tagged w/ Machismo
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Some guys sound tough - and according to a new study, that may a good way of predicting whether they really are.
Results in the current Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that people can accurately evaluate the upper-body strength based on men's voices from four different populations and language groups. The voice samples came from the Tsimane of Bolivia, Andean herder-horticulturalists from Argentina, and college students from the United States and Romania.
Researchers recorded body size and strength measurements from women and men in each of these groups. These participants also reported how many fights they had been involved in during the last four years.
Then, undergraduates from the University of California, Santa Barbara, rated the voices on physical strength, height and weight. For the sample of male voices from the United States, raters assessed "how tough he would be in a physical fight."
The study found that, for the sample where data were available, the higher the perceived fighting ability, the more fights the man in the voice sample had reported being involved in during the last four years. It is not known how many fights these men won, but previous research suggests that "more formidable individuals are those more likely to engage in fights," the authors wrote.]
For the rest of the samples, regardless of language spoken in the speech samples, participants rating the voices reported mostly accurate predictions for physical strength for men, but not for women. There was no significant difference between how good men and women were at evaluating the voices.
The results support the idea that the human voice, especially the male voice, has cues of physical strength, and that humans have evolved to be able to predict fighting ability based on those cues. This would have had great benefit to human ancestors, who may have used this information to their survival benefit - for instance, in choosing whom to fight with and whom not to confront.
Update: The study did not determine specifically what qualities in the voices were associated with greater strength. Researchers found, however, that pitch and timbre were not explanatory factors. In other words, contrary to what you might expect, lower pitch was not associated with greater perceived strength.Some guys sound tough - and according to a new study, that may a good way of... more
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MTV's Jersey Shore celebrates hyperconsumerism, aggressive machismo, and an upholding of values that leave me feeling alienated. So when I watched this parody, featuring the cast, I fell into a state of cognitive dissonance.
Gawker's Brian Moylan writes:
"It is evident that these three now realize that they are caricatures being exploited for the entertainment of the masses. In under four minutes, we see them accept this role gladly and trudge ahead into the world, with their rippled abs, spiked hair, and orange fake tans to be the modern court jesters that MTV has prescribed them to be. But be careful, now that the creatures from this awesome sociological experiment have become self-aware, they will be impossible to stop."
It's this self-awareness that gets me. My sarcastic, elitist, leftist colleagues and I joke about the lifestyle depicted on this show. If we do watch it, we might derive humor by thinking ourselves better than the denizens of the Jersey Shore. But when these characters become self-aware, we realize they are merely playing characters, and we become the butt of the joke.
Perhaps Mike "The Situation" and the cast of Jersey Shore are a clever splinter group of Situationist International, masquerading as douchebags.
SI describes The Situation as:
"A moment of life concretely and deliberately constructed by the collective organization of a unitary ambiance and a game of events."
We can understand that lifestyle in that manner. The cast does not live in this community full-time, they are here for the summer, "a moment of life." One could argue that this temporary society is "concretely and deliberately constructed" by a "collective organization" of those who actively want to experience life this way. The "unitary ambiance" is that uniform orange suntan. The "game of events" is the schedule of tanning during the day, partying at night, and eventual drama upon returning home.
These cast members are living in an intentional community. It's like your friend's commune in Siskiyou County, only with way more hair gel.
Traditional approaches to analyzing douchebags have often denied their intellect. The conversation becomes one of "they do this, because they don't know any better." But when we recognize their self-awareness, we have to think of these people as our intellectual equals. They aren't wayward members of the lumpenproletariat, they are formidable opponents who want nothing more than to make you dance to trance music.
This show is entertaining for the aforementioned superiority theory, or as mere fantasy like Harry Potter. It's a world that most of only know from popular culture. So in order to maintain this simulacrum, the casting director needs to hire people who can accurately perform these characters.
The above parody not only shows that these participants are self-aware, but that to some extent they can act. This is specifically why they were cast, in the role of gigantic douchebags.
