Ladies! Have you felt your jaw lately? Does it seem a bit … square to you? Maybe a little bit too square?
This could be the result of TOO MUCH FEMINISM, according to some dude who writes for the ongoing internet dumpster fire known as Return of Kings.
In a recent post looking at the allegedly dire results of fifty years of feminism, “Relampago Furioso” warns that one of the most dire “end results of feminism” is the proliferation of “man-jawed women” who look sorta like dudes.
Mr. Furioso quotes, without linking to it, a recent study that looked to see if feminist activist lady women are more “masculinized” than your standard issue lady women.
The study-conductors gave feminist activists a test to see how bossy they are, and measured the length of their ring and index fingers, because apparently fetuses exposed to a more masculine mix of sex hormones at a critical stage of their stay in the womb end up with ring fingers longer than their index fingers.
Turned out the feminist activist lady women were pretty bossy, and they also had “significantly more masculine 2D:4D” finger ratios!
And so, despite the fact that the only physically “masculine” trait discussed in the research is this finger thing — which is determined by sex hormones in the womb, not by anything one does as an adult — Mr. Furioso seems to think that feminist “indoctrination” will cause ladies to develop unsightly “man-jaws.”
If you think women are becoming manlier—they are. In fact, it’s becoming clearer sexual dimorphism (distinct male and female appearance and behavior) is an enemy of social engineers who want to see the sexes blend into one androgynous human pod in the coming generations.
An androgynous human pod? OH NO IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING!
Mr. Furioso quotes from the bossy lady finger study, and then offers this “translation.”
Feminists have a ton of testosterone coursing through their veins, and as more women are taught to act like men instead of being nurturing mothers even more man-jaws will emerge in the years ahead.
Lady from esurance ad, your rebuttal?
Mr. Furioso, your final statement?
It seems social engineers are catering to already existing instincts in women by encouraging them to be copies of men rather than copies of their grandmothers, bringing out the worst in women rather than the best.
Wait, this dude writing for a website run by a pickup artist who fetishizes very young women wants women to be copies of their grandmothers?
Honestly, dudes, do you actually think any of this through before posting it?
Jesus, this is clear Not Even Wrong territory. Not only is he implying causation from (alleged) correlation, but if there is some sort of causation then he’s got it backwards.
It’s far more plausible – ignoring whether or not any of this is true – to suggest that women who produce more testosterone (thus having more “masculine” developmental markers) are more likely to be Feminists because reasons; there’s at least a vague causal chain to follow. But instead he’s spouting some back asswards bullshit that suggests feminism causes women to retroactively develop strong jaws (skeletal structure stops changing mid-20’s IIRC) because acting they are acting too much like men. Like, what?
But I guess that’s what happens when you know your conclusion (Feminism bad!) before you even look at the data.
@PoM, thanks! It wasn’t gonna be that long, honest – I just wanted to take a peek at what the authors’ histories were before making a quick comment. But it just sort of sucked me in. I mean, I review white papers, but I almost never see something like that.
I went in thinking that this paper was from Wallert, and that we were looking at an undergrad who had been told to write a paper – anything, just get a publication so that we can keep funding – and went off into their pet bigotries. Instead I found this upper-crust Oxford dorkus, peddling his bigotries through a procession of largely-ignored almost-science. It was almost like watching a mini-series! I can practically taste his anger at the rejection of his peers. His most successful paper is one where he’s cited because people need to cite sources opposing theirs, and each of those is going to be a refutation. No one’s continued his work but him. Oh, the burn, it has to sting!
@Pol, observation. Take it as you like. You’re being classified as a troll despite saying something relatively agreeable – saying it clumsily, perhaps, but okay.
Your classification isn’t about what you say, or even how you say it. It’s about how you react to confrontation. Your reactions are generally anger and sassy doubling-down instead of cooperation and explanation. That’s what gets you the cold shoulder and the bared teeth.
And it’s the fact that you aren’t interested in cooperation or explanation is what gets you labeled a troll – makes you look like you’re just here to irritate and stir the pot. You want to change that? Change your behaviour. Otherwise your behaviour is trolling, even if your intentions aren’t.
@dlouwe, the authors of the paper aren’t saying that – they’re saying what you suggest, that feminism is due to more testosterone. It’s still just causal and poorly supported at that, but at least they have it the right away around. It’s the RoK crowd that’s got their underpants on their head. Not big surprise!
@Scildfreja
Whoops, I forgot to specify – I was talking about the RoK pants-on-headery, not the paper itself; I didn’t look too closely at that. But knowing that makes it even worse, as the RoK author read the “less bogus” version given by the paper and managed to fumble with it until it wasn’t even pointing in the right direction.
If testosterone causes feminism, why aren’t there more feminists that are men, exactly?
‘cuz women are a different species donchakno?
Or ‘cuz testosterone is what makes you stand for your own rights ?
Oh hey, broscience is fun.
“Copies of their grandmothers” – adding to this theme, I don’t think this Furioso guy would approve of my father’s mother. When she was 20 and unmarried, she had her first kid, and had to deal with prejudice for it. Nevertheless, she had a long career as a writer and farmer, married my grandfather at around 35 and had two more kids, one of them my dad.
