by hilzoy
Via Pandagon, a new study whose implications are — well, I would have called them ‘of monumental proportions’ had I not thought about, well, certain aspects of our male Republican commentators, beside which everything else just looks puny:
“Threaten a man’s masculinity, and he will assume more macho attitudes, according to a study by a Cornell University researcher.
“I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle,” said Robb Willer, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell. Willer is presenting his findings Aug. 15 at the American Sociological Association’s 100th annual meeting in Philadelphia.
“Masculine overcompensation is the idea that men who are insecure about their masculinity will behave in an extremely masculine way as compensation. I wanted to test this idea and also explore whether overcompensation could help explain some attitudes like support for war and animosity to homosexuals,” Willer said.
Willer administered a gender identity survey to a sample of male and female Cornell undergraduates in the fall of 2004. Participants were randomly assigned to receive feedback that their responses indicated either a masculine or a feminine identity. While women’s responses were unchanged regardless of the feedback they received, men’s reactions “were strongly affected by this feedback,” Willer said.
“Masculinity-threatened men also reported feeling more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than did masculinity-confirmed men,” states Willer’s report, “Overdoing Gender: Testing the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis.” “
Just thinking about it makes me feel in desperate need of someone strong and fearless and unflinching to protect me…
Just doing my little bit to try to prevent global warming and decrease our reliance on foreign oil…
In other news, water is wet. I kid you not.
Yeah, but SUVs?
Just thinking about it makes me feel in desperate need of someone strong and fearless and unflinching to protect me…
Thank God I — and your legions of adoring fans — are for you!
I wonder what Bush Sr. DID to that kid….
Hilzoy: Yeah, but SUVs?
This is knowledge car salesmen have been exploiting for millennia. Or, since the invention of the car, at least.
Anarch: much as I appreciate both your offer and your masculinity (of which I stand in awe), I think that only someone who currently supports the war on Iraq could truly satisfy me…
You know, that would almost be worth supporting the war in Iraq.
Almost.
I fear, though, that war crimes are a deal-breaker for me.
Really, I think Ann Coulter has more than enough testosterone for you.
I now think I should clarify my position a bit: only someone who supported the war in Iraq before reading this post could truly satisfy me. Impressed as I am with the rest of you, and much as it pains me to say so 😉
Well I am straight, male, and supported the war in Iraq, but submissive compliant women are a total turnoff for me. I need someone assertive, aggressive, dominant, preferably in black leather although latex will do in a pinch. A whip or riding crop is left lady’s choice. Of course.
Anyway I can’t comment here cause Marcotte might read it and hurt me. A lot. Repeatedly and rhythmically.
I so amn’t going to comment in this thread.
Regarding the SUV question: A local singer had this to say about this effect (warning: heavy viennese dialect):
That should be a tough one for automatic translation; even native german speakers may have trouble grokking that.
Basic summary: this text preceded a song about “this girl isn’t after you, but only after your car” with some banter about the fact that 70% of men think their * is too short. The marketeers of the car industry noticed the effect that driving a big car [long tangent on the pointlessness of such things] gives the psychological feeling of an added 3-7 cm length. He finishes with the rhetorical question “where do you think all the pretty girls are? With me in the train, or sitting in the big car with one of the guys who thinks his * is too short?”
link
My first reaction to this study was skepticism. For one thing, the results sounded too much like what I already suspected about supporters of the Iraq War and drivers of SUVs. For another, how the heck did this study make it past the IRB? However, I checked the Cornell web site and there is indeed a grad student named Robb Willer who is working on this question. I still wonder what the IRB was thinking though to let a study involving deception and possible psychological damage through. Not to mention the risk that one of the men whose masculinity was “threatened” might go beat up a gay man to reassure himself.
Since when is österreichische not capitalized, I ask you?
In other groundbreaking research news, women who do not conform to a fairly narrow traditional view of femininity and attractiveness are often described by other as having “a great personality” or “terrific sense of humor.”
Seriously, academia is turning to stand-up comedy and dick jokes for research material now?
