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Don't have any female friends? Blame your boobs! (Link/Article)
How to lose friends and alienate colleagues: Show cleavage, study finds
Erin Anderssen
Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 12:47PM EST
How to lose female friends in one sashay on the pool deck: look too good in that string bikini.
The scorn of the sexy woman is practically ubiquitous among other women, a new University of Ottawa study has found - and showing too much cleavage may just be the surest way to be ostracized from the female circle, let alone be introduced to anyone?s boyfriend.
?We can?t tolerate anyone giving the milk away for free,? quipped psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt, the author of the study, in a Globe and Mail interview. ?We are living in a modern context, but we are operating with an old brain. We have this instinctual response to people who defy social conventions in a way that threatens the group.?
And women, even in this time of independence and self-expression, still find short skirts and skimpy tops awfully threatening - so much so, they couldn?t resist making catty comments even to total strangers.
This was the experiment, published in the current edition of the journal of Aggressive Behaviour : pairs of women were left in a room thinking they were participating in a study on conflict. While they were waiting, an attractive woman wearing provocative clothes entered to talk to another researcher setting up the cameras. The reactions of the women were filmed after she left, and were almost unanimous. ?It was so obvious,? said Dr. Vaillancourt, who coded their reactions on a ?bitchy? scale.
?They were saying thing like, ?oh, she?s dressed to have sex with her professor,? or ?oh, her boobs are about to pop out. They were looking her up and down, and as soon as she leaves the room, they start laughing hysterically.?
By comparison, when the same woman carried out the exact same task - but this time dressed in chinos and a high-neck t-shirt - almost all participants in the study didn?t even notice her.
Dressed too provocatively, ?she violated the unwritten rule all women should know about,? said Dr. Vaillancourt, the Canada Research Chair in Children?s Mental Health and Violence Prevention, who hopes the study will help people think about the reasons behind certain reactions and stereotypes. ?It?s women who suppress the sexuality of other women.?
And don?t think you?d be above it all, she warned. ?We are deluding ourselves if we think we are not capable of this reaction.?
In a study of 46 women, only two let the skimpy clothes pass without comment.
?I think the two who didn?t respond,? said Dr. Vaillancourt, ?were checking their blackberries.?
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Re: Don't have any female friends? Blame your boobs! (Link/Article)
I think people react to people who are dressed inappropriately for the environment.
Ditto Bowies. I have a fairly new coworker who wears terribly inappropriate shirts to work. Like, bar shirts. I have great tits too, but I keep them covered at work.
Damn, and here I thought all this time it was the mere fact that I am a royal ***....had no clue it was because of my DD girls.
All joking aside.....I keep my cleavage under wraps at work, church, etc.,............I keep the short skirts and low-cut blouses and tops for the bars.
All of this. I had a professor who wore hooker boots to class, short skirts, cleavage, etc. Her wardrobe was so out of place that I had a hard time getting past it. She was one of the best teachers I had, and outside of class, I would think nothing of seeing her in a short skirt, as she was a 30-ish woman with great legs. But in class, it was just distracting.
Maybe women who "let it all hang out" send out the vbibe that they aren't interested in having other women as friends (and not only through their clothes).
I think the experiment sounds like it has some flaws - like PPs said, it is often about context.
BUT, I understand what they are getting at. I recently met one of DH's colleagues. When he asked if I liked her, of course I lied at first and said yes. But he knew I was lying. So I eventually had to explain that she seemed nice enough, but was just the type of woman that other women don't want to be friends with. (Gorgeous, exotic, dressed sexily, flirty, over-the-top friendly)