Also, good grief. Education isn’t cloning! Women don’t automatically become copies of their grandmothers, or of men, just because people teach them to do things that Furioso considers either feminine or masculine. People are a lot more interesting and complicated than that.
My grandmother would frighten these poor dudebros. She inspires me. I wish I were more like her.
She says her grandmother was “as independent as a pig on ice”.
One of my grandmothers bore nine children, was a complete and utter autocrat over her family, and died in her mid-fifties from complications from overeating. The other was a notorious nag who insisted on being waited on hand and foot whenever her children’s families visited, because she had done her bit of drudgery for others. I doubt those dudebros spent long enough with their grans to realise what glorious witches most of them are.
My grandmothers lived in 1950’s China and Vietnam respectively. I would LOVE to see them try to last a day in those conditions.
Unrelated but fun, go here and watch the ad:
http://junkee.com/fake-holden-commercial-perfect-pisstake-gender-stereotypes-advertising/86629
tee hee!
Adding to the thanks to Scildfreya! Paradoxy got her money’s worth on that request and I did, too. It was like a scholarly expose.
Also, for Pol – Sinkable John can speak for me, too.
@Johann Silbek
I mean
@Jean Blonkish
I mean
@Sinkable John
I also don’t care for a recurrence of Pol’s reductionist, simplicstic, phobic ‘science’. You may speak for me as well
By the way my grandma’s pretty boring. I’m glad most of her descendants regardless of gender aren’t trying to emulate her.
@Axe
Pretty close on the second one, heh. There’s a trick with that h.
speaking of crap science, are any of you as excited for this year’s BAHfest as I am?
Wow, an ad with a seven-digit phone number. From ancient times when all Chicagoland telephony fit under the 312 umbrella.
According to this theory I should have had terrible trouble conceiving, as I am a square jawed (inherited from mother and grandmother) feminist (not inherited at all) – seeing as how very high testosterone levels in women make conception difficult.
HOWEVER… this being the real world I did 3 inseminations and got 2 kids out of them! For anyone who has gone the direct OR indirect route 2 pregnancies from 3 ‘go’s’ is extremely efficient conception rates. And I was over 30 at the time.
Anyone would think that this ‘theory’ was just a pile of nonsensical anti science, anti woman crap.
Hmmm…lessee…
My grandmothers were both nice, fairly undistinguished working-to-middle-class German ladies. Both kind of on the chubby side, too, except during World War II, when everything was rationed and everyone was thin as a rag. So telling me to eat like them wouldn’t help, unless there were a war going on, and I say fuck that noise.
Paternal grandmother had four kids and got awarded a Mother’s Cross for it (she never kept the damn thing, and a good thing too; talk about worthless). Fun fact, her husband got called up on the carpet for criticizing Hitler, and the Gestapo man threatened him by reminding him of his four children. That shut up my otherwise exceptionally mouthy grandfather, at least until the 12-Year Reich was finally over. He deserted the Kriegsmarine and walked home, obtaining some civilian clothes from a farmer along the way.
Maternal grandmother lost her youngest daughter (of three) at the age of 11 months when they had to flee Yugoslavia in 1944, due to the Russians invading. Her milk dried up because of stress and poor diet, and there was nothing to give the baby except ersatz coffee, which isn’t exactly conducive to infant survival. Then the baby caught dysentery and that was it. The baby was buried under a swastika flag, as though she were some kind of war hero, which is all kinds of fucked-up. Maternal grandfather didn’t know where to go to be demobilized at war’s end, so he and some comrades turned themselves in to the British. They ended up in a POW camp in Scotland for three years; more crappy rationed food, much skinniness, yippee…and that was when he first started looking old: in his mid-thirties.
Frankly, I would rather not have to go through anything my grandparents did. Fascism was shit, and nobody in my family who lived through it would recommend it.
Also, chalk me up as another woman with index and ring fingers about the same length. If I squint at them really hard, it looks like my right index finger and my left ring finger are each ever so slightly longer (we’re talking millimetres here). What that says about me and my femininity levels, I don’t know, and I don’t suppose it especially matters.
I mean, when my grandmother was my age she was in a forced labour camp for being an eeeeeevil SJW (astonishingly, not a new thing- although she was protesting the Communist administration, which might make her acceptable to the MGTOWs? What are we allowed to complain about, exactly?)
And I do love Funny Girls:
Thank you very much for that write-up, Scildfreja!
“It has for example been reported that there are self-identified feminsts who argue (…) that all men are potential rapists” sounds to me like that bloke happened to hear about Schrödinger’s rapist and just didn’t really get it.
@Valkyrine
Seen that a lot, yeah.
@Jason Eichhorn,
I know, right? I remember these stores very well.
Here’s an ad from 1978: (apologies, I don’t know how to embed on my phone)
https://youtu.be/noZeSKNQa8o
So I just caught this, I cannot stop laughing.
:dies:
oh my god i just got it