I wonder if Willer cites the pioneering work of Scalzi and Gingrich in his lit review?
I’ve noticed, that…well endowed porn stars, tend to have liberal views.
You know, folks, there is some point to this sort of research. It has to do with being in a democracy.
The official line in democracies is that we deliberate over our self-governance and try to arrive at policy on the grounds of *good reasons*.
So it is worth our knowing about factors that systematically pollute the discourse with *bad reasons*.
Might allow us to avoid more bad decisions in the future.
And–no one denies that water is wet. But people will tell you all kinds of nonsense about why they bought an SUV. Or supported a war.
I’m sure that the people who would do these things because they felt their gender identity threatened would tell you that they did them because of a good reason. Unless protecting or reinforcing one’s gender identity is prima facie a “bad reason” to do something, I can’t say I’m in a position to disagree with them.
I actually dated (and eventually married) a woman who was described as having “a great personality, and she makes her own clothes”. True story. Not married to her anymore, but neither of those attributes had anything to do with the success or failure of the marriage.
Wasn’t there a groundbreaking study just a few months ago to the effect that women tend to be grumpy when menstruating?
Why is the average man, or at least the average man studied by Willer, so insecure in his gender identity that he feels threatened when some fairly random person says he performs in a feminine manner on one test which probably didn’t mean a lot to him? Why don’t men just laugh it off or say “good to know that I’m in touch with my feminine side” or whatever? At risk of threadjacking, I hypothesize it is because of the level of sexism in society: men don’t want to be told that they have something in common with the “inferior” female gender so they feel threatened by being told that they perform in a feminine manner on a gender identity test.
JFTR: I freely admit that at one point in my life, I really, really wanted to own a Miata.
Dianne, an equally likely explanation is that young men in America grow up with gender role expectations just as rigid and just as confining as women do, and if they are told that they are not performing up to those expectations, they experience anxiety just like women do. It has nothing to do (necessarily) with inferior/superior, but with slipping outside the culturally-defined box.
Well, suppose somebody wants to argue that protecting their gender identity is a good reason to take some course of action. That’s fine–then we can have the normal sorts of discussions about whether the course of action in question really will produce the desired outcome, whether it is the most effective way, whether the ancillary costs are supportable and so on.
But of course, you can’t even *start* that conversation until people are aware that these actually *are* the issues that are motivating them. And the point of research like this is to (attempt to) show that people are being motivated by forces of which they are not aware.
So, no, I don’t think people would “just tell you” that the reason they bought an SUV is because they think their penis is too small. And if they did, then we could have a useful (and brief) discussion of whether the purchase of an automobile has ever made any organic (non-transient) changes to the length of appendages.
Now, if after that conversation they say that they are fully aware that they are buying an SUV in the expectation that it will increase the size of their penis, while at the same time being fully aware that this action cannot possibly produce that effect, then I too will probably say “I’m not in a position to disagree with you”, or at least I’ll be trying to get myself out of any position of close physical proximity.
JFTR: I freely admit that at one point in my life, I really, really wanted to own a Miata.
Isn’t that rather a, um, feminine car?
(ducking and running)
Back in the days before SUVs, Corvettes were supposed to be the surrogate.
Oh, and my affinity for small cars isn’t in any way a claim on…um…body parts proportioned inversely to car size.
Oh, too much information. Let’s just not say I’m bragging, ok?
Phil: Except that, at least in this study, women’s behavior didn’t change when they were told that their results indicated a masculine pattern. Certainly, if I were told that my results on a gender identity survey were more typically masculine than feminine I wouldn’t be particularly upset. Puzzled, yes. Upset, no. Nor would I feel the need to go buy makeup and heels and join Concerned Women for America to prove my feminity.
Tad, worth noting that the research as quoted by hilzoy has nothing to do with penis size or perceived penis size or future expectations of penis size. It has to do with whether the man in question feels he’s perceived as sufficiently masculine.
