Tammy discussed the impact of Sarah Palin’s good looks on voters’ attitudes. This segment was prompted by a researcher who was announcing the results of a psychological study in which subjects speculated about the abilities of Sarah Palin and Angelina Jolie based upon physical appearance. Unfortunately, this researcher had nothing to say, although she took a fair portion of the segment saying it.
Update from Tammy:
Thanks, Maynard, for posting. There was a lot of potential with this segment, but the “Dr.” seemed to have skipped her Communications class in graduate school. Thanks to the commenters for noticing that I was trying to do what I could with the situation. While it’s always a bit frustrating that there’s so little time in these segments, I was particularly disappointed that I did not have the chance to get in the myriad of praise I have for Governor Palin. Power and Smart can be feminine. After all my years in the American Feminist Establishment, I still find it fascinating that only Conservatives seem to understand that.
Whew! that was hard to follow. Tammy, did you help this child get her PhD? You helped so much bringing some focus to the discussion but Dr Valley Girl kept dancing all over the place … that is, til the last moments when she finally stated her purpose: until you draw the attention to Palin’s appearance. So John McCain lost because attention was deliberately drawn to Palin’s appearance?
My next thought was, why would a professional woman, ie, this researcher, come on television in a sleeveless WHITE knit top that so obviously drew attention to how well endowed she is?
Glad you were there, Tammy. You actually spoke to intelligent points.
Ann Coulter and Tammy Bruce back to back, woo-hoo !
Good job Tammy. I also could not follow what mz. phd was trying to convey. She seemed disorientated, like she just rolled out of the communal sleeping bag and onto the show.
Sarah is smart and beautiful. The left need to deal with it.
I had a hard time understanding what the research was all about as explained by Dr. Goldenberg or by Bill O’Reilly. There’s more about it here. The official title of the study is “Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence that Objectification Causes Women to be Perceived as Less Competent and Fully Human.”
The correlation between physical appearance and the perception of competence is based on essays written by the study participants. Those whose essays focused on appearance considered the subject (Jolie or Palin) as less competent than those whose essays focused on the person and her accomplishments. It doesn’t mean good looking women are always seen as less competent. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but, for some, beauty can blind the eye of the beholder to other qualities. Ugliness can have the same effect although this side of the coin wasn’t part of the study. It’s a matter of diverting attention toward physical attributes at the expense of other attributes.
We needed a study? This has been intuitively known since the beginning of time. Attractive women tend to be objectified.
I guess Jolie was the control in the experiment so as not to skew results based on political bias. The mix of study participants was 27 percent male, 45 percent Democrats, 24 percent Republicans and the rest were independents. I’d like to see all the material that was made available to the study participants. It seems like a very simplistic attempt to establish a highly nuanced conclusion.
Dr. Goldenberg got lost in the forest of academic gobbledygook. Loved it how Tammy cut through the crap of psychological hypotheses and processes with laser precision.
She was just bad. I think her research methods were extremely flawed, but that’s only my armchair opinion. I’m not a psychologist or a sociologist. When she was finished speaking, I had no idea what her research really proved–she certainly didn’t express any reasonable hypothesis or confirmation of her hypothesis as to why people perceived Jolie as more capable than Palin, only that they seemed to for some unknown reason–respondents must have given reasons, and if researchers didn’t ask for reasons, they screwed up the process. She couldn’t even articulate how she’d done the research samples, and surely from reading the responses, she’d be able to formulate some common thread as to what made the respondents come to their conclusions. She couldn’t even cite information from her research that led her to her conclusions. She’s either a crappy researcher or a crappy speaker, maybe even both. Of course, there is the possibility that she’s one of those great and gifted scientific minds who just have trouble expressing their concepts in laymen’s terms or speaking to an audience.
Tammy blew her out of the water with coherent, sensible responses to the topic at hand. I believe Tammy knew more about the subject of discussion that the twit who supposedly ran the study and interpreted the research.
I agree with the above comments. The study was OBVIOUSLY flawed and the “Dr.” was pathetic (and seemingly incompetent. ;-)
The MSM and academia is a joke these days, but the socialists/Communists have permeated American society.
This is hardly an accurate study. How do you eliminate the media and social bias towards republicans, and Palin in particular, students were subject to on campuses across the U.S.? There is social pressure among youth to be hip and liberal. Most students are politically naive and readily swayed by professors with phds attached to their names – I know I was. I assumed my professors were brilliant and knew what they were talking about, blindly accepting their views as truth. These students also watched SNL, Leno, Letterman, and the main stream media all make constant demeaning or derogatory remarks about Palin/republicans. How can this not skew their views on Palin or any politician for that matter?
