More than a pretty face Something perfectly pointless, egregiously superficial and just plain corny has passed into history with the decision by ABC to drop Miss America from it’s 2005 schedule. It isn’t a passing that will trouble many. Last month’s pageant drew a record low of 9.8 million viewers. The American public has pronounced sentence on the high heels and swimwear, the tiara tat and tearfulness in victory. No more brilliantly smiling hopefuls from Abbeyville or Rainbow Springs will tell the nation that, yes, they adore children and just want the chance to work for a better world. I don’t know what “totter off in peace” would be in Latin. But something like that would seem to be appropriate. OK, so what? The Humourless Ones For Whom No Man Ever Cared will savour the moment, obviously. But why should we bother about the passing of these cattle markets? Well, it’s simple really. We should bother because there is more to this than a minor, overdue triumph for sexual equality. We should bother because of what it tells us about our own wives and daughters and the people they and we have become. The “judging of women”, to quote the Washington Post ‘s Lisa de Moreas in her only slip from professional journalistic standards, is a simple fact of biology. No point in denying it. Every woman understands it perfectly well and practises the art of being judged with no limits to her dedication. Even Marxists do it. Even nuns. No, wait a minute … could be wrong about the nuns. Anyway, all the women still outside holy orders definitely don’t mind at all, so long as a little appreciation comes their way from time to time. That’s the deal. So it’s really a question of how this judge/judged thing is seated in the prevailing social and moral climate and how we, as agents of tradition or change, act upon that climate during our brief lives. My own brief life, for example, has been sadly lacking in the “agency for change” department. But it has afforded me a vision both of the post-war years - austere in my native Britain but often thought a golden age in 90% white America – and of that troubling period dated by Philip Larkin from 1963 (“just too late” for him but a tad early then for me). I have seen innocence and the breaking of innocence, and that is the story of Miss America in its prime and in our miserably libertine age. In essence, Miss America was a testament to the moral character of America in the first half of the twentieth century. It was a show about and for women. The hugged and kissed and crowned victrix was a lodestar for young female minds, her mock-regal progress in triumph all bedecked with roses and popping flashbulbs a consummation sans Eros. Judged, chosen and yet remaining curiously but unequivocally chaste - this, it said, is what’s right, what’s best for an all-American girl. Be like this and you are all that you possibly can be in America. It was a formula that survived in the public spotlight for eighty-three years. Such longevity is not without meaning. The pageants may have been crass and galling to the intellectuals. But it was not to them that they spoke. Even so, once the intellectuals were infected with second-wave feminism they could never allow such an outright insult to stand. I have yet to establish to my own satisfaction the chicken and egg nature of intellectual ideas and movements to the great, river-like sweeps and turns of social history. As many of the former become possible with changing circumstance as change itself is occasioned by them. Certainly, sexual liberation – which was a male liberation – flowed from several sources and one of the least was sexual equality. But combined, they flooded those young female minds I have mentioned with promptings subtle and not so subtle and images that would have caused a riot in 1950’s America. Chaste female ambition, the real foundation of the beauty pageant but also of traditional womanhood, found itself in competition with ruthlessly promoted sexual knowledge. And in this particular pageant Herbert Marcuse, Cosmopolitan and Sumner Redstone always had the glitzy numbers. As for the feminists, certainly Miss America’s political obsolescence was apparent from 1970 onwards. That was the year Bob Hope faced a feminist fury at the Miss World pageant in London. Despite some pretty flakey attempts to keep up with the times – to be more “correct” (wrong audience), to be sexier (wrong audience), to be racially blind (wrong audience and insincere) – the Miss America organisers could not hold viewer numbers. A future of low budget cable TV awaits them. It probably won’t last long. Meanwhile, we might now ask ourselves which was better for the formation of the healthy female mind, Miss A or MTV? And we might ask ourselves where the hell we go from here? Comments:2
Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:21 | # Hello James, I don’t think male lust was the driving force behind the long tradition of beauty pageants. It had its place but, interestingly, did so quite differently for men and for women. To my mind it was the latter - the promotion of female beauty and talent over pure sexual expression and their optimisation as means of relating to the male - that really shine through the tears and smiles of the winning contestants. Continuum wise, the pageants obviously related to a lost world that contained or sought to contain sex within marriage. It was a world advantageous to the Euro-American female and in accordance with her classic evolutionary strategy of high male committment. MTV pretty much demonstrates sexual technique which, for her, is the polar opposite. But that said, the polarity here seems more negroid-caucasoid than male-female. Traditional African dance cannot be without cultural and evolutionary value to the female, though it hardly seems to advance beyond bump and grind. Ballet it ain’t. “I would prefer a world without either.” 3
