Acting White: Black Women Series - Weight, Body Fat and Attractiveness

I begin by admitting that I lack my usual confidence in what I think I might know objectively about the relationship of body fat to attractiveness. The factors are complex and I have not found clear and convincing data on the role this might play in the mating disparities that black women face. Nevertheless, to ignore this would discount a logic wherein body fat-driven weight differences influence how men and women, especially black men, come to view and respond to each other.

From earlier discussion, I presented that black men are unique in placing their group’s women at the bottom of the attractiveness list of all females, unlike any other ethnicity. Significant empirical evidence of this is found here. Uniqueness in the weight relationship of black women and men stands out. I will offer simply, that the lessening gap between black women’s weight and musculature relative to black men makes black women less dependent, and controllable, and thereby challenging to a fundamental male-female dynamic that has existed for thousands of years.

In every ethnic group, except blacks, the males are larger than the females, during prime mating years, 20-39. The equatorial West African ancestry of black women provided for robust musculature and temperament that had them sharing a greater historical load of the available food gathering and defense demands, over time, while men fulfilled their critical hunter role. If we transport this ancestry to a safe, food-abundant and sedentary lifestyle, you have an environment where black women are simply more able, individually, and willing to get along without black men and their male-centered demands. This does not mean that this is the best for the black family and overall black advancement.

So I guess I am saying weight analysis is one example of the paradox US blacks suffer, as the result of the abrupt movement from Africa to America. Reaction to our environment influences a relationship (similarity in physical status), thereby encouraging a dynamic that tears the fabric of instinctive male-female symbiosis. But is it better to have greater black-male dominance and togetherness, at the cost of black female independence/sovereignty? Without thinking too much I would say no, except when I look at the challenged state of the black community. I am just not sure. My status as a black male begs me to recuse myself from a decision only black women can/should make for and about themselves, although we all bear the result.

Black male-female education attainment disparities are another influence to this paradox challenging US blacks, which I will explore next.

James C. Collier

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