Recent studies show other anthropometric characteristics are superior predictors.

Cornelissen, P.L., Tovee, M.J. and Bateson, M. (2009) Patterns of subcutaneous fat deposition and the relationship between body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio: Implications for models of physical attractiveness. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 256(3), 343-350.

Another study found males don’t gaze at the same regions when they judge WHR as they do overall attractiveness.

Cornelissen, P.L., Hancock, P.J.B., Kiviniemi, V., George, H.R. and Tovee, M.J. (2009) Patterns of eye-movements when Male and Female observers judge female attractiveness, body fat and waist-to-hip ratio. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 30, 417-428.

Two recent studies that used video clips of real women as opposed to line drawings found no role for WHR in multiple regressions.

Smith, K.L., Cornelissen, P.L. & Tovée, M.J. (2007) Colour 3D Bodies and Judgements of Human Female Attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 28, 48-54

J RILLING, T KAUFMAN, E SMITH, R PATEL, C WORTHMAN (2009). Abdominal depth and waist circumference as influential determinants of human female attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30 (1), 21-31

Two, because from a reproductive standpoint bigger is better, with no advantage to an incurve and quite a lot of advantage to capable musculature. So if that’s what guys are keying on they should want to see big, thick, stompy, kickass women.

Hope I wasn’t too hard in my comment for a student post. It was clearly an excellent example of student work.

I also have been uncomfortable and dissatisfied many times with how we talk about and think about these things. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us to create more compelling ideas, explanation and bodies of data to get across how to better think about people.

That said, the culture/biology framing is one that most students already have in their heads. Getting them to work from both sides is a pretty good option for now, because they can engage with research that is already there, see its limits, see how other explanations are relevant, and then hopefully move onto helping out with creating the sorts of language, ideas, and research that will forge a better synthesis.

Anyway, those are my two cents. I might have a different two cents when I teach a straight-up integrated course, but that’s how it played out this semester!

The most common negative impact of mass-mediated images of women’s bodies is in women themselves. But research about the effects of such images on women across the class and race spectrum reveals that only specific demographics absorb and adopt those images as normative (I’ll give you one guess as to which demo that is), and others ignore them. Indeed, a quick perusal of porn for straight men reveals a much more “normal” body range (although skewed to younger) and there is not a Twiggy in sight.

I also find that I’m getting caught on the subtextual nature/nurture issue dichotomy being repeated in this language, as if “culture” exists separate from our evolutionary/biological heritage. A more naturalistic philosophy—specifically that culture is constituted in “nature” and that nature is only apprehended culturally and that the two exist in a reciprocal, emergent tango—would be useful here. Culture doesn’t trump or transform our biological heritage. It *is* our biological heritage. Conversely, our genes and evolutionary programs for reproduction don’t trump culture. They are the base out of which culture emerges. Culture is best seen as a complex meaning-making process, an emergent phenomenon of human interaction in their umbworld, as they attempt to fit into, survive, and succeed within it.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure how I would frame the above article differently, given a naturalistic understanding of cognition, culture, and “nature”, but I find that I’m continually uncomfortable and dissatisfied with the way we talk about these things. I’m a sociologist who researches culture, and the problem is even more stark in my discipline, with a complete refusal to allow for embodiment of human agents at all.