Here's an interesting, if slightly silly, study. Since I'm a male, and have absolutely no fashion sense, I'll resist making any editorial comments:
Women dress to impress when they are at their most fertile, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study they say shows that signs of human ovulation may not be as mysterious as some scientists believe.
A study of young college women showed they frequently wore more fashionable or flashier clothing and jewelery when they were ovulating, as assessed by a panel of men and women looking at their photographs.
``They tend to put on skirts instead of pants, show more skin and generally dress more fashionably,'' said Martie Haselton, a communication studies and psychology expert at the University of California Los Angeles who led the study.
Writing in the journal Hormones and Behavior, Haselton and colleagues said their findings disproved the conventional wisdom that women are unique among animals in concealing, even from themselves, when they are most fertile.
Some animals release powerful scents when ready to mate, while others display skin color changes, but human ovulation is notoriously difficult to detect. This is attested to by the frequency of unintended pregnancy, as well as test kits marketed to women wishing to become pregnant but unaware of the likeliest time to conceive.
Haselton's team said their study showed the cues are there, even if men and women are not consciously aware of them.
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"disproved the conventional wisdom that women are unique among animals in concealing, even from themselves, when they are most fertile."
Yeah, I don't think much of that "conventional wisdom." As a woman, and based on my conversations with other women, I can attest that once you start paying some attention to your cycle, it's pretty easy to tell when you're ovulating. Many women feel a markedly greater appetite for sex during the few days of their monthly fertile period.
anon - the "conventional wisdom" refers to the fact that peak reproductive receptivity in human women (ovulation) is "cryptic", in that it doesn't show any outward physiological signs. For example, in many babboons, there are distinct signs (such as a swollen rump) when a female is in estrus ("in heat"). They're just postulating a mechanism by which human women might signal ovulation to potential mates. It has nothing to do with whether or not the woman is aware of her own ovulation - the mechanism can operate with or without conscious awareness of such.
Incidentally, this is not the first time that this has been demonstrated; I'd have to look it up, but I know that similar studies have been conducted before.
"Conventional wisdom" is exactly why we need more women in biology; there are far too many assumptions made that screw up everything, mainly because men with no fashion sense are making them. ;)
I just read about this study! You could attribute anything to hormones if you really wanted to. I even read an article the other day about a research institute conducting studies on "male menstrual cramps." Soon they'll be telling us how men dress when they are "ovulating."
Winawer, I understand what you are saying, but what I object to is the statement that women are "concealing, EVEN FROM THEMSELVES, when they are most fertile." If a woman is aware of when she's ovulating, then she's not concealing it from herself.
Also, there are physical changes, too: vaginal discharges change in predictable ways (amount, consistency) throughout the month. These changes are pegged to the menstrual cycle, and are regular enough that some people use them as an aid to calculating their fertile periods for birth-control purposes. (The Planned Parenthood website has a nice summary under its section on calendar-based birth control methods.)
I think what I reacted to most strongly in the quote that I began with, though, was the implication that women don't know what's going on with their bodies until scientists come along and tell them. Yes, scientists can tell people of both genders a lot that we don't know about our bodies. But this isn't one of those things.
"They're just postulating a mechanism by which human women might signal ovulation to potential mates."
Maybe women signal ovulation to potential mates by asking for sex. Which is basically what chimps do, right? It's just that with humans, our powers of vocal and other kinds of communcation have superseded the need for these really obvious physical markers.
I just think that the whole "women don't signal their fertility" argument plays into the stereotype of the woman as mysterious (compared to a man), which gets me down. Also it discounts all the ways that a woman might communicate her fertility -- why is what shows on her body more important than the way she acts or the things she says?
That's the axe I'm grinding. But do women display anything as overt as a swollen rump or the kind of flagrant craziness that dogs or cats in heat display? No, I'll give you that. We don't.
I just thought the write-up overstated the case in a way that plays into a couple of the more annoying pieces of b.s. about gender that exist out there.
why we need more women in biology; there are far too many assumptions made that screw up everything, mainly because men with no fashion sense are making them.
We wouldn't necessarily need more women -- adding more men who were actually socially adept would work too. But that would hurt nerdage, and research would suffer. Just imagine a socially savvy Ad exec fumbling to think up a hypothesis and sit still long enough to devise a test.
As for signalling, I miss the good ol' days when girls just put belladonna in their eyes to dilate their pupils. Now that's some costly signalling.
Well, file that study under DUH.
Humans have hormones. They affect the way we act, and the way people perceive us. I THINK that I learned that it high school, back in the '60s--you know, the Dark Ages to most of you young folks?? That male scientists are just discovering that it applies to females, too does not shock me in the least. After all, medical science regarded (until recently) women as small, inferior males, and actually had to devise a way to test the first birth control pills, as WOMEN hadn't been acceptable test subjects up until that time.
Our biology makes us different from both Men and other female varieties of ape. How--shocking! Evolution was bound to produce some differences, but a lot remained the same. They could have saved their study money if they'd ever lived in a women's dorm...