POSITIONAL ARMS RACES. This service is not an advice column (unless one is hanging valve gear), but some observations on preening, primping, and pumping deserve a bit of attention.

There's yet another intellectual exchange on the "social construction" of body images, with Professor Kipnis ringing all the changes on femininity as thesis, feminism as antithesis (or is it the other way around?) and Professor Althouse expressing doubts.

Constrained Vision weighs in, invoking the positional arms race that leads people to overinvest in pumping, primping and preening (once a few people develop an advantage, others have to follow.) But isn't this a logical error.

Consider yet another post by Professor Althouse, this one on the latest disadvantage smart girls face, that of being too smart for prospective mates. (I am not making this up.)

I'm going to quibble with the larger assumption that the desire to marry is the same for men and women and at all levels of intelligence. The preference for marriage results from many factors. It may well be that some or all of these things are true: 1. women have less to gain from marriage once they are able to provide for themselves economically, 2. women with a higher IQ are more likely to be able to support themselves well, 3. more intelligent persons are better able to form preferences by analyzing real world factors and less likely to adopt established conventions, and 4. not marrying is the more rational choice for an intelligent woman. If some or all of these things are at least partially true, a high IQ in women might be a hindrance for the institution of marriage, but not for the woman herself.

It is hazardous to generalize from my own experience, but I have made numerous observations of points 1 and 3 over the past 30 years, and points 2 and 4 appear respectively to follow from those points.

Now, let's walk that proposition back to a Constrained Vision observation.

If all women chose to wear sweatpants, not makeup and heels, and/or if all women held men to a higher standard of beauty, all women would be better off.

(The hoochie look might not be required to gain the attention of others in the first place, but that's a different advice columnist writing.)

Let's consider another corollary proposition. Why let the narcissists at the local gym serve as your exemplars? Mean Mr. Mustard has located some exercise regimens that do not require any capital equipment. Or ditch the gym membership, sell the power lawn equipment, and make your yardwork your workout. Or ... and here may be another way to multitask ... locate a sailing club. Lots of people with disposable income seeking additional help turning winches and doing other strenuous things. For Constrained Vision and other D.C. area readers ... King Street in Alexandria, head to the riverfront. Get a good start and sail on the lifted tack.

RUNNING EXTRA: More thoughts on intellect, perceived or actual, and matching, hypothetical or actual, at Althouse and at Villainous Company.