I caught that last night on BillO and watched it again above and it still comes across disjointed and convoluted. Frankly I didn’t get Tammy’s point either. Rightly or wrongly ,woman are judged by their looks first in all facets of life. Michelle O’s “grace and polish” were seen as
an asset to Barry but somehow SP was a drag because she’s a looker? BS. If SP were a lib there is no way that discussion would have ever
taken place. Its just the same old tripe from the Left dressed up differently. Frankly, I like our
“babes” Tammy, Sarah and any 1/2 dozen Fox News
“bunny’s” the best. Looks and BRAINS,a double feature.
After listening to that airhead lady,I came to the conclusion that she is trying to mimic Obamas way of speaking. In other words lots of words with no meaning.
Can you imagine getting directions from her??
Tammy, maybe it was just as well you didn’t honor this episode by much comment. Commenting on the inane only inflates it. I’d categorize her academic in terms of BS, MS and PhD to be interpreted as “Piled higher and Deeper”.
Frankly, O’Reilley should be sending you flowers in apology. That he would rope you into such BS is something I’ll never forget. (I like the guy, but I think he’s laboring under hubris hangover.)
I hate to sound rude, but the Doc was a bit of a dingbat. As for your response, Tammy, what could you really say to respond or juxtapose her non-statements. I’m still scratching my head over the segment.
I suppose the bottom line is that good looking people, especially women, rule the world and get treated like little princesses, getting their asses kissed along the way. On rare occasions though, they are so pretty, that they are despised out of sheer jealousy.
Most of the time, the good looking have more advantages. Duh! Like we didn’t already know that? O’Reilly wasted a segment on THAT? Man, he must’ve been desperate for material last night.
In Sarah Palin’s case, the left and the media are especially pissed at her conservatism exactly BECAUSE she is so darned pretty, and has movie star good looks.
On the upside, I was jazzed to see Ann and TB in the same O’Reilly show!
That choppy, junior high school cadence and delivery prevented me from learning a damned thing from Dr. Goldenberg. (graciously allowing that she knows a damned thing)
Tammy, when are you going to have Sarah Palin on your radio show? I am interested in hearing the Governor respond to your intelligent questions.
From the USF site: “The University of South Florida is one of the nation’s top 63 public research universities…USF was awarded more than $360 million in research contracts and grants in fiscal year 2007/2008.” Obviously money well spent! Why do I suspect that this masturbatory drivel is your tax dollars at work?
This was the most confusing segment on O’Reilly’s show. I didn’t see the point. But as Talkin Horse says, it’s taxpayer dollars which finance this nonsense. The researcher was so inarticulate she couldn’t explain anything. It was as if the woman was in mental a fog. She’s been in acadamia to long.
When I first saw this study posted, my first thought was, “Wait til Sarah isn’t 5 months post partum!” Second, after reading through the darn article was the question, “This is a valid study, why? 133 persons involved? That is but a hair on an ant’s behind!”
My third thought was, “Ok, you got your 15 minutes of fame, the damn thing will be posted all over the ‘net, so the Palin bashers can take another shot.”
Thank you, Tammy, for doing what you could :) And a smack on Bill O’s pointy head for even having that twit on the show!
The Doctor was just one big filibusterer. A very disappointing segment. I like Sarah a lot but I wonder really how much of a conservative she really is.
That is not science. A true study psych study of peoples’ attractiveness as related to their competence in their field would not be like this at all. Sarah Palin is very well known and the subjects would bring in their biases, immediately polluting the results.
Sarah Palin is a competent governor by any fair critic, her sexiness is just a bonus.
Angelina Jolie on the other hand is just their for being hot. Her ‘skill’ is being attractive. Does anyone believe that an extremely talented actress with only average looks would be a megastar like Jolie?
This prof doesn’t seem very competent to me. I will judge her by her appearance, she is cute.
This was a really wierd discussion that you were in on O’Reilly. I could not figure out what the objective of the lady’s study was. I think she had 133 people in her sample; that seemed too small to conclude anything anyway. Why compare Angelina Jolie to Sarah Palin? Good looks are part of what makes an actress successful while it may be a negative for a female politician. Why didn’t they include Jennifer Granholm in the study. She is attractive, and is judged competent because she is a Democrat. But, Palin is a more successful governor.