Breast Size Preferences and Sexism

The Atlantic published a story this morning relaying a summary of the findings of two researchers, Viren Swami and Martin Tovée, that men who "idealized" larger breasts on women also tend to be more hostile to women. For their new article entitled "Men’s Oppressive Beliefs Predict Their Breast Size Preferences in Women," (found in Archives of Sexual Behavior) Swami and Tovée conducted an experiment wherein they asked white British men to rate five (computer-simulated) women based on which they found most and least desirable. All of the images were exactly the same, except for their breast size, with the men having the ability to rotate the images 360 degrees. Probably unsurprisingly, the subjects rated highest the medium-sized breasts, overall. 

What is perhaps more surprising, though, was the corresponding results found when the subjects were asked a few additional questions about their dispositions towards women. The following three prompts (in addition to others) were shown to the respondents:
   1. "Intoxication among women is worse than intoxication among   
   men." This prompt was meant to gauge men's attitudes towards     
   women. 
   2.  ''I feel that many times women flirt with men just to tease    
   them or hurt them." This was meant as a scale of hostility 
   towards women. 
   3.  "Women, as compared to men, tend to have a more 
   refined sense of culture and good taste."  This 
   prompt was a test of so-called "benevolent sexism" towards 
   women. 
In all three categories, the researchers found that men who preferred larger breast sizes corresponded to the men who engaged in more sexist thought and more extreme hostility towards women.

While this may be puzzling to some or seemingly explained as a manifestation of so-called instinctual reproductive preferences to others, the actual explanation to me (and probably to some other women) appears to be fairly obvious. Breasts on women are a (or maybe, the most) readily-identifiable difference which many people associate with the two accepted examples of gender. Larger breasts on a woman make her more "different" from a man, and in keeping with the hierarchy of the two genders, a lesser individual. 

This study of course can not be accepted as universal or even far-reaching as it sampled only one type of respondent, but I suspect that the results would be quite similar if it was conducted in the United States, or if it took answers from non-white men. 

Keep in mind the widespread dichotomy of female prototypes: virgin or mother (and in Christian cultures, these are often melded into one, rather than two stages of the same mold of woman) vs. whore. According to social dictates, our mothers (even those who are well-endowed) rarely show any cleavage, and those who do are often ridiculed behind their backs by their kids' friends and other mothers. On the opposite end is the objectified woman of advertising and TV, the "whore," who often has large breasts and often wears more revealing outfits. One of these sets of women is obviously more often the recipient of respect from men than is the other, and it happens to be the one to which men can not help but to relate.

The lesson here is not that men who like large breasts are bad, or that women who have them are. Rather, it is that we must strive to live in a society where people do not see physical difference and assume anything from it, especially in the area of gender. What we should want is what Michael Kimmel would call "A Degendered Society," one in which men and women were no longer seen as opposites, let alone members of different castes.