double-bind thinking is common in boys between the ages of 13 and 15. Participants, from two white and black communities in Canada, note that it would "be nice" to have a muscular body similar to what's deemed desirable through media, but it's not a big deal if they don't have it.
Unlike girls and women, boys and men are pulled in two separate directions: being healthy, attractive and masculine, and the need to transcend their bodies for a more rational, functional outlook in life. True, women can feel tugged by conflicting responsibilities and body image issues, too, but they aren't generally looked down upon for caring about their appearance -- something that seems to be the case among boys and men. In some instances, participants describe such "vanity" as limited to the realm of "girls" and "gay men," the author writes.
Instead, a sense of what they perceived as "normal" drove the teens' concepts of masculinity. Staying in shape was a personal responsibility, not necessarily an effort to look better. Boys not concerned with their appearance said they don't need to look good, but rather need to have "game," or the smooth skills, to draw interest from girls. Surprisingly, most boys didn't apply the same flexibility to girls their same age. An unattractive girl couldn't get attention from boys with social skills alone. In other words, her appearance had to back it up, which wasn't true for boys, in their opinion.
In both the hiring companies and the agencies, screeners reacted favorably to pictures of attractive-looking men, giving these candidates significantly more callbacks than plain-looking men and males who didn't attach photos. This male beauty premium did not come as a surprise in light of the large body of psychological research showing that attractive people are generally viewed positively along numerous dimensions. They're believed to be happier, healthier, more intelligent, luckier in marriage, and so on. Thus the responses to the CV photos of attractive women really stand out and tell us a lot about the screeners' biases.