be taken (and desired by the near-impossible women of their fantasies) as they come. Definitely NOT attractive!
@hambeast
You’re forgetting, women have no personal attributes that they will find appealing beyond ‘vagina’ or meat dispensary. They do not even consider women to be the same species, let alone ‘interesting’. They would screw a dead woman if she was still fresh.
The current top post on Quan’s Facebook page has some rando insulting her looks. Here’s her response:
What a class act.
Surprised you didn’t highlight the top rated comment on the article:
“A mans dick dictates what’s beautiful or not. End of fucking story. Declare as many ugly, third-world genetic trash mutants miss-world all you want, doesn’t change what’s really beautiful.”
And no matter how much you cry about “political correctness”, anyone who refers to people as “third-world genetic trash mutants” is a thoroughly ugly person inside.
http://faceresearch.org/demos/average
that’s a useful site in case you want to speculate on what makes faces conventionally beautiful.
Try to average out faces of just two otherwise unattractive people and see what happens.
Virgin Mary – Well, the menzers do seem to like fear* – can’t get that from a dead person. That’s why a lot of us here think that their promised sexbot “revolution” wouldn’t actually make most of them happy, either.
*Even though fear is an emotion and not a personality trait or personal attribute. They like to couch it as some variety of submissiveness a lot, though.
(Disclaimer : I’m having a really hard time englishing this as I go, so please everyone bear in mind that it may be extremely unclear to anyone other than me. If so, and if you can rephrase something more clearly, please do so.)
@Hambeast
There’s a lot of stuff in your post that I fully agree with, and one tiny thing that I don’t.
This.
And this.
Where I disagree with you is here :
I don’t believe this cognitive dissonance is unique to them. I think the difference lies more in their view of beauty and attractiveness as objective things.
My personal experience seems pretty similar to yours : whether I find a person attractive or not can change the moment they open their mouth. My whole life was spent repeatedly, utterly and sometimes desperately falling in love with women whose appearance, the outside, I didn’t perceive as beautiful. And then we started talking, and the inside, a mix of personality, intelligence, humour, and a bunch of other attractive things that aren’t physical, along of course with their general attitude to me in particular, started shining through and actually altering how physically attractive I perceived them.
I believe this to be cognitive dissonance, and I’m actually fine with it because it makes people look as beautiful as they are. (As they sound ? Feel ? Whatever verb you think describes the inside best.) And I believe that the usual morons and misogynists show this exact same cognitive dissonance, but only the negative form (negative as in, makes people look unattractive) while also essentializing attractiveness as something not subjective, but objective, which, again, is utter bullshit.
What Virgin Mary said :
I think this sums it up. Since they only care about physical appearance, and could never imagine that a “physically unattractive” woman can be, err, “attractive in not-physical ways” (please someone rephrase this piece of engrish somehow), in their case this dissonance (which I believe is still essentially the same thing as what you and I described) only operates one way : it only makes women look ugly to them, as soon as said people don’t match their ideal of what a woman’s personality should be like (that is, no personality).
As a sidenote, I believe this cognitive dissonance is what causes, among other things, love.
Now this is all just my 2 cents, and I’m hoping for Scildfreja to come in and utterly destroy my reasoning with one that is scientifically accurate and well worded. I honestly don’t understand how brains work, it’s all just wild hypothesis only backed by some personal experience and my interpretation of Hambeast’s comment. Plus, again, poor wording on my part – this is all beyond my grasp of english. Not to mention my tired brain (I did get some sleep eventually, but clearly not enough).
Precisely, I couldn’t say it better. How much you like babies and kittens also directly affects how beautiful you are.
And Quan? Gorgeous. And after she gave that kick ass AND classy response you mentioned in the coments, even more. I get sincerely baffled at how they can only be attracted at one type of woman (human barbies between 18 and 25), while not seeing the beauty(and value, since they base value on attractiveness)in different types. How boring must the world be for them. Again, I’m ALMOST sorry for them.
@Pitshade
I remember hearing that too
No it’s not. You’re English is actually really good. It’s… logical. Like, you’re good at logicking you’re way outta situations beyond your pure linguistic prowess. You approximate well, ie “attractive in not-physical ways”. Honestly the best indicator of someone’s language comprehension is in recognizing their limits and effectively working around them. Can’t vouch for your speaking, but your writing is almost indistinguishable from fluency 🙂