Which goes back to my reply to Dianne — just as women have gender role expectations, so do men, and there’s a whole bunch of stuff tied up in the idea of “sufficiently masculine” that has nothing to do with making women feel inferior.
. . . then we can have the normal sorts of discussions about whether the course of action in question really will produce the desired outcome, whether it is the most effective way, whether the ancillary costs are supportable and so on.
“We.” This takes me back to discussions I’ve had with Edward about the consumptiveness of American society beyond “our” needs.
So, no, I don’t think people would “just tell you” that the reason they bought an SUV is because they think their penis is too small.
No, but they might readily say, “Because it looks tough and makes me feel like I own the road,” which is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect someone trying to perform to rigidly-defined male gender expectations to say.
I just can’t believe anybody finds this the least bit suprising.
Phil: Except that, at least in this study, women’s behavior didn’t change when they were told that their results indicated a masculine pattern
All that tells us is that men and women react differently to different kinds of threats to their gender identities. Men and women would (on average) probably react differently to being told, “That outfit makes you look fat,” too. Or, “You throw like a girl.” That doesn’t mean that the gender expectations don’t exist; it means that different threat triggers cause different reactions in the two genders.
Which is, again, exactly what you’d expect.
(Shorter: One of the rigid, culturally-defined male gender traits is to overreact to minor perceived threats to gender identity. It isn’t for women.)
Ok, I can now revise my last statement to indicate that my affinity for smaller cars is in no way a claim that I’m fully secure in my masculinity.
Or at least, I don’t think so. Maybe I’m confused; at one time I owned both a Nissan Sentra and a truly barbaric Ford F250. The F250 was used solely as a mulch-and-lumber-getter, though. To top it off, the wife is considering an SUV, so maybe you can tell who wears the pants in the family, or something.
Dianne,
if you want to see the aequivalent effect on women, you don’t tell them that they’re masculine, you tell them that they are ugly.
And then watch their spending, eating and other livestyle choices change.
Phil got it right.
My masculine insecurity is bigger that yours!
“Tad: Worth noting that the research quoted by Hilzoy has nothing to with increased etc. …. It had to do with whether the man in question feels he’s perceived as sufficiently masculine.”
I fall for that every time too, Tad. Better just to say “Oh” and slink away and order another drink. 😉
Increasing (actually it was a restoration program) the size of that particular part of the American male anatomy was, in fact, one of many reasons for the invasion of Iraq considered by Rummy and his staff.
I think it was motivation #7, just below diverting tax dollars from domestic programs, but above WMD, otherwise known as Saddam Hussein’s jock size.
Had I known this was a reason, I’d have supported the war. Apparently, supporting the war in Afghanistan only got me a better personality.
Increased penis size was the sole reason for the invasion of Grenada.
If I’d known it was that easy…
Paul, thanks for the link to that Gingrich/Scalzi research. I’ve long been a Scalzi fan, but I hadn’t seen that one before.
Slartibartfast,
in German, country names used as adjectives are not usually not capitalized. I’m not sure whether they changed that in the recent spelling reform.
In that special case, one might argue that “Österreichische Bundesbahn” as the name of the corporation should be capitalized.
Compared to the other major violations of the German language in that text, this minor tidbit just doesn’t matter.
Top Ten Gay Cars of 2004
Be careful how you compensate.
Phil–
right-o. No mention of it in the report of the Cornell study.
I must have been confusing it with Otmar’s reported study on Zünda.
And there’s just some chance that hilzoy’s reference to zeppelins is not a reference to zeppelins.
But aside from that, I think it’s pretty clear that penis length was a completely irrelevant issue, and I apologize for having got off-topic.
I once heard the following:
“Most men think with their penis.
