[wgren]

>But when you see someone for the first time appearances are the first thing you notice... unless you can read minds.

Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!" as an opening phrase. We don't sell these kind of tshirts to boys: http://boingboing.net/2011/08/31/jc-penny-t-shirt-now-pulled...

>Looks are important. [...] no amount of telling you your appearance is a great asset is going to make you dumber.

No, but it tells you what you should spend your time and energy on improving. Again, something we only do for girls.

[_delirium]

> Yet when talking to boys, people generally don't say - "Oh, what a handsome boy you are, and how nicely you dress!"

I agree it's not symmetrical, but I do hear this kind of thing directed at male children pretty frequently, especially in the relatives/family-friends type setting. "Oh what a handsome young man you have!" isn't uncommon at all. Though I do tend to associate it with older women, for some reason; at least as a young lad myself, I think it's a comment I heard mostly from older aunts.

[overgryphon]

Boys generally only hear that sort of statement from family members at family gatherings.

Young girls hear how pretty their dress or hair or smile is from just about anyone upon introduction. They are put into ballet classes where they learn to act pretty, into girl scouts where they do traditional arts and crafts rather than the camping and leadership that boy scouts focuses on, and are given play makeup until around ten or so when they are encouraged to learn how to put real makeup on. Many young girls know what dieting is, and start doing so in intermediate school- before they have even stopped growing. Young girls are supposed to behave appropriately as such, while loud, rude, and overly rambunctious behavior from boys are tolerated as "boys will be boys". All of this is anecdotal from my own experiences, but I believe to be true in many areas of the US.

The extent to which young girls are raised to be pretty is on a completely different level of young boys.

[chrischen]

It is at a different level, but only because it's simply more practical in society for a girl to be pretty than it is for a boy.

You'd have to make everyone ignore beauty to disincentivize being pretty for girls and that is going to be pretty impossible.

As more girls start to realize their independence from men (because of education now opened up fully for women) the emphasis on beauty will naturally start eroding away as they realize they can do other things to support themselves and get what they want in life.

[knowtheory]

And that stops at what... age 10ish with guys?

The whole 'ooh what beautiful daughters you have' thing continues well on into the teens, if not beyond.

[_delirium]

I'm in my late 20s and still get that if I visit relatives with my parents! But Greek relatives seem to consider any unmarried children to be kids, regardless of age.

[true_religion]

Ditto in my culture. Talking about how handsome you are (you share my genes, how can you not be handsome?) and how surprising it is that you haven't found a wife yet continues long into your 20s.

To be honest, I think this whole debate is a generalization based on a post-victorian western culture where all the frivolities concerning male appearance have died. Previously, men--at least the aristocratic sort--used to wear make up, tights, wigs and high heels all at once but now only women do.

[chrischen]

I'm sure if it were a little boy in pajamas the author would have had the same urge to say how cute he was.

> Again, something we only do for girls.

It's not as if all men let themselves go. It takes work, even for a man, to not become fat, smelly, and overly hairy.

I think the underlying cause for women to focus too much on appearances is because it is much easier for women, in current society, to marry into wealth and/or depend on a man. I think this has a much larger influence on women focusing more on their appearances than behavioral conditioning through constant complimenting.

The compliment is a signal. If the person is pretty and you say that, then it's a proper signal. If you tell a child they are smart because they did some random thing, it's not necessarily a proper signal. Sending a wrong signal is bad. In the case of telling a child s/he's smart when s/he's not, the child may not try as hard anymore because s/he may wrongfully think s/he's smart enough already... In the case of telling someone s/he's pretty, as long as it's true, there's nothing wrong with it because being pretty can actually have practical advantages. It is then up to the person to choose whether to leverage his/her physical assets or his/her mental assets to get what s/he wants in life.

[kamaal]

Yes, Even I don't understand how giving a good complement can do any harm and that too to an extent this article points. In fact the opposite is true, if you call a kid stupid or ugly it can be him/her very discouraging.

Also the point on women seeking beauty to ensure the get the alpha male from the pack is very true.