Why Peacocks Dress Better Than Men by Jill Ann Veerman

One thing that is synonymous with spring is sex. In Dutch, we have a word for the romantic juices that start to flow as spring emerges: lente kriebels, literally, “spring tickles”. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call them a biological instinct; the postcard-perfect baby lambs skipping around the meadow had to come from somewhere. But as the peacocks fan their feathers and the birds flash their luxurious plumage, I started to think: why, in the natural world, do the males dress up to court potential mates while in the human world it seems to be the other way around? 

In the animal kingdom, the ladies select their lovers based on who has the brightest colors and most extravagant feathers, because these are reliable signals of strong genes. Human women, however, often find

hemselves judging a different kind of gene: the skinny jean.

This is obviously a generalisation, but I couldn't count the number of times I've been swimming in a sea of clothes and makeup on my floor, just to meet a guy dressed in the same carhartt jeans and white-tee he wore to English class that day. There is definitely something to be said about having a uniform, but these guys aren't Steve Jobs, they’re more like Steve Job-less. 

In the animal kingdom, the ladies select their lovers based on who has the brightest colors and most extravagant feathers, because these are reliable signals of strong genes. Human women, however, often find themselves judging a different kind of gene: the skinny jean. The animal gents are not playing hard to get and put everything on display to woo the ladies. So why is this different with us Homo sapiens? 

There is a simple biological answer to this question. Evolution favoured neutral-coloured humans for survival, since a dull human is better camouflaged to predators. Besides, mammals lack the natural pigments to put on a hue display in the first place. Humans have therefore come to rely on more subtle signals to pick our mates, such as liking your situationship’s Instagram story. 

But this easily answered biological query leads to a more nuanced question: why have modern women then evolved to visually enthral men and not the other way around? For centuries, women have altered their appearance to capture the mystical male gaze. In China, where small feet were a beauty standard, parents broke their daughters' toes and bound them in a historical practice known as feet binding. The girls attracted suitors, but were often left with permanent disabilities. In the Victorian era, women wore whalebone corsets to achieve an S-shaped silhouette, a custom that caused fainting and, over time, muscle atrophy. And in the 19th century, women ingested highly toxic arsenic to achieve a paler complexion. 

Even now, when women are more autonomous than ever and, at least in the developed world, are no longer existentially tied to men, we remain anchored to aesthetic molds. There are dramatic practices, like getting fat from your stomach or thighs removed and injected in your butt (BBL), tattooing your eyes a different color or armpit botox to stop sweating. But there are also subtle things normalised in daily life, like makeup, laser hair removal and diets. 

Meanwhile, the standards for guys are so much lower, 5-in-1 shampoo/body wash/dish soap is the zenith of hetero hygiene, while social media has pushed a weekly 45-minute-everything-shower for women. “His mom/sister buys his clothes” being a semi-cute trait goes to show the nonchalance we romanticise. This is not to hate on guys, it just goes to illustrate the gender discrepancy. These sentiments are not only emotionally true but also empirically, women face higher ‘appearance penalties’ in seeking work, followed by an income more sensitive to their looks. Sociological research has coined the term “aesthetic labour”: the work you put into your appearance to be socially and economically acceptable. Unsurprisingly, the bar for women is far higher. 

What started off as survival has cemented into tradition, forming the habits that follow us everywhere into changing rooms, mirrors and classrooms.

So why does femininity imply constant presentation management? In her book, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that women have been historically positioned as ‘The Other,’ while men are ‘The Self’. Males are the subjects, the actors, while women are the objects to be seen and evaluated; this asymmetry means that a woman's social value is inextricably tied to how she appears to men. As such, women were historically suppressed to conform to the roles of mother, wife and entertainer, where they learned they could use appearances as a currency for socioeconomic mobility. De Beauvoir goes on to state that men perceive their body as a vessel to exercise autonomy, while women perceive their bodies as something that is continuously judged. The awareness of this judgement creates self-objectification, which could explain why a sense of self-consciousness is ingrained in women more so than men. 

These reflections materialised as spring emerged from winter’s underbelly, mallards flashing emerald wings and lions tossing their manes. We can see that although animals stay rooted in biological imperatives, human attraction is intricately choreographed by centuries of social conditioning. While biology explains why humans don't have bright feathers, it fails to tell us why the modern woman is still on display. What started off as survival has cemented into tradition, forming the habits that follow us everywhere into changing rooms, mirrors and classrooms. Perhaps it is time to renegotiate who gets to be ‘seen,’ who gets to ‘act,’ and who gets to show up to a date in the same shirt they wore to class, without it having to mean anything at all.