Ronald Reagan used his nuclear-tipped substitutes”
(Or something like that. Google failed me.)
deep stuff,heavy thinking,profound. what about women who drive suv’s,or college professors,anybody in Hollywood {it would have to be a BMW ]’anybody in the military drive an suv? fancy that,once again,yet again,neverendingly we come back to sexual fears and malfunctions,real men raise taxes{and whimper about the children},Harry Truman dropped the bomb because he lived with his mother in law. Hostility a symptom,that explains Harry Reid’s Howard Dean’s Ted kennedy’s lamb like behavior,no hostility in those innocents. Apart from raising the obvious question of who’s got sex on the mind,and to the extent it blocks out self knowledge and clear thinking and allows one to live in a deceptive haze of self congratulation, I wonder what the chances would be of getting hi grades if a sociology student presented a paper with the opposite conclusions? I’m tempted to say liberals think with their dicks {whatever the size or lack thereof } but some fool might take it for a compliment.
Phil: “(Shorter: one of the rigid, culturally gender traits is to overreact to minor perceived threats to gender identity.)”
Hey, whaddaya mean by “Shorter”?
Hey, whaddaya mean by “minor”?
Hey, whaddaya mean by “overreact”?
We’ll go with “rigid”.
And speaking of Zeppelins in pockets, did you know that the Hindenberg exploded in flames in my pocket in a Manila bar in 1978. Took out the adjoining buildings, too.
Well, slightly off-topic, but I’m reminded of a proposed mechanism for pollution somebody mentioned in one of my classes:
; x results in smaller penises in men; to compensate, bigger cars are purchased; more pollution results, leading to yet smaller penises, so SUVs are bought to compensate…
johnt: “….a deceptive haze of self-congratulation, …”
I’ve always wondered what that fog surrounding me was.
You know, johnt, my wife clued me in years after our marriage that I was wrong about what attracted her to me. I thought it was the usual male fantasy. Turns out it was my sense of humor. Girls like that.
I think Slart has some sense-of-humor enhancement spam in his in-box he could send you.
“if you want to see the aequivalent effect on women, you don’t tell them that they’re masculine, you tell them that they are ugly.”
Yeah, and why do they react? Because ugly=bad in this and most cultures. Fat=bad too, for women. Doesn’t that imply that feminine=bad for men?
Hmm, before that lonely semicolon, it should say “x causes some amount of pollution”.
De nada, Tony. You know, I laughed at that poll at the time, but I didn’t know Scalzi was the author until I googled it.
I just want to be held……
Via Obsidian Wing, a new study released by Cornell University reveals that the entire Fox News cast and Michelle Malkin are insecure about their masculinity,I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic
Eons ago I went to trade school to be a cabinetmaker. I was the only straight female in a class of straight guys, a gay male pair, and a French Communist lesbian. It was a lovely experiment in human relations with a happy ending; by the end of the class we all got along. The beginning was rough, however. The straight guys absolutely couldn’t stand the gay pair. I mean they couldn’t stand near one of the gay men, they could help lift something heavy or otherwise work together. It was as if they thought gayness was contagious. On the other hand they didn’t have a problem with the French Communist lesbian. There was a lot of good natured bantering about politics and sexuality–she was one of the guys, to them. They didn’t know how to deal with me. They wouldn’t let me lift annything or hold annything or do anything. It was always, “Let me help you with that.” Very sweet, but I was there to learn the job, not to be treated “like a lady”. It took all year for them to figure out that I could be both a straight female and strong enought to rip a sheet of plywood by myself, and that they didn’t have to prove their masculinity by helping me. Yes, I got the impression that the guys in my class spent an awful lot of mental energy on the maintainence of their masculine self-image. In fact, the maintainence of that image was the subtext of all their relationships.
Dianne,
yup, being soft and feminine is not compatible with the role mode a typical male grows up with. Thus it’s important for the /majority/ of men not be seen as such.
Otmar,
… but the majority of men, if I may be so bold, are neither soft nor feminine in most senses of those words. So what?
Actually Lily, I doubt those guys spent any time at all thinking about how they were acting towards you. They were in default mode, no thinking required. They reacted to you as they would any woman until they got to know you and how you wanted to be treated. Then, if they were decent guys, they would change their behavior to react to you the way you wanted to be treated.
