Women's Bright Colors: Exploring Nature's Colorful Gender Divide

[Ryan_m_b]

I don't get any of this. Western-centric?

If people in a given culture advocates that women ought to appear in public in drab clothing, it is irrelevant whether people in OTHER cultures regard that particular clothing as drab or not.
Instead, what you have there is a local NORM of drabness of female clothing.

My point is that even though it might be drab by western standards they may not consider it so. Your exact words were:

cultures that score consistently low on patriarchy on these parameters will NOT be found to have much of normative ideals of drab female clothing.

Which doesn't make sense if we take normative to mean normative within a culture rather than between cultures.

To get back to the OP I feel these points need to be addressed:

- What is the role of fashion in mate selection and how does this differ from other roles of fashion and other factors in mate selection?
- How does the answer to the above compare to the sexual dimorphism for mate selection in other animals?

Once those question have been answered then we can address any perceived differences. With the thread title as it stands it seems to assume that the role of fashion in human societies is primarily for women to select male mates and this is directly comparable to sexual dimorphism in other animals.

 

[arildno]

"Which doesn't make sense if we take normative to mean normative within a culture rather than between cultures."
Yes it does.
Because having local (aesthetic) standards of drabness (all cultures have their own) and whether or not dressing drab is a normative issue within a culture are distinct issues.
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You will always, in every culture, women who dress drably. For example those who have not the same aesthetic standards than the prevailing ideas. Or, because it is regarded as morally proper that they dress like that.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

"Which doesn't make sense if we take normative to mean normative within a culture rather than between cultures."
Yes it does.
Because having local (aesthetic) standards of drabness (all cultures have their own) and whether or not dressing drab is a normative issue within a culture are distinct issues.
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You will always, in every culture, women who dress drably. For example those who have not the same aesthetic standards than the prevailing ideas. Or, because it is regarded as morally proper that they dress like that.

Are you trying to say that if we had a patriarchy test that in countries that scored low we would find that the majority of women would dress in a fashion deemed not to be drab by that culture's standard? Because that's not what you said before but it seems to be in the spirit of it.

 

[arildno]

"Are you trying to say that if we had a patriarchy test that in countries that scored low we would find that the majority of women would dress in a fashion deemed not to be drab by that culture's standard? "
No. But that you wouldn't find a NORM towards drab clothing as a specifically moral ideal.
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For example, you could have a society that diffuses what is drab/nondrab on basis of how local elite women tend to clothe themselves, clothing that is economically unattainable for poor women (but might well be part of their own aesthetic standards). The peasant woman dresses drably, not because there is any moral pressure that she dress like that out of propriety reasons, but because nondrab clothing are unattainable to her for economic reasons.
Such a society need not in principle be patriarchal, although a majority of women dress drably, even in their own view.
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There are many different reasons why a particular woman dresses drably, what I have said is that whenever you have the situation in which drab clothing is advocated as, typically, the normative ideal, THEN you will find patriarchy instituted on a number of other parameters as well.
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To take ANOTHER, previously common reason for drab dressing, is when cclothing was intimately connected with class.
For example, some types of clothes were forbidden to be worn by non-nobles, and even vice versa.
This is most definitely a normative ideal relative to clothing, but not, as such, relative to patriarchy as such.
Violating class standards is different from violating gender standards.

 

[Khantazm]

Okay... Thanks, Bobbywhy, for those references.

I don't completely understand what is going on, but... I'm going to clarify my stance (hopefully, along the right lines).

First, I think drabness is lack of decoration such as jewelry; relatively monochrome clothing; and subdued colors, such as gray, brown, black. In essence, what people mean when they refer to drab females in birds.

Second, I don't think my question was... Wait. Also, I didn't invent the question. It was posed similarly in the book. Also also, I may or may not have realized that my view of Islamic cultures was a stereotype.

Now, second. I don't think my question involves fashion. Or, rather, it's about either culture-wide trends (if there are such; but great difersity may be a trend in itself), or wide-spread tradition. Which I take to be less about an individual's choice and more about genetics... or subconscious... or memetics... Okay. So, when I put it like this, it seems to pertain more to history than to biology. But it's not my fault!

Third, I'm not a scientist, so I'm very bad (as in, I wrote my graduation paper entirely off Wikipedia) at references to peer-reviewed journal articles.:shy:

 

[Ryan_m_b]

First, I think drabness is lack of decoration such as jewelry; relatively monochrome clothing; and subdued colors, such as gray, brown, black. In essence, what people mean when they refer to drab females in birds.

The difference here is that in the case of birds and most animals we're discussing sexual dimorphism, the biological differences that allow said organisms to attract a mate. But in the case of humans we're discussing cultural traits so we're already going to have to be careful with any comparison because whilst there obviously is an overlap in purpose between biological decoration and fashion there isn't always.

