So sexy it hurts

Sarah Palin, the blogger's gift that keeps on giving.

So now there's a pretty thin study out there that some have seized on to suggest that Alaska's wacky, wolf and whale-hating governor was rejected by voters because she was too sexy. This summarizes the report, which is behind a pay wall:

Building upon 1980s research suggesting attractive women in high-status jobs are perceived as less competent (a finding that has been challenged in recent years), they examined whether Palin’s sex appeal — the subject of endless media chatter in the weeks after she joined the ticket — hindered her ability to make the case she was up for the job.

They took a group of 133 undergraduates and assigned them to write a few lines about one of two celebrities: Palin or actress Angelina Jolie. Half of the participants in each category were asked to write “your thoughts and feelings about this person,” while the other half were asked to write “your thoughts and feelings about this person’s appearance.”

The participants were then asked to rate their subject (Palin or Jolie) in terms of various attributes, including competence. Finally, they were asked who they intended to vote for in the upcoming election.

Those who wrote about Palin’s appearance were more positive in their assessments than those who assessed her qualities as a person, but they rated her far lower in terms of competence, intelligence and capability, and were far less likely to indicate they planned to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.

“It wasn’t her appearance per se” that soured people on Palin, Heflick said in an interview. “It was the effect her appearance had on their perception of her competence and humanity.

But, as Gateway Pundit notes, 

First of all, 133 individuals is not much of a sampling base.

And, considering at least 66% of undergrads voted for Obama, this poll was going to be distorted from the start. That means maybe 40 of the kids were McCain supporters from the get-go.

That said, there's no question that Palin suffered from sexist coverage, but not nearly as much as did Hillary Clinton. But anybody out there thinks that Palin lost votes because she was too good-looking ought to get their hearing checked.

Comments

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"But anybody out there thinks that Palin lost votes because she was too good-looking ought to get their hearing checked."

Not hearing as such. But the fury she attracted from the liberal/feminist establishment, coupled with the lack of support from what should have been her own team, could partly be put down to jealousy and spite over her looks, and could have helped drive her vote down. Those legs, for example . . . . . .

(and it WAS her vote. M'Kain would probably have got close to zero without her)

[Sebastian Stoker]

The role "attractiveness" plays in human interaction is too complex and loaded to be discussed in the general media, and we should all be frightened when the terms "attractive" and "beautiful" are treated as inter-changeable. Imperatives to defining attractiveness/beauty change because of a variety of factors and include those alleged to be biological, then the cultural ones, then those idiosyncratic to the individual, and attempts to set a universal standard are fascist at best.

Take for example the assertion that symmetry is a key encoded definer of beauty. If this were the case, Africans and certain East-Asian people (such as the Japanese) would have long ago been acknowledged by Westerners(despite prevalent racism) as the most beautiful in the world - because of the abundance of symmetrical faces amongst those peoples. The fact that this did not happen, has yet to happen (models of African or what used to be called Oriental origin are all but banished from the fashion world), is a blaring example that cultural issues override so-called biological mandates.

Often when people are speaking of attractiveness, they are being literal, are referring the ability of a person to attract as many admirers as possible, inversely to leave as few people as possible repelled or indifferent. This is done my coming down to the common denominator. Beauty is something altogether different - something evasive and rarefied - but there is rarely an acknowledgment of this fact. I suspect this is because attractiveness is achievable (thanks to plastic surgeons, stylists, make-up artists), while true beauty is a lottery win.

In the Modern Attractiveness stakes the Americans rule, as their ideal is Goldilocksian: blondish, but not too blond as this screams fake, urbane and calculating, or is too localized (Scandinavian); features that are perfectly situated between the stereotypical ethnic extremes of Jewish sharpness and African openness; tall, but not too tall as to be out of proportion; sun-kissed in complexion (pale is patrician, urbane, European), but not too swarthy or ruddy; etc. Unfortunately, other western cultures are being sucked into this mentality. For example, British celebrities of this decade and the late 90's look very different from those from earlier days, tending to look healthier, sturdier, less idiosyncratic, and... blandly pretty.

These media discussions of attractiveness are frightening. First, they ring strongly of the Nazism. Remember Leni Riefenstahl's African images in the 60's/70's? Remember the outrage over her alleged objectification of the human form, creation of a physical ideal, and reiteration of a "fascist aesthetic"? Would such a controversy occur these days? Second, they are the result of the final steps to merchandising absolutely everything, including people.

[MensRightsNow]

Hillary is still ugly, Antonia, write about her many gaffes...hello, or is Palin game only because she doesn't look like most hideous feminists? Women are so pathetic at hiding their petty jealousies.

[sooey]

I dunno - picture an unattractive woman saying the things Sarah Palin did and then try to imagine the media's horrified reaction.

[Craig]

Palin's attractiveness to the kind of people who judge a woman in politics on her looks instead of her actual ability is, quite frankly, the only thing she ever had going for her in the first place.

[Sebastian Stoker]

I find it unsettling that adults consider it acceptable to declare someone ugly. And I find it hilarious that men would use the term ugly as a slur against women, as many would consider the male the ugly gender.