“Black Women Attractiveness” Study Exposes Racism in Evolutionary Psychology

The black blogosphere went H.A.M. yesterday over a post written in Psychology Today entitled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” The post, which was penned by pseudo-evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics, contains a lot of inflammatory subjective “science” that basically trashes black women.

In the piece, Kanazawa polls a bunch of his friends, who also hate black women, and (surprise, surprise) discovers that black women are statistically far less attractive than white, Asian and Native American women. Then he “analyzes” his data, determining that “Black women are on average much heavier than nonblack women.” Moreover, “Black women are still less physically attractive than nonblack women net of BMI and intelligence. Net of intelligence, black men are significantly more physically attractive than nonblack men.”

Kanazawa concludes his findings with this thoughtless piece of subjectivity: “The only thing I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone. Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive.”

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After a mid-morning email blitz from disgruntled black women (and the men that love them) everywhere, Psychology Today pulled the piece. However, thanks to the infinite powers of the Internet, Kanazawa’s bigoted douchebaggery lives on for eternity.

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But it’s just not women that Kanazawa seems to degrade with his moronic theorizing. He has also claimed there is a link between lower average IQ and poverty in Africa. Unfortunately, Kanazawa, among others, is allowed to play up these baseless hypotheses about the human condition thanks in part to evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology is becoming increasingly popular and influential on popular culture, and you are often more likely to see articles from this perspective in publications like Psychology Today.

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