Posted by James Kabala on Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:31 | # Thank you for your reply. I wonder, though, if you could expand on your thoughts about the connection between the pageant and chastity. I realize that the pageant’s organizers traditionally sought to keep the contestants as chaste as possible by banning contestants with illegitimate children, stripping Vanessa Williams of her title after her nude photos came to light, and so forth, but I don’t really see the connection between the pageant itself and chastity. I would still think that any event structured around physical attractiveness is more likely to incite impure thoughts than pure ones, however well-intentioned the people behind it may be. 4
Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 28 Oct 2004 22:46 | # James, I believe the connection lives in the pristine ideal of the beauty queen as perceived by women. It is, of course, pristineness with a uniquely female purpose: that of demanding a high price! As a male one is faced with a well-nigh impossible task here. One must try to divine how a woman sees the getting of a life-partner and life-long love, and the female sexual competition that leads to that, and how she might idealise these things in the form of another, quite perfect female. What would seem perfect to her? And why would not chasteness, her marital bargaining chip, be part of that? In this regard, I have always been struck by women’s capacity to view fashion models as the clothes horses they are. So it is with the pageant queen. But along with her swimsuit and her tacky orb and crown she is surely clothed with those mysterious ideals, chasteness and all - and that’s all there is to my argument. But I think it is also worth examining the converse perspective to see whether lust may, after all, be the formative factor in the beauty pageant. The idealised female simply cannot survive public association with male lust, as was demonstrated with Ms Williams (not my ideal, btw). Woman is judged by appearance and the appearance of licence always damages her. That’s because male lust tends too easily to vice, meaning that smallness and meanness of the psyche through which we unconscionable pigs will happily contract relations and move on. But a woman never can, really. It is not in her evolved nature. As Camille Paglia wrote, male lust does not repel a woman but arouses her. This is quite proper in itself and it’s what lust is for, I suppose. But it renders her a sexual submissive and without the saving grace of male commitment there are profound dangers for her in that. She is moved by degrees towards depravity, even towards uncaringness as to the number, qualities, identities or actions of her consorts. This is all an expression of the fundamentally contrary nature of male sexual interests and it is my contention that little or none of it was ever found in the lovely, shining visage of Miss America. A lap club would be a better place to look. Obviously, today we live in ignorance of and contrary to women’s evolved nature. We are, in fact, living the nurtured lie of the sexually adventurous, even dominant female. This has proved to be great for sex-hunting males and disastrous for women and for children, particularly female children. It’s disastrous for fathers, too. It behoves those of a conservative disposition to be the first to face up to these truths. It has to be done by everyone sooner or later. 5
Posted by Steve Sailer on Thu, 28 Oct 2004 23:57 | # The Miss America pageant’s troubles stem from it being an amateur contest, whereas these days most extremely beautiful girls have already gone professional (e.g., signed modeling contracts or whatever) and thus disqualified themselves from entering by age 18. 6
Posted by James Kabala on Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:50 | # Guessed worker: Thank you for your reply. It gave me much food for thought. Unrelated P.S. I don’t understand the point of the “submit the word you see below” feature. This is the first time I ever noticed a blog with this feature. I don’t find it annoying or a pain to do or anything of that kind; I just find it strange. 7
Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:31 | # James, Spammers use robotic programmes that are designed to post hundreds of offensive comments on an open thread. Edge of England’s Sword and Oliver Kamm are two Brit examples of blogs which have closed their comments as a result. In response to this threat blog software developers have come up with two solutions, the most common being a membership roll for the commentariat. This has the added advantage of defeating e-mail harvesting programmes - another little trick of the spammers. Jim Kalb’s Turnaround and Robert Spencer’s Dhimmi Watch are examples of blogs using this system. Jim has just made alterations to his and Robert is well aware that commenters are having posting problems on DW. So we’ve gone for the alternative: a constantly changing key-word that robotic programmes can’t read. I first saw it at Samizdata but a lot of blogs are using it now. It doesn’t solve the e-mail harvesting issue but most commenters know there is sometimes a risk in leaving their address on the net, and just don’t take the chance. Hi Steve, Nice to have you around. But what’s the difference to the Miss America organisers between a beautiful girl working at a meat-packing plant and a fashion model? If the Miss A people learned to mess with political correctness then a whole bunch more cleavage, what’s the insuperable problem with professional modelling? 8
