
Why most female newscasters have the same hair - rustcharm
https://www.instyle.com/hair/secret-beauty-rules-of-television-talking-heads
======
ThJ
If we draw an analogy to stagecraft and "Ann Anchor" is a character from a
popular play, it isn't unreasonable to expect a performer to dress up for a
role. Actors sometimes go as far as losing or gaining weight or muscle mass to
better fit a role. Like the theatre, television is show business.

Beauty standards are narrower for women in TV because beauty standards are
narrower for women period. Decades of feminism have done nothing to change the
fact that being beautiful and fashionable is still far more important for
women than for men.

TV executives don't personally care how anchors look. They care about viewer
numbers and everything you see on screen is optimised toward that. If having a
particular look boosts the numbers, then they will want that look. If having
two heads boosted the numbers, they'd want that too. It's no different than
politics: Only the voters can be blamed for electing bad politicians.

~~~
blattimwind
> Beauty standards are narrower for women in TV because beauty standards are
> narrower for women period. Decades of feminism have done nothing to change
> the fact that being beautiful and fashionable is still far more important
> for women than for men.

IME women comment (judge) way more frequently on styling and looks of other
women than men ("nice").

~~~
chongli
Women judge and police each other openly, yes, but men tend to judge women
silently. That means if a man doesn't find a woman attractive he'll just
ignore her (or act polite but curt).

Yes, some men will openly judge and mock women's appearances. These men tend
to have a lot of other behaviour problems though.

~~~
reversecs
Both men and women will tend to be polite but brief with a person they are not
attracted to (in the context that the other person is trying to develop a
romantic relationship). That is completely normal and I think it's fine and
healthy.

Feminism will struggle against the tendency of women's attraction to be more
heavily weighted by appearance than by character or economic status like men
are.

I feel like from there men and women have organized themselves and their
"competition" according to the criteria set by the opposite sex. Women will
become more critical of other women's appearances and men will be more
critical of masculine criteria (how much money do you make, can you defend
yourself, are you tough/independent/emotionally stable) including penis size,
because that is oh so important to making a woman happy.

Maybe men and women impose the harshest standards on themselves because they
want to appease the opposite side more. And maybe even though it's true that
those are characteristics we value in the opposite sex, we don't objectify the
opposite sex as much as they objectify themselves.

Some men and women will resent the way they are "judged", blaming their
"judges" for their feelings of inferiority. Some men and women will try to
capitalize on the others insecurity to their own gain. Mostly the inferiority
is self imposed.

It's a strange balance to acknowledge that (for example) appearances are
important, and that it will be more difficult for either sex, particularly
women, to find a partner if they don't take care of their appearances. And
while that might be true acknowledging that you aren't an object and
subjective qualities outside of the rubric of attraction actually do matter
and are valuable to people you want to attract.

I don't think attraction will ever be negotiated, and that's where feminism
will fail and frustrate people. It might become more taboo to admit you like
her cause she's a lingerie model, or that he's a catch because he makes 7
figures, but those things are always going to make a person stand out no
matter how angry or inferior it makes us feel.

~~~
erikpukinskis
There are many situations where those things won't make a person stand out, at
least not in a positive light.

You describe a landscape that exists, but there are many other landscapes
interleaved. We have some degree of control over which landscapes we choose to
engage.

Feminism/Anarchism is not about making the "beauty+money" landscape go away,
it's about helping people find situations when they can opt out of it.

~~~
reversecs
Feminism and anarchy seem to target an entire culture. It really doesn't focus
on the individual more than the collective. I think that necessarily
manipulates all of these land scapes.

If it becomes transphobic to not date a trans person, purely on the basis of
them being transgender, it necessarily affects everyone who interacts with a
trans person who hits on them.

If it becomes sexist to watch and produce porn that can be interpreted as
degrading to women, it necessarily changes decisions the porn that all people
watch. If it is sexist for women to not be represented 50/50 for specifically
high paying tech jobs, it necessarily affects that works with women or own a
tech company. It almost certainly will make those changes through coercion
rather than eliminating sexism in the interview process. People will pretend
like all of these changes are justified but deep down it doesn't change the
way we think and it only builds resentments against movements which restrict
and criticise behaviors which are fair.

Some of the issues that these movements take on simply do not have a place for
choice. It affects the entire landscape.

Helping women deal with "unrealistic beauty standards" would not work by
ensuring that men don't prioritize or advertise with women that are beautiful
(if you raise a bit and glorify images of women who are traditionally
considered ugly, it will not work). If a boy is castrated at birth through a
medical accident, and is raised as a girl and even given hormones, it still
doesn't change traditionally male behaviors and sexual preference. People are
not blank slates and I think we need to be careful that we set up a society
that fundamentally works against ones nature.

Not that we should give in to every impulse, but I hope you can see what I'm
getting at. At a work interview, women should be measured only in merit. Under
the law, men and women should not be treated differently, except in manners
that can only affect women or men (abortion, circumcision, etc.) In a social
system, changing the way that people think about their attraction to women is
just twisted.

I think it would be better to work on an individual level to help a person
change the way they think about themselves to resolve the self esteem issues
that photoshopped advertisements, or cookie cutter models and newscasters
produce.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> It almost certainly will make those changes through coercion rather than
> eliminating sexism in the interview process

Why do you say that? You're basically presuming bad faith. Eliminating sexism
in the interview process is exactly what anti-bias recruiting tries to do.

> it only builds resentments against movements which restrict and criticise
> behaviors which are fair

Not only that. It also helps get better people into the positions where they
can be more effective, which leads to a more productive economy overall. The
resentment is an unfortunate (I think inevitable) side effect.

To me the wage gaps are evidence that we're not using the labor force
effectively, that there are talented women and people of color who are not
getting into jobs where their skills are adequately leveraged. So getting them
into better positions means companies will be more successful. The statistics
suggest that some of the men in these positions don't deserve to be there and
are holding their organizations back.

I understand you interpret the data in a different way, that some things just
make men and white people more valuable. Differences aside, can you see that
these interpretations are subjective and the data doesn't actually
differentiate between "the women are just less capable" and "the process is
not promoting the best people"? Those two realities are indistinguishable from
pay data alone, which is why the stats become a Rorschach test for peoples'
beliefs about gender differences.

Not sure how to engage the rest of your argument... I definitely wouldn't say
people are blank slates, nor would I deny that gender differences exist. The
vast majority of feminists don't think those things, those positions are straw
men that anti-feminists like to bring up because they are easy to argue
against.