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Now some animated douchebaggery:
MTV's Jersey Shore celebrates hyperconsumerism, aggressive machismo, and an... more
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For nearly a decade, naked pumpkin runners did their thing unmolested, stampeding through the frigid dark past crowds of admirers who hooted, hollered and tossed candy. But last year the run attracted more than 150 participants, and Police Chief Mark Beckner fears things are getting out of hand. "It's a free-for-all," he says.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125693458626119361.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForthFor nearly a decade, naked pumpkin runners did their thing unmolested, stampeding... more
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By Jeanna Bryner
Tough guys who buy into ideals of masculinity are much less likely to seek preventive healthcare services, such as a prostate exam, compared with other men.
The new finding, based on survey data, reveals that such manly beliefs could help to explain the lower life expectancy of men compared with women.
In the United States in 2005, life expectancy for women averaged about 80 years, while for men it was about 75 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"This research strongly suggests that deep-seated masculinity beliefs are one core cause of men's poor health, inasmuch as they reduce compliance with recommended preventative health services," said study researcher Kristen Springer of Rutgers University in New Jersey.
So while acting the part of a "real man" can attract fertile gals and even help a person to heal faster from injury, keeping up the tough-guy part could mean dodging the doctor's office.
The study will be presented today at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in San Francisco.
Springer and Rutgers colleague Dawne Mouzon, a sociology graduate student, examined data from 1,000 middle-aged men who participated in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study in 2004. The researchers looked at participants' masculinity beliefs, socioeconomic status and compliance with three commonly recommended annual healthcare procedures for middle-aged men: a physical exam, flu shot and prostate examination.
To reveal their level of machoness, participants rated eight items on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. These statements included, "When a husband and wife make decisions about buying major things for the home, the husband should have final say;" and "It bothers me when a man does something that I consider 'feminine.'"
Men who strongly endorsed macho ideals were 26 percent less likely than other participants to have received a physical exam in the prior year, nearly 30 percent less likely to have completed a prostate exam and nearly 50 percent less likely to have obtained all three preventive services in the prior year.
While previous research has shown higher socioeconomic status promotes better health, the new research found that wasn't the case for the manly men.
"As job status increases among men who have strong masculinity beliefs, the likelihood that they will obtain preventative healthcare declines significantly," Springer said. "These findings provide some insight into the persistent gender paradox in health whereby men have a lower life expectancy at birth relative to women, despite having higher socioeconomic resources."
(Compared with a woman, a man's life expectancy has been found to be five years shorter and he is expected to have higher rates of 12 of the 15 leading causes of death, the researchers note.)
In fact, men with low-status, stereotypically macho jobs, such as machine operators, truck drivers and construction workers, were more likely than other participants to head to the doctor.
The researchers suggest several reasons for why macho men would avoid preventive healthcare. For instance, men in high-status jobs "do not want to feel emasculated by placing themselves in the subordinate position of patient," the researchers note. Perhaps, they add, such men avoid the doctor because they have the resources to remedy any resulting health problems.
In addition, men with high-status jobs practice more autonomy and freedom to disagree with authority opinions and so, in the same way, they may just ignore health recommendations, the researchers suggest.
To figure out the cause and to extend the results to a broader population, Springer says the study should be replicated in a sample with more diversity, as the participants in this survey were primarily white, middle-aged men with high-school degrees.
Click the link to continue.
Image: http://www.photochart.com/data/media/14/p2.JPGBy Jeanna Bryner
Tough guys who buy into ideals of masculinity are much less likely... more
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The United States will expel Venezuela's ambassador in Washington to retaliate for the oil-exporting Latin American nation's decision to oust the U.S. envoy in Caracas, a U.S. official said on Friday.
"The plan is to kick him out," said the U.S. official, who asked not to be identified.
In an escalating diplomatic battle between Washington and Latin America's left-wing leaders, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the American ambassador on Thursday, a day after Bolivia asked the U.S. envoy in La Paz to leave.
Bolivia accused the U.S. ambassador of instigating violent protests in the poor Andean nation, a charge the U.S. State Department dismissed as baseless.
It was unclear whether the United States would succeed in...
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The United States will expel Venezuela's ambassador in Washington to retaliate... more
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Mariana van Zeller looks at a new nationwide effort taking place in Spain to tame the Spanish husband.Mariana van Zeller looks at a new nationwide effort taking place in Spain to tame the... more
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