Now, second. I don't think my question involves fashion. Or, rather, it's about either culture-wide trends (if there are such; but great difersity may be a trend in itself), or wide-spread tradition. Which I take to be less about an individual's choice and more about genetics... or subconscious... or memetics... Okay. So, when I put it like this, it seems to pertain more to history than to biology. But it's not my fault!

It's a sociology question trying to mesh with a biological phenomenon. These are notoriously tricky IMO because they are so easy to come up with a theory that is superficially correct and so easy to be completely wrong.

With regards to this question you're delving into why humans have fashion. Why is it that we wear items with no practical value that in many cases are arguably detrimental to the practical side e.g. high heels. Is it always to attract mates? Is it to conform to societal standards? Is it for self-image and expression? Etcetera.

Finally along these lines I'd be wary of trying to frame women's clothing and decoration in terms of attracting mates. Done wrong that kind of thinking fuels victim blaming in rape culture.

Third, I'm not a scientist, so I'm very bad (as in, I wrote my graduation paper entirely off Wikipedia) at references to peer-reviewed journal articles.:shy:

Start with something simple like Google Scholar to find published articles. Use whatever search engine you prefer to look up the journals they are published into get an idea of credibility (beyond looking at things like impact factors).

 

[arildno]

I agree with Ryan_mb that it isn't, to begin with, a very fruitful approach to try explaining codes on dress in terms of biology.
That is a level of specifity (and too short of a time frame) that natural selection arguments cannot shed much light on.
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[Khantazm]

Thanks for your information, everyone, this has been, in fact, very enlightening.

Another point has occurred to me. Fashion may be a sociological issue, but in my experience matters of appearance (of a person, a picture, a flower arrangement) are very biological, i.e. they rely a lot on intuition (although it may be different in professionals) which, I think, is an expression of low level processes much closer to genetics, than math is, say. Anyway, couldn't account for cultural differences this way, because inter-individual genetic variation appears to be higher than inter-race (people). Also, hey, I've just started learning Google Scholar, so don't judge me for my lack of references (I tried, though)... Oh, wait. What do you think about that: http://genome.cshlp.org/content/14/9/1679.short ?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Another point has occurred to me. Fashion may be a sociological issue, but in my experience matters of appearance (of a person, a picture, a flower arrangement) are very biological, i.e. they rely a lot on intuition (although it may be different in professionals) which, I think, is an expression of low level processes much closer to genetics, than math is, say.

Remember that just because the reason behind a choice isn't clear or is attributed to instinct does not mean it is genetic in origin. The interaction between your genome and the environment throughout your life creates your phenotype which includes your psychology.

If a person's taste in fashion (or anything for that matter) was purely decided on a genetic level then no one would ever change their taste, let alone have the continuous changes in all fields of fashion that we see today.

 

[Darwin123]

I don't think that's a safe assumption. In the Indian sub continent clothing can be very "colourful" and not "drab" and yet women's rights in that region are not high.

IMO this thread is problematic because the premise hasn't even been demonstrated to be true and the majority of do not include any published material to discuss. I advise we strive to correct this.

The mother-in-law can be very powerful in some cultures where women "don't have rights". There are all sorts of power.

As far as women dressing up is concerned, I think that it is more a matter of how much choice the man has rather than the woman. We are talking about a dress code as applied to the mating game. Therefore, women will dress up in cultures where the man has choice.

In some Islamic cultures, not all, marriages are completely arranged by the parents. In that situation, the man doesn't have much of a choice either. Men may dominate in all sorts of ways, but they don't choose the girl they marry.

Under that situation, it doesn't really pay for a woman to dress up. Her sex appeal can't make the man she wants marry her. If she dresses up, then it is a sign that she wants sex without marriage. Thus, dressing up shows that she is a loose woman.

Just because a society is highly patriarchal doesn't mean the man is free to choose. In the societies that you are talking about, the man may specifically be told NOT to choose a woman according to sex appeal. Sex appeal is what concubines are for. The concubines may very well dress up.

I think Oriental women often dress up even in traditional societies. I think that is because the final choice of who the man marries is made by the man.

 

[Khantazm]

Remember that just because the reason behind a choice isn't clear or is attributed to instinct does not mean it is genetic in origin. The interaction between your genome and the environment throughout your life creates your phenotype which includes your psychology.

If a person's taste in fashion (or anything for that matter) was purely decided on a genetic level then no one would ever change their taste, let alone have the continuous changes in all fields of fashion that we see today.

I did not mean it like that. Or, possibly, I still was wrong in my assumptions. Basically, what I consider closer to genetics is subconscious, that which goes on under the hood of our awareness of conscious choices (if I may employ a bit of a figure). Not in the way that genetics determines what you choose in fashion, but sort of the fact that you can't construct a good argument for why you chose it... Okay, it's not genetics, my wrong. Just subconscious is much better. And that's kind of a territory references for which would be unattainable, because of our little understanding of the phenomena.

Anyway, psychology and sociology, not biology.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

As the premise of this thread has been shown to be, if not flawed, incomplete there's no reason for it to remain open.