why does the fairer sex have bigger mouths?

[ComedyPilot]

Well you lot haven't been too helpful Don't you ever ask yourselves difficult questions that can't be answered ???..............seems I'm not the only person to notice this trend.

Peanut, TV is all about visual physical cues and attractiveness. A full, straight, big glistening whiter-than-white smile is hugely popular with TV execs (and Americans)

Our TV, so sadly following American lead, is just following suit like a lost puppy.

Apparantly no-one wants to look on TV at a complete minger with teeth like a vandalised graveyard.

The answer's there Luke, just use the force......

 

[theclaud]

I don't know,......... you can't ask a serious question about anything these days without some militant minority group being offended and getting their knickers in a twist. I genuinely thought that you were a bloke ,not a feminist by any chance are you ?

OK. Well the OP wasn't really offensive, just nonsensical - it was the way the thread unfolded that was depressing. Anyway, I can confirm that I am definitely not a bloke but am almost certainly a feminist . Hopefully I would be a feminist even I if were a bloke. But I still have to point out that there is no phenomenon to investigate - women do not have bigger mouths. Nor are they getting any larger. It might well be true that women with white teeth and full mouths are preferred as newsreaders - that's just a consequence of the fact female newsreaders generally are required to be attractive (in a not-too-frivolous way) whilst male ones are selected for gravitas, and these characteristics are considered attractive. An obviously fetishistic website doesn't tell you anything except that its author likes square-jawed women...

 

[Andy in Sig]

But surely he wasn't suggesting that women have bigger mouths, rather that bigger mouthed women get selected to be newsreaders. Or have I misunderstood?

Actually to be serious, don't forget the matter of anatomical proportion e.g. women tend to be shorter than men but proportional to height tend to have longer legs. I wonder if mouth size has ever been looked at.

 

[peanut]

It wasn't a frivalous question and I'm glad theclaude that you now appear to appreciate that. This Country is becoming so PC that its almost impossible to discuss anything without offending somebody. Its all too silly for words imo. Schools unable to have Christmas trees because it might offend some religious minorities ?

Andy I was trying to describe the width of the bite size not jaw or mouth ,. Its difficult to put into words but I am talking about the width of the teeth setting in the jawbone

Anyway to stay on topic I'm beginning to feel that the current trend for teeth whitening is probably partly to blame for my observation about jaw sizes . Pure white teeth certainly look pretty spectacular, if rather false, but I think they may actually make the bite size appear larger than it really is much the same way as white cars always appear larger.

Theclaude why do you state so catagorically that the jaw size of women on average has not increased is the past 5 decades ? have you any scientific evidence for this statement? I was merely putting forward my question based on my observations to hopefully generate some discussion and possibly some information sources.

Last month I read an article in National Geo and watched an absolutely fascinating program about the origins of Neanderthals and the influence on our genetic evolution. Completely new evidence and research has thrown previous thinking on its head and I bet 99% of folk are completely unaware of it. If I was to say to you that current thinking is that we partially evolved from Neanderthals and their genetic makeup is incorporated in our modern gene pool you would probably say 'huh ridiculuous !'

 

[ChrisKH]

I've noticed that the weather has got longer and longer lately. Its almost a show in its own right now

I have to say I'm surprised these days when a weather girl isn't pregnant.

Or is it just me?

 

[Paulus]

I think it is just because that British t.v, the Beeb as well as the independent companies, has followed the trend of American television in not only employing female presenters with a certain look. ie wide mouthed glamour models, who will not only be highly qualified in their field, but who look good on screen. This also applies to the male presenters as well, they will all sport a similar hair style and grin and smile in unison as the script dictates

 

[Andy in Sig]

There was a stink a while back because the BBC intended to employ a woman as a weather forecast reader because of her bimboesque qualities as opposed to her grasp of isobars. This of course just undermines the credibility of women in the media. Does anybody know what happened in that case in the end?

 

[Andy in Sig]

I think it is just because that British t.v, the Beeb as well as the independent companies, has followed the trend of American television in not only employing female presenters with a certain look. ie wide mouthed glamour models, who will not only be highly qualified in their field, but who look good on screen. This also applies to the male presenters as well, they will all sport a similar hair style and grin and smile in unison as the script dictates

I suspect that much of what is wrong in British television these days is due to the tendency of the "creativity" of creative media types to extend to no more than gawping at what goes on across the Atlantic. Hence the naffness.

 

[theclaud]

But surely he wasn't suggesting that women have bigger mouths, rather that bigger mouthed women get selected to be newsreaders. Or have I misunderstood?

Actually to be serious, don't forget the matter of anatomical proportion e.g. women tend to be shorter than men but proportional to height tend to have longer legs. I wonder if mouth size has ever been looked at.

Hmmm. An odd thread title in that case, but we'll let that go.

It has been looked at, which is why I mentioned skulls before. Women tend to have slightly smaller teeth than men, and the end of the chin tends to be slightly more pointed. But it is very difficult to tell male and female skulls apart. It is likely that if people generally are larger than they were, jaw sizes will be proportionally larger, but the notion that women's mouths have got bigger in the last 50 years is an entirely random absurdity that does not require me to produce evidence to the contrary.I googled the woman peanut mentions in the OP, expecting to find someone who looked like Tommy Trinder. Surprise, surprise - it's a perfectly normal and fairly attractive woman with entirely normal facial features.

 

[Andy in Sig]

Fair enough.

BTW the proportional thing: if people are generally larger than they were (and they have become so in the last 100 years) that is no reason why jaws should have become proportionally larger i.e. it is unlikely that they will occupy a bigger percentage of skull space if you see what I mean.

 

[theclaud]

Fair enough.

BTW the proportional thing: if people are generally larger than they were (and they have become so in the last 100 years) that is no reason why jaws should have become proportionally larger i.e. it is unlikely that they will occupy a bigger percentage of skull space if you see what I mean.

Alright, alright! What's the elusive word - "commensurately"?. You know what I mean anyway .

 

[Tetedelacourse]

Ladies on telly are usually thinner than their male counterparts, hence their perceived bitesize is larger - proportionate to their surrounding faces - than those of the podgier gents.

 

[tyred]

And does it really matter?

 

[theclaud]

It wasn't a frivalous question and I'm glad theclaude that you now appear to appreciate that. This Country is becoming so PC that its almost impossible to discuss anything without offending somebody. Its all too silly for words imo. Schools unable to have Christmas trees because it might offend some religious minorities ?

Steady on. It was a frivolous question, and it still is. But frivolity does not upset me in the slightest. What got my goat was that a thread entitled "why do women have big(ger) mouths" is an obvious invitation to roll out the misogynistic gags, and the invitation was widely and gleefully accepted. I'm happy to accept that wasn't your intention, but the failure to see that there is (or rather was) something fundamentally nasty going on in this thread simply astonishes me. Knee-jerk anti-feminism is always easier, though, than taking responsibility for the meaning of what one says. And Christmas trees are neither here nor there.

 

[Crackle]

Ooooh, this thread takes me back to our first fistycuffs (stop sniggering at the back) claudee