I have never seen this particular biological theory advanced before,
so you can imagine how surprised I was to see it first on a T-shirt.
But that's okay--you can get first class biological thinking on the
inherent differences between men and women's intellectual capacity on
the op-ed page of the NY Times, so why shouldn't a T-shirt be a way to
publicize the cutting edge of biological thinking? While the
correlation between being female and being stupid has been proven
beyond a shadow of a doubt by male wannabe scientists, who are equipped
with the masculine ability to theorize about female inferiority without
having their thinking muddled by wishful thinking, I have never seen
anyone propose that there is a genetic link between prettiness and
inaptitude at math.
It is an interesting theory, of course. We all know that prettiness
is strictly a result of genes and has no enviromental component, or
what little it does is mere window dressing. (Sorry, ladies, but Mother
Nature is no feminist.) You can tell prettiness is pure genetics
because women put forth hysterical and emotional arguments about diet,
exercise, hair care, shaving, make-up and clothing--if women have an
emotional investment in having men believe that prettiness takes
effort, then clearly that demonstrates that it's nothing but ruthless
evolution that creates prettiness. And since prettiness is genetic like
intelligence, it's certainly possible and downright likely there is a
link between prettiness and intelligence.
And, as this T-shirt suggests, there is plenty of clothing-related
evidence that there is an inverse relationship between prettiness and
mathmatical aptitude. And of course, that makes perfect evolutionary
sense, if you understand that prettiness would be an indicator of
inability to challenge the male ego in primitive societies, and men
would select mates with traits we deem pretty so as best not to feel
that there's a chance they were with someone who might make more money
than them one day after money was invented.
Of course, this explains the ovary-infested temper tantrum that
female scientists threw when non-biologist but very much male and
intellectually superior Larry Summers indicated he was willing to face
the truth about female inability to do math. They weren't mad that he
was speaking the truth about the average woman's lack of aptitude--they
were simply angry, as women get in all their silliness, that they were
being told that they were never going to be Homecoming Queen. Frankly,
I think a nice pair of shoes is all it's going to take to calm them
down, or perhaps a dozen roses sent to each scientist to let them know
that certainly it's not them he was speaking about when he slurred
women, just every woman that's not them.
