SOCIAL SCIENTISTS get immense mileage out of stating – and overstating – the obvious, and reducing the obvious to one single overwhelming theory of behavior. Catherine Hakim, of the London School of Economics, has discovered that physical appearance matters. Beautiful people are likely to earn more money.

Hakim has written a book about “erotic capital.”  Many interesting things can be said about the influence of innate atractiveness on one’s fortunes in life. But Hakim’s even-handedness is questionable. She states in the above interview: “Women are always undervalued, no matter what they do and no matter what they are.”

How could anyone contemplate the issue of physical attractiveness and come to the conclusion that women are undervalued? Hakim has apparently never visited an art museum.

As proof that women are undervalued, Hakim cites a study that shows an essay will receive a lower grade if a woman’s name is on it than if a man is clearly the author. Perhaps that’s because the people marking the essays know of the remarkable self-satisfaction of women today and want to bring them down a notch or two.

                                           — Comments —

Bruce writes:

Warren Farrell wrote an excellent book called Why Men Earn More, in which he defines and describes Genetic Celebrities, those women who are not famous but who float through life in a haze of privilege purely due to their good looks: a peanut seller at Baseball games who earns hundreds of dollars a day in tips; a woman who speeds regularly in her car but always gets let-off by the cops, never once ticketed; women who get undercharged, get extra stuff thrown in free with purchases; girls who drink whatever they want but never need to buy a drink. 

Men will shower Genetic Celebrities with gifts and privileges, for nothing but the privilege of enjoying their presence, a smile or a friendly greeting, or being allowed to converse with them for a while. 

Farrell estimates that all this amounts to many thousands of dollars of subsidy per year.

Y. writes: 

And it starts young. A young woman I know who used to work in day care noticed right away that the cutest children received the most attention from the caregivers.

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