Posted by exPF on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:33 | # This is such an interesting essay for the aspects of femme psychology its touchs on. Recently, at a blog I only viewed once, there was a discussion between some intelligent (read: grad school educated) female posters, who both came to the conclusion that modern sexual morality is a net loss for women. It was quite interesting to view as a third-party outsider the offhand way in which they discussed how modern Sex-and-the-City mores had basically betrayed them and their female friends as a mating strategy. These women seemed to arrive through bitter experience at essentially morally “reactionary” principles - i.e. believing in traditional morality as optimal for the woman. As you said, being evolved for high investment, all this libertine stuff really isn’t for white women, it doesn’t suite them. As an example of a strategy from another world, I’m working right now with a young black girl (19 years) and it has become apparent to me from her stories that she has multiple overlapping relationships and cannot even describe to me in concrete terms who she is “dating”. Even the idea of “dating” someone (i.e. exclusively) is not present here. So thats what low-investment strategy genetics breeds in libertine environments. Returning to this website discussion between grad school chicks, they mentioned examples of women cohabiting with men for years, and after the best of their breeding years are “up” - the man says no, he actually wasn’t interested in marriage. That apparently happens quite often. This kind of thing happens so often in a world where relationships are “for fun” rather than “for keeps”. Whats really sad is when a woman has such a multiplicity of these silly temporary relationships you can see how she loses the “bloom” of girlishness and idealism - and something hard-boiled abgebrüht and cruelly realistic comes in its stead. Its so sad - and I think its a real, genuine crisis for the girl which is too private and too female-specific to be publicized but nevertheless is real: how many women “wake up” at age 26, with no serious man in front of them, feeling used up, their emotions spent, and henceforward wear on their faces something like the look of the dead. Like some other guy said, you make love to a woman properly and she will think you love her. And she will fall in love with you. The only way women can accomplish the emotional alchemy of separating love and sex is at the cost of themselves becoming cold-hearted witches, by basically killing off the soft part of themselves that is their femininity - they become inured to the crash and burn of their romances and their hearts become scarr tissue. Unfortunately, with some caveats, the best way for women to nurture children is by maintaining some childish part of themselves- which cannot happen when they are bonked and abandoned by a score of different lads. But what makes a woman happy in her 30s and beyond? Family. As in, it sucks not having one. 9
Posted by SM on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:03 | # Both the article and exPF is: Male fantasy of female high intention and character. ...As if on a pedastal. James Kabala: Liberal wackadoodle-ism. Likely to change from scenario to scenario. It is also a male reproductive strategy. Specifically it seeks to marginalize other males through denouncer/protector display. Some of that in the article’s and PF’s comments too. Eg “cohabitating” females “abandoned” ‘after they’re used up by predator male’. No mention of how the breakup was most likely the fault of female behavior; the lack of binding marriage simply allowing the otherwise sappy white male a “reprive from the governor” (wherein he made good his escape). This “enpedalstaling thing” (be it done by conservatives or liberals, who both do it almost identically—though with different vocabularies [thereby highlighting a main difference between said] makes one question whether these males have actually ever “you know ...slept with a lady [say no more]”. 10
Posted by exPF on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:36 | # SM You live in your own world of vicious females who need to be kept close tabs on and “sappy white males” who have to terminate relationships on the basis of “faults” in “behavior”. Whatever you do, dont put those girls on a pedestal! I know this is your reality because you attribute it to the world generally. But the mating game is different depending on what type of guy you are. I live in the world where having sex with 20-something girls is not hard and doesn’t demand from me the promise of a relationship. I’ve broken women’s hearts, and in fact, its happend a few times and is something that one has to take pains to avoid. I’m not doing it anymore no matter what. I hate to see some girls dream blown up, I hate their sentimentalism - when I know I’m not there for keeps. I hate their crying. I hate their love letters and the poetry. I hate to leave them realizing I’ve torn a hole in their emotional ship from which they might never recover. (although I like to think they do recover!!) I believe in GW’s philosophy because even I see how in the end me getting off just wasnt worth the heartbreak it causes girls who get involved and want it never to end. So while you’re keeping strict accounts, working hard not to get victimized - presumably because you’re low status - I’m trying not to victimize by pulverizing a girl’s emotional landscape with the promise of me taking up permanent residence there. If that sounds conceited, blame the six whiskey colas i ingested prior to writing it. 11
Posted by SM on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:59 | #
That part is not a problem. Bully for you and your success re females. ————-
I live in reality. You on the other hand live in an instinctual sex display, which you have not reckoned with. White male sappiness and deference to females undeserving is the key feature of human western gender dynamic. (One would be hard pressed to find a self aware female who did not concur [though mockingly in tone]. (Note that female self awarenss and honesty—even when their capricious cycles are just right—is rare.)) ‘Vicious’ is your word. Females are of lower character(and aptitude) than men generally and over profited by mediocre males.
