SELFIES. Whether you love them or you hate them, they're constantly flooding our social media feeds.
For women it's often about being seen as sexy or looking glamorous. But why?
Well, researchers have figured it out. And the reason is not what you might think.
University of New South Wales researcher Khandis Blake says the next time you see a woman adjusting her bikini provocatively with her phone at the ready, don't think of her as vacuous or a victim.
"Think of her as a strategic player in a complex social and evolutionary game," says Dr Blake said [sic].
The study revealed women tend to sexualise themselves in environments with greater economic inequality, rather than where they might be oppressed because of their gender.
Analysing tens of thousands of social media posts across 113 countries, they tracked photos where people had taken selfies and then noted that they were tagged sexy, hot or similar.
[...] "That income inequality is a big predictor of sexy selfies suggests that sexy selfies are a marker of social climbing among women that tracks economic incentives in the local environment," Dr Blake says.
"Rightly or wrongly, in today's environment, looking sexy can generate large returns, economically, socially, and personally."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @07:44AM (4 children)
It sadly is paywalled. Real science should be in the open for everybody to peruse much like currently you're supposed to openly explain your methods and assumptions in your paper for everybody to evaluate...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @07:55AM (1 child)
Can we therefore conclude that this article isn't real science?
(Score: 2, Touché) by nitehawk214 on Friday August 31 2018, @06:26PM
I think that is a safe assumption. Its from a gender studies program.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Friday August 31 2018, @08:02AM
http://www.pnas.org/content/115/35/8722 [pnas.org]
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/08/20/1717959115.full.pdf [pnas.org]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327187373_Income_inequality_not_gender_inequality_positively_covaries_with_female_sexualization_on_social_media [researchgate.net]
These three links work for me, and seem to have full text.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 1) by easyTree on Friday August 31 2018, @10:29PM
It seems to have been submitted to SciHub:
https://sci-hub.tw/10.1073/pnas.1717959115 [sci-hub.tw]