Jonas,
what has objective truth to do with it? It’s all about perception and peer pressure. Or to go back to the girls: there are many who are objectively thin enough yet they crave to get even slimmer.
otmar,
Well, I’m going to make the apparently controversial assertion that it’s mostly about the fact that the majority of men are not particularily feminine and prefer it that way, and that perception and peer pressure exist because of that fact, and not the other way around.
… and that’s generally mental illness, and outside the scope of this issue, I think.
Jonas –
if you think that otmar’s statement “generally” denotes mental illness, you have just declared well over 50% of the women I know (or have ever known) to be mentally ill.
St,
Oops! I was thinking too narrowly about Anorexia in particular, and not the prevelent neuroses in many women regarding their weight.
It would probably be wise to know when to be soft and feminine…there is a time and place for everything…being soft and feminine while intimate with a partner or one’s children is a very wise attribute.
Being soft and feminine, after Afghanistan, could have save thousands of lives in Iraq.
. . being soft and feminine while intimate with a partner or one’s children is a very wise attribute.
That depends on whether one’s partner wants someone soft and feminine or not. Some don’t.
Being soft and feminine, after Afghanistan, could have save thousands of lives in Iraq.
Nothing to do with softness, femininity, or anything else. It had to do with intelligence, prioritization, and truth, none of which are gender-specific. It’s like saying being more soft and feminine could cure cancer.
You wish it was that easy…it was about projection of force…”intelligence, prioritization, and truth” be damned!
A bunch of right-wingers (and some liberals) got to rationalize their lust for violence. And appear a lot tougher than they really were.
“Soft Power” helped the East European powers go from totalitarian states to liberal democracy…but many of you thought that “soft power” was too good for the Iraqis.
Waging “war on cancer,” as dangerous and deadly cancer is, will not cure it either.
By the way, Phil…I haven’t met a woman, yet…who didn’t appreciate a man who knew when to be rough and hard and when to soft and gentle…if you don’t realize that yet…I feel sorry for your partner.
Excuse me?
>>blink, blink<< I'm sorry, but just who the hell do you think you are to pass judgement on my relationship? My wife and I have a successful 16-years-and-counting relationship -- about which, notably, you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING -- so I'll thank you to keep your advice to yourself. Seriously -- who do you think you are?
In fact, I’m going to demand a public apology. You do not know me, or my wife, or anything about either of us, or anything about our marriage, and your comment was simply and completely out of line.
It’s one thing to sit here and have our little political debating society, but for you to drag in my partner — who you don’t know, who I don’t talk about here, and who is not a poster here — for some perceived argument point is beyond despicable.
So you are telling me that your wife hates you when you are soft and gentle?
So, yeah, I’d say NeoDude is being warning-of-a-ban-worthy, not that anyone asked me.
I’m saying my marriage is not a topic for Obsidian Wings posters to speculate about, particularly when they do so unbidden and when the topic of discussion is someone who has never, ever once posted here. Now, are you going to be honorable, or are you going to be an asshole?
But if not, let’s next get to discussing our interlocutor’s mother.
All very interesting, but the study sure sounds dubious to me. Willer somehow measured attitudes towards buying SUV’s, etc., then gave some sort of gender identity test and randomized the feedback. He then measured the attitudes again and found that some had changed, presumably as a result of the feedback. Is that it?
So some guys said they wanted to buy Toyota hybrids, were told they had feminine personality characteristics, and then decided they wanted Range Rovers instead. Without more detail I’d have to say this stretches my credulity.
This is one of those situations, Phil, where a little laxity in posting rules seems to be appropriate. Try not to stretch it too far, though, ok?
Sorry, Slart. Please mentally replace all instances of profanity with “jerk.” Nevertheless, should I email the kitten? Because I think NeoDude is way, way over the line here.
John Thullen,thanks for the advice,perhaps Slart could send a little Robb Willer’s way,he seems to need at least as much as I do. Come to think of it maybe we could spread a little around the site.
By all means, Phil; this is one of those aspects of civility that I don’t think we’ve explored, to date. And I was doing the opposite of picking on you, just to be clear.
