Pretty = Dumb? Now, That's Just Stupid.

Society needs a new traffic signal when it comes to deciding what is hot or not.

At an intersection, we all know that a red light means stop, a yellow means yield and a green means go.  But, when it comes to navigating the intersections of society, what are the signals that give us cues about how to think, feel and act when it comes to women?

According to a paper published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Nathan Heflick and Jamie Goldenberg built upon 1980s research suggesting that attractive women in high-status jobs are perceived as less competent. The psychologists used the recent Presidential election to determine whether Gov. Sarah Palin's sex appeal hindered her ability to convince voters that she is up to the job.

While this evidence contradicts other studies, it also brings up the age old question: how can women be seen as more than objects if they possess both beauty and brains?

I'm not going to get into whether Palin's looks ultimately led to her defeat.  I think there are a lot of other factors that contributed to the election results.  But the real point of this study is how the objectification of women leads to the mentality that pretty women are stupid, which is simply not true.

Women of all shapes and sizes should push back against this presumption because at the end of the day this mentality will effect how we are able to elect any woman into office, into the boardrooms or into the banking system.

It comes down to this: we need to treat people as people, not as objects.

We need to judge politicians based on real metrics such as: Can he/she govern well given his/her years of experience?  How well did he/she do on the SAT, the LSAT, the bar exam?  How quickly was he/she promoted?  These are acceptable metrics to define a person's intelligence and capability.  A dress size and a lipstick color are not.

Also, we need to take a deep look at how women are seen as objects and how we feel as women who constantly objectified.  There are plenty of pretty women who can support the idea that beauty and brains can go hand in hand (see here and here) but what is most important, is that we change the way society communicates these values to us.

We all know that when it comes to appearance, the knife cuts both ways.  "Ugly" people, the handicapped and disabled are often discriminated against for how they look.  And from this study, people who are considered sexy, beautiful, or pretty can be seen as less intelligent instead of more. As someone who grew up with a physically handicapped parent, I truly understand that image can be "everything".  But I also learned that what is behind that image - the character, intellect and integrity of the person - is what really matters when we process our evaluations of other human beings.

Just a few weeks ago I saw this headline - Men view half-naked women as objects, study finds. It made me pause and think, well, this isn't surprising in the least!  Half naked women are splashed all over advertisements to sell everything from soap to soda - why wouldn't women been seen as nothing more than an object?  While the "sex sells" approach boosts the bottom line, it also hinders a woman's ability to be seen as something beyond a product that can be bought and sold, rather than taken seriously.

Here are a few resolutions to push back against these claims:

1. Continue to push back on advertisers that use "sex sells" approach.
2. Avoid tearing down other women for their looks - don't perpetuate these demons
3. Re-brand idea that sexy = dumb into the idea that sexy = smart.

If a female is seen as an object, rather than a person, it's going to be difficult to frame her as a capable commander in chief.  It's time to create a new "traffic signal" to change the way we respond to female imagery where pretty doesn't equal dumb and having a brain isn't going to make you ugly.