Oh hey everybody. I haven't seen you in awhile. I mean well actually to be fair I really have
never seen you because I can't see through a camera. How many YouTubers have made that joke?
So after I got back from vacation I was going through Stuff Mom Never Told You YouTube messages
that I had missed and I had a lot of unanswered questions from a user named hat trick. I know
you want to know about clitoral rings. I can't do that video right now. Instead I wanted
to tackle hat trick's question, 'Why are women so picky? Men want a turkey and bacon sandwich
with mayo. Women want the bread lightly toasted, bacon cooked well with only a little mayo
and cut the bread diagonally.' I do think that you're on to something absolutely that
there is an assumption that women are pickier than men. But I got to be honest with you
when I first read this question my initial reaction was something along the lines of
wh-uh-ar-wait-mmm-I just-nonono-are you kidding? My unproductive, sarcastic response to a question
like 'Why are women so picky?' is why are men so picky? Men are most of the politicians
in the United States who are really picky about what women can and can't do with their
own bodies. Men are insanely picky. It is such a prime example of how we have this troublesome
tendency to collapse individuals into one sandwich order. It reminds me of another message
sitting in the Stuff Mom Never Told You inbox from a fellow wanting to know, 'Why do women
never stop thinking? They have bad hair days, they are worried about looking fat in outfits,
they're worried about if they have sex too soon they will quote 'seem like whores'. Take
that a few steps back and say why are these even issues that women would be thinking about
to begin with? On this question of gender and pickiness, particularly when it comes
to dating behaviors, the assumption is that in a very heteronormative context, women are
extremely picky about the kinds of men that they want to mate. Also the assumption too
that well men will just sleep with whomever is walking by because they're just sexual
creatures, boys will be boys, ect. which honestly this is doing a disservice both to women and
to men. A study published in the journal Psychological Science in 2009 tipped that entire stereotype
on its head. What the psychologists did was setup a speed-dating scenario where they first
had men sit down and then have the women rotate through all of the different speed-dating
stations and then they flipped the script and had women sit down and had men do the
rotating. The researchers found that an individual's level of pickiness in whom they found attractive
and wanted to see again had very little correlation to their outward makeup but rather their position,
whether they were sitting or rotating specifically people who were rotating around were far less
selective than people who were sitting still, the ones who were the dating gatekeepers so
to speak. This relates to our modern heterosexual dating landscape where even with apps like
tindr that supposedly democratize the whole scenario the general script is for men to
do the approaching and women to do the waiting and the selecting. Even if we look directly
at hat trick's example of the sandwich where guys just want a basic sandwich they don't
need any frills, whereas women need their bacon cooked just so and in fact could you
make that tempeh bacon and lightly toasted bread and oh by the way is that whole-grain
bread and I would like two pickles not three ect. Studies on food pickiness have also found
that it has nothing to do with gender, even biological sex so much as our genetics. There's
an entire article on this in Smithsonian Magazine which I will link to in the description in
case you want to read more about it on how our genes and a mother's breast milk play
a very strong role in our level of food neophobia or pickiness. One of the studies I was looking
at on children's food pickiness found a higher proportion of boys who are picky eaters than
girls in its study sample. That's just one study sample, but I will say of all the studies
that I found, gender both in children and adults when it comes to picky eating was not
a statistically significant factor. When it comes to this question of 'Why are women so
picky?' it seems like it's more of a question of why does society perceive women to be pickier.
Now that I've said my picky piece I want to hear from you. Do you think that men or women
are pickier or that it's just one massive stereotype that we need to dismantle? Let
me know in the comments below and be sure to ask me your questions because I'm back
and I want to answer your questions. That's not how that should have gone. One quick housekeeping
item. I'm thinking of doing my YouTube videos of which I make four per week, based around
a weekly theme. I want to offer more room for us to have better, deeper, and more productive
conversations so let me know if you like that idea in general and if there are any weekly
themes that you would like me to focus on, please, please, please comment below or you
can always tweet me @cristenconger. Bye guys. And girls. And whatever you call yourself.