Still, gotta keep it clean, or it just degenerates into an epic-sized donnybrook. Email the kitten, sure.
JFTR I think Neodude indulges in excess on a frequent basis, which is why I mostly ignore him/her. This time, though, is different.
Phil,
I am sorry for offending you.
(jeez, I didn’t realize you were so soft and gentle)
Seems to me that the results of this study reveal that insecure male college students will shift answers towards a perceived gender norm in order to more closely match that perceived norm. It doesn’t necessarily show a change in attitude, only a change in portrayal. Important difference.
Of course the study could be more in-depth than expressed in the story…
“(jeez, I didn’t realize you were so soft and gentle)”
Cripes, and I have a small weenie, and am obviously faggy, too. But yo mama enjoys it, nonetheless.
Gosh, I missed this. Nothing like discussing substance and ideas, eh?
I am sorry for offending you.
There ought to be a law against mealy-mouthed non-apologies like this. I think what you meant to say “neodude”, if you had an ounce of sack, was “I’m sorry I took a shot at your personal life. It was rude and inappropriate, and I apologize.”
But no, just like everyone else these days, you have to make it about Phil’s offense, rather than about the stupid bulls**t you said. Cut it out. Either you are sorry or your not. If you are, say so. If you’re not, shut the f**k up and stop trying to be clever.
Sorry, I know this is not my fight, but damn, I hate that kind of smug dodge.
Men who are seen as feminine are considered to be at the bottom of the pecking order, by both men and women. If a man is at all concerned with his status, or if he simply wants to avoid being treated badly, he will react against being percieved as feminine.
“If a man is at all concerned with his status, or if he simply wants to avoid being treated badly, he will react against being percieved as feminine.”
Or, alternatively, vomit at that sort of thinking.
Actually, one of the (many) things that has always puzzled me about the general topic of male attitudes towards masculinity is how little it has to do with anything women actually think. — I mean, until concern with weight crosses the line into pathology, it is responsive to something guys actually seem to value. But while women (in my experience) don’t particularly like utter and total wimpiness, they often don’t care much for hyper-macho-ism either.
hilzoy–
yeah, I think that’s right–much of the posturing involved in asserting one’s maleness is directed (whether wittingly or not) to a male audience, rather than a female one. So, the desire to project an image is not *divorced* from facts about who will be receiving that image. It’s just that the facts about how *women* receive the image are not the controlling ones; it’s how other *men* will react that drives most of the male behavior.
So don’t be puzzled; it really has as little to do with “anything women actually think” as it seems to. Because it has to do with what other guys will think.
But isn’t there something somewhat similar in the more psychotic outer reaches of feminine appearance-obsession? I.e., don’t some women expend efforts on their appearance which not only *are* not appreciated by most men, but really *could* not be appreciated by anyone who was not as completely up-to-date on the minutiae of fashion, sc. other similarly obsessed women? The phenomenon of “dressing for other women”, even (esp.?) among straight women.
“if you had an ounce of sack”
Posted by: st | August 4, 2005 05:05 PM
So this whole thing IS about size.
Am I the only one thinking about people saying ‘girly men’ and intend to be insulting ?
Dressing up is not just a female thing I think. A guy with a tailormade suit walks differently at work too. I find that I even dress up nicely when I know that I won’t see anybody but the kids that day (though my 5-year old boy tends to notice and compliments 🙂 ) just because it makes ME feel better about myself.
I must admit that both me and my spouse tend to be more centered towards the middle in the classic male-female scales, which is probabely why we get on so well. Neiter of us feels threatened in our gender identity though. We BOTH want the fast red sportscar, and we BOTH want the hybrid too…
Tad: being possibly the least clothes-conscious woman on God’s good earth, including e.g. nuns and nudists, I’m not in a position to say. But I believe it’s mostly directed at men. Sometimes there’s an ancillary directed at women part — of the ‘they will notice what a good job I’m doing at looking attractive and desirable’ kind — but mostly, at guys.
