Mailvox: breasts vs MBAs

Gregg writes: But seriously, who would tell their daughter: Honey, get a boob job and grow you hair out, and you can get more dates. Every women is someone elses daughter. Sorry Vox, but you are giving very poor advice, unless I missunderstand you.

Who would tell their daughter that? Anyone whose daughter is unhappy with her progress in mate-finding and is also cognizant with the way the world operates. First, is the statement true or not? Second, we’re not talking about 15 year-old girls here, we’re talking about 30-something women who have more than a decade of unsuccessfully doing it their own way under their belt and whose basic assumptions about the elements of attraction are clearly in direct violation of that which has long demonstrated proven appeal to men.

Now, I could have easily added ten other elements, but I was simply going with the two most obvious things. The idiocy of dismissing superficialities as unimportant is profound, as one cannot start with anything but superficialities here. And obviously, if a woman is happy with her life and does not want to attract more masculine attention, this advice would not apply to her.

Consider two women. Similar builds and facial structure, both dressed similarly in a silk blouse, short skirt, and heels. One has short hair, no chest, a degree from Brown and works at a law firm. The other has a long mane that reaches to her posterior, a Casta-lian chest, a certification as a personal trainer and works as an aerobics instructor. I would bet that if given the choice between the two, nine out of ten men would choose to ask out the latter, including 9/10 Ivy League-educated lawyers.

In fact, most of the less-educated men wouldn’t consider asking out the first woman at all, correctly reading, (consciously or subconsciously), her signals that she doesn’t want to date anyone “beneath” her. And what is a breast augmentation – $5k and a week of recovery – compared to the $100,000 and six years that go into obtaining an advanced degree that runs a real risk of hurting a woman’s chances of finding the sort of man she wants to marry. Law firms hire secretaries too, after all, and if you want to meet young executives, you’ll probably meet more as a nanny for a CEO’s family than you will by becoming yet another middle manager yourself.

I’m not saying that things should ideally be this way, I’m only recommending accepting the world as it actually operates. Pragmatism and practicality have their places, and the Search for the Other is one of them. What is the conflicting principle anyhow, the right of everyone to be considered equally attractive? Please.