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Tuesday, 08 July 2008 |
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Since the dawn of  time, women have adorned themselves in fur and feathers and for almost as long, men have been debating why.
The female penchant for finery and fashion has spurred countless heated discussions among noblemen and academics. Women have been characterised as sensational, superficial and irrational beings with an inordinate love for ephemeral and fickle fashion. Marxists have accused them of suffering from a ‘false consciousness’ and feminists have pitied their sisters for being the victims of a degrading fashion propagated by capitalism and men eager to exploit them to maximise profits.
But women wear fur and buy Louis Vuitton handbags as a matter of survival, says Erik Hansen-Hansen, a PhD-scholar who recently defended his thesis on luxurious fashion.
According to Hansen-Hansen it is simple biology – it is all in the genes. While men can mate and generously spread their genes through vast numbers of women, women only has the capacity to bear a limited number of children. Consequently, from a biological viewpoint, women need to be more discriminate and ensure that she can attract the most able and suitable man to father her children.
In biological wisdom, youthfulness and fertility are a woman’s strongest weapons to attract the opposite sex, and fashion enhances the impression of both, according to Hansen-Hansen. So in order to attract the most suitable man to father her children, women wear fur coats, expensive jewellery and handbags to appear fertile and youthful and to lure, attract and seduce the most attractive men.
So far from being exploited victims of fashion, women skilfully use fashion to manipulate men to push through their own genetic strategy!
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