Well stop doing it! But don’t keep enleveraging the females (who are inherently deceptive, manipulative, childish, cruel and dopey) over everybody else—including us low status males (see below)—as your way of clearing your rake-ish conscience. And by the way, a female socially sexually enleveraged such as yourself would never contemplate that she is bad as you have for yourself and sware off doing it anymore. She doesn’t possess the impulse to care about men the way you care about them. And you just admitted/asserted that you live in a rarified world but then disparingly say that I live in ‘my’ own world… (implication being that I somehow see through the skewed lense). ((((((
Sting is not as good as other English songsters (who all seem to a have genetic gift for it—eg Mcartney) but even he penned the very good… “If I built this fortress around your heart. ...let us set the battlements on fire” Well said Gordon. Another cad.
Being anything other than a brunette with a father in the house will cause one to be of low sexual status in this upside down world run by female caprice. It behooves the minority high status (however relativistically measured and decided upon) to solve the problems of the low status, for the low status have been the backbone of EVERY MOVEMENT that has ever ousted the high status… That is why I said in a much earlier post that “liberalism isn’t bad: it is simply wrong. The human condition problems need to be solved, not just ignored or mocked. It is simply that liberalism—as a human condition quandry and flaw itself—doesn’t do it right”). And just because woman allows—as part of her inherent well adaptive “flaws”—rakes and cads to fuck her to misery (the only place she’s happy) doesn’t mean she _isn’t_ a bad person derserving of controling. Indeed there is a well known adage—which you’ve never heard ‘cause I’m just making it up… there is nothing worse on the villa than the villain’s mistress. ...If only that pea could be found, boopsy would stop complaining… ———— 12
Posted by skalkaz on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:06 | # SM, I agree with you on most things but could you explain this bit of sputter: Being anything other than a brunette with a father in the house will cause one to be of low sexual status in this upside down world run by female caprice. Don’t waste any good-will by being incoherent. 13
Posted by SM on Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:20 | #
I meant… -Anybody raised without a father is prone to becoming “low status” in the new world order. ExPF implied the low status shouldn’t be taken seriously in modern gender debate. But in the new world order, the low status can easily simply be those dudes from the movie “Fight Club” (who are generally inherently not low status). Any teenage boy—including the mighty stud exPF once—can easily be seen as low status (until they become older and more desirable to female whim—as my 40 something ass has). Should the teenage males—ultimately low status—not be taken seriously in their observation that females are ‘bad’ people and unconstitutionally over privileged? -I have also observed that the only males getting promiscuous play before 40something are the [male] brunettes—usually not too communicative/clever (or the hyper-rare rock stars). -“Caprice”. Capricious change of Whim I believe. ...I believe very strongly that female decision runs the most important things in society (which under pin all the other competitions)—and now that power is double sided and absolute. With this power they make the pick and dismiss decisions absolutely—capriciously changing what they want (and the dumbfounded praying mantis males keep jumping through the hoops like poodles in tutus to the Aram Katchaturian (look it up)). (Oohp.. the “wasting the goodwill ‘o meter” needle is pinning there a bit.) My original statement above was badly italicized. I write a lot of my posts here in note pad; My use of the code switches is bad. I always now hit Preview instead of Submit but simply hit the wrong one that time. The statement itself wasn’t that bad compared to some other ones…
That is important. What I meant is just because she cried for _you_ on the phone, doesn’t mean she isn’t ‘bad’ during other times of the day and month to others both personally and politically. ======== (This is totally normal: either the youth oust the established—coup d’eta style—or the established stunt the youth—male Grizzly Bear Andro-infanticide style. What we are seeing is the previous generations’ successful coup-groups now in power trying to prevent the next generation males—especially the masculine _none_ peter principle types—from ousting them. Feminism/the single fem parent/affirmative action for gender etc (and the cumulative androcide effect) is part of their mote now (it once was a grenade thrown by the previous coup). This same ‘mote vs grenade’ vibe was once termed chivalry. A problem is that this marginalizing—of the not-already-en-statused-males—is not fatal (‘cause they’re still necessary) and the marginalized have hit/are hitting a critical mass. ...A little Imperial fiddle playing anyone? No really!... He’s quite good…) (“Wasting the good-will” there I know. It was just a little aside; but important enough, existentially, to wrestle with.) The males who think they are above it all bad-ass now (*which is really quite laughable, if you got a look at them compared to the underclass!) are a classic example of hubris while Rome burns. (*An undeserved hubris too boot.) (Dudes I’m very clever. When it comes to this jazz, I know my shit.) Post a comment:
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Posted by James Kabala on Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:22 | #
I wasn’t alive in the fifties (or ths sixties, or the seventies), but can it ever really have been true that the pageant was “a show about and for women?
” I would think that the prominence given to the swimsuit competition would indicate that the gratification of male lust was always a factor in the pageant’s popularity. It was obviously less offensive in this regard than MTV, but surely they were along the same continuum rather than polar opposites. I would prefer a world without either.