
San Francisco Women With PhDs Featured as Models for Spring Collection - journeyofsophia
http://time.com/20362/this-clothing-companys-spring-collection-is-modeled-by-women-with-phds/
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cup
Ugh. The message I got was even if a woman has a PhD she can still be reduced
to a visual spectacle. I feel sorry for the women in my lab who constantly
face these pressures. I mean could you ever imagine a fashion line modelling
male PhD students? If not why not? Is it because we men can be judged based on
the merit of our work and don't have to worry about our appearance? I don't
know, maybe I'm reading this wrong.

~~~
sirclueless
> I mean could you ever imagine a fashion line modelling male PhD students?

Yes, I very well could imagine this. Geek chic is very much a thing and this
would probably play just fine.

I think about this the opposite way from you: Why should having a PhD change
the pressures one faces around fashionability and body image? Are you
suggesting that people with PhDs have earned the right to be exempt from
social pressure by virtue of succeeding in a graduate program?

Choosing some arbitrary and largely fashion-orthogonal dimension to slice up
the population seems like a very reasonable way to try and advertise fashion
to a wider audience. If you are decrying that the media is pigeonholing women
as being more fashion-sensitive, or that they are cherry-picking some expected
body type out of their chosen demographic, then that is a separate and perhaps
valid issue. But I don't read this as having any bearing on the value of a
PhD, except as a way to market to an audience that cares about intelligence.

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mwfunk
There's no messaging here. It would be very easy to read way too much into
this. I think it's refreshing, regardless of however many reasons people might
come up with to be upset by it.

Some commenters are saying that it denigrates women with PhDs by objectifying
their appearance, and others are saying that it fails because these are
conventionally attractive women. Of course, if they had a broader mix of
people then everyone would be up in arms about that too ("how dare they
suggest that women with PhDs aren't just as beautiful as other women?!?").

All of these things are at least somewhat true, but I don't think it really
matters.

This is a big lose/lose for whoever put the catalog together, because no
matter what they do it will outrage somebody. I'll settle for not thinking too
deeply about it and appreciating what they're doing, even if it's not the most
revolutionary act in the history of gender relations, and even if it might
seem hypocritical or cynical if you squint hard enough and look at it from
just the right perspective.

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victorhooi
Hmm, maybe I'm just not that cynical...

But i took it to be a lighhearted stab at stereotypes - that nerdy girls are
somehow "frumpy", or "unattractive".

I mean, we're meant to be all for getting girls into STEM - and you can argue
till you're blue in the face about how "looks shouldn't matter", and "girls
shouldn't care about makeup/shoes/clothes - but seriously?

Aren't we just being sexist, but painted a different colour?

If girls like those things - and I think it's fairly obvious from our society
they do - then maybe we can show them that yeah, they _can_ be "female" \- and
also super-smart. You don't need to pick one over the other.

I used to say to my wife "Err, you don't _have_ to wear makeup for me, you
know? I mean, it doesn't enhance performance physiologically." And her reply?
"I'm not doing it for you, silly. Btw, did you know you're emotionally stunted
=)".

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return0
Pure PR material about women's fashion makes it to the frontpage, now _that_
's news

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dopamean
I haven't a clue what to make of this.

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geekam
So, men are achievers based on their what they do in their field. Women on the
other hand still have to be able to model and look sexy despite of their
achievements.

Objectifying women yet again, is all I see here.

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saalweachter
"On the other hand, the women all have the same thin body type and are
beautiful by conventional standards, so is it really a revolutionary
campaign?"

~~~
dlitvakb
It is revolutionary... in all the wrong ways... they just gave more ways to
objectify women... it doens't matter how big their brain is... according to
this campaign (or at least how this article promotes it) they are objects for
our visual pleasure all the same

Shame on the editors

~~~
fallinghawks
I think you hit the nail on the head there. They're all conventionally
attractive, thus intelligence was clearly not the guiding factor in selection.
So the message is that intelligence or advanced degrees are not all that
important except as some kind of weird gold star -- it is still looks that
count.

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andrewvc
Ah Betabrand. I still don't understand why there's a huge market for people
who want to dress humorously.

They've somehow managed to make terrible a feature by labeling it funny.
There's a difference between laughing with, and laughing at. Betabrand is on
the wrong side of that line.