On reflection, shoes may be an exception to this. Although even there, who in their right mind would wear serious heels if they weren’t supposed to look sexy? (Said she in her Birkenstocks.)
Note the biased language used to describe the study.
For example: Men adopt “homophobic” attitudes when their masculinity is “threatened” and they feel “insecure.”
Wouldn’t it be more factual to say that “Heterosexual men who learn they may be sending mixed signals as to their sexual orientation take steps to indicate that orientation more clearly.”
That would be a dispassionate assessment of the results, as befits an ostensibly academic study.
But calling the subjects “insecure” projects the researcher’s attitudes onto them. The subjects may be completely “secure” in their masculinity, yet simply more interested in making others aware of it.
It’s like advertising. When a company runs a TV commercial, does that mean the company is insecure about its product? No. It simply wants to make sure the right message is getting across to people who may not be familiar with it.
The use of loaded words like “homophobic”, “threatened”, and “insecure” suggests a strong bias on the part of Mr. Willer to generate certain results, and therefore raises questions about the validity of the study itself.
hilzoy–
I think that even shod in Birkenstocks you may be in a slightly better position than I am to speculate on why women do what they do.
I wonder if any of the men bought these.
Heterosexual men who learn they may be sending mixed signals as to their sexual orientation take steps to indicate that orientation more clearly
Driving an SUV indicates your sexual orientation? Huh? That’s not what the car companies think. They think SUV buyers are basically insecure. And they market to that, apparently with success. Being homophobic indicates your sexual orientation? Well, this is true but not in a way that would support your argument. Studies show that the more homophobic a man is, the more likely he is to be turned on by gay porn. If you want to send signals about your heterosexual orientation, homophobia is the wrong signal to send.
Haven’t seen any studies about Iraq war attitudes and sexual orientation. That should be a fun one too, I would assume.
The article did not indicate what counted as “homophobic” behavior. Given the general bias inherent in Mr. Willer’s language, it is likely that he counted fairly innocuous language or behavior as “homophobic”.
As for SUV’s I know most buyers don’t actually take them off road. And I know that women and gay men can go hiking in the woods just as well as straight men. But we are talking about image and perception here, not reality. If a man wants his car to send a message that he is rugged, outdoorsy, and heterosexual, an SUV is probably the best choice he could make.
Notably, the survey didn’t find an increase in desired purchases of expensive, exotic sports cars. Their image simply isn’t rugged enough.
so this study should give us a big clue as to Bob Novack’s meltdown earlier….
Heh.
With regard to my fiancee and I: wheras I take the bus, have written gay (male) erotica and indulged in crossdressing; Jess drives and likes power tools. Yet I bring home the bacon and she’s a homemaker.
I’m sure there’s a sitcom in there somewhere.
If a man wants his car to send a message that he is rugged, outdoorsy, and heterosexual, an SUV is probably the best choice he could make.
I don’t know about that. Given the role of the SUV as the modern iteration of the station wagon/minivan, I think everybody has seen enough suburban moms tooling around in Expeditions for that image to be somewhat dampened. I have to think the pickup truck is still the best bet for projecting the traits you mention. Sure, lots of women drive ’em (including, up to last August, my wife), but I think the percentages still trend overwhelmingly male, whereas SUV’s are, in the main, family errand-runners.
Though pickup ads are probably the worst offenders in capitalizing on male insecurities. A recent one has two men in a diner laughing at another man’s truck, then he whips out cross-sections of truck frames, and slaps them on the table proving his has the greatest girth.
I never really thought about the subtext of that ad until just now.
“If a man wants his car to send a message that he is rugged, outdoorsy, and heterosexual, an SUV is probably the best choice he could make.
As a Texan and midwesterner, I can safely say that SUV’s are to actual open working pick-up trucks as designer jeans are to real jeans…or whatever. I really don’t know what urban cowboys and suburban macho wanna- be’s are into.
A real man has as much truck as he needs to get the job done, and no more.
“maybe the hokie pokie IS what its all about”