~~~
topmonk
> Not sure how to engage the rest of your argument... I definitely wouldn't
> say people are blank slates, nor would I deny that gender differences exist.
> The vast majority of feminists don't think those things, those positions are
> straw men that anti-feminists like to bring up because they are easy to
> argue against.

Not to derail the conversation too much, but why does the extreme seem to be
accepted as ok by the left? Kids as young as 8 are getting hormone treatments
to try and change their gender. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/transgender-
children-getting-...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/transgender-children-
getting-more-drug-hormone-treatments-1.1294699)

I myself see this as child abuse. It's a life altering decision made by a
child who is too young to understand the consequences. If you don't see this
as harmful, you can ignore the rest of this comment, because then I don't have
an argument. But if you do see this as a problem, why don't you and others on
the left speak out against it?

This is what scares me about you guys. Some of you preach moderation, but you
all seem fine with things be taken as far as they can go.

------
Alterlife
Do 95.8 percent of female newscasters have the same hair? I don't see it.
Whats the source of that number? Where are the examples? All I see in the
article is advertising and counter examples.

From what I can tell, the women in news just like the women in real life seem
to change their hairdo every other day.

~~~
mratzloff
According to the article, it refers to the percentage who have straight hair.

~~~
Alterlife
Thanks, I see the critical line in the article now:

"95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair"

That is a totally different statement from the title to me.

Almost all, actually probably ALL the women in my professional circles have
smooth hair too. Some of them get it straightened at a parlor. It may have
something to do with where I'm located as well.

------
kpil
TV is so dying, they don't even know it.

In one way, I'm worried about the quality of news reporting now when
traditional media is slowly withering away, but since they are focusing on
haircuts, I don't think it really matter. The quality journalism is already
mostly gone, and what's left can be found in a small number of online and
print publications, read by a small number of people.

~~~
erikpukinskis
It's not that TV is dying, it's that monocultures are contracting. They will
grow again, but won't reach the same heights.

The haircuts need to be one way, because the anchors are trying to reach as
large an audience as possible. If they were speaking only to, say, soccer
fans, they would have other choices. Same is true for many other audiences.
But if you want to go for a "universal" audience, you have to go to the lowest
common denominator.

The internet has turned that on its head. You actually can sustainably run a
news show for soccer fans only, and be financially successful. Whereas before
the distribution costs were too high to allow anything other than mass market
news brands.

However, we shant over-extrapolate here. It turns out that many people
actually identify more with the "big middle" than with any little subcultures.
They enjoy standard, "basic" stuff. They want no fuss, and they like universal
appeal. They don't like balkanization. Perhaps they were part of a tight knit
tribe, and they don't want to go back to that.

For this reason, I would call this moment a "contract" of mass media, not a
death of it. I think these generic brands will contract, but in doing so will
find their core audience. People who are not alienated by the "anchor bob" but
comforted by it.

------
th0ma5
Skimmed around for mentioning color keying but didn't find anything. That
being said, I've long noticed the weird uniform of it all. And if you are on
Sinclair or Fox you have to be blonde.

A few years ago I was in an art and technology exhibit. One of the neater
exhibits was a scrape of all the profile pictures on Yahoo personals (this was
a while ago) and all the women's photos looked the same and the men's were all
over the place with hats or props it was rather crazy to see. I keep thinking
of peacocks whenever I remember back on it.

------
nobrains
They are optimizing for their audience. Like this:
[https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1029374020037238784?s=19](https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1029374020037238784?s=19)

------
emilfihlman
The GDPR blocker doesn't go away even if you accept.

~~~
beeforpork
Yeah, slowly we realise that GDPR was too good to be true. And indeed, it is
bad.

~~~
Kim_Bruning
Well, it's mostly news sites that get their money from advertising and
tracking that have the gdpr-walls, I haven't really seen it anywhere else.

For now it's mostly ... interesting.

