Let me set the scene: last week I was sitting in the library with a group of friends doing homework. I was the only girl there. Another girl walked by, sparking a debate among the three boys I was with about whether she was hot, cute, or both. This, naturally, led to a conversation in which we discussed the implications of both terms, where they overlap, where they differ, etc., but I’ll save that for another article. That discussion led to an intense debate over something called the Hot/Crazy scale, which bears the inspiration for this article.
In case you’re not familiar with it, the Hot/Crazy scale is a graph with Hotness as the x variable, and Craziness as the y variable (thanks, algebra!). The line that is graphed is said Hot/Crazy scale. As the line progresses, there are different zones that correlate to each particular hot/crazy ratio. For example, low hotness and high craziness is the “no-go” zone, medium hotness and medium craziness is the fun zone, and high hotness combined with medium craziness is the marriage material zone. You get the gist.
Aside from being what is admittedly a stroke of solid creative topical humor, this scale is wayyy far from accurate. There is a scale for guys too, but it’s not nearly as aggressive as this one. So this begs the question: why do people still find it appropriate to joke about women like this? Furthermore, why are people actually taking this seriously? One of my friends that I was sitting with follows this scale religiously and insists that every girl is a minimum of a 4 on the crazy side at all times. What kind of f***ed up logic is he following???
I could rant about this for days. There is a time and a place for categorizing girls into scales that diminish them to a combination of two characteristics and it is never and nowhere. I know this scale was originally meant as a joke, but it supports the idea that a girl can be judged solely off of her body and her emotions, and that is so, so wrong. I’ve gotten into a few heated debates with my friend I mentioned above about why exactly his assertion that all girls are at least a 4 crazy is so inaccurate. Some of his logic is valid, so I will give him that at least; in general (no blanket statements here), women do tend to be more emotionally inclined than men. Definitely a societal construct, but somewhat accurate nonetheless. Having a high capacity for emotion is not a bad thing, though. It does not make women the subordinate gender, or less stable, or less capable. Emotion does not equate to crazy. Just because I might choose to share my feelings more openly does NOT make me crazy. And it certainly does not mean that I am crazy and emotional at all times of my life. No. Just no.
Then there’s the issue of the fact that women are valued more highly according to “hotness”. I’ll begin here by stating the obvious: attractiveness is completely subjective. In this burgeoning era of body positivity, it’s incredibly important to emphasize the fact that all bodies and all humans are beautiful, and all bodies are different, so we definitely should not be cramming people into a linear scale. In addition to this, what the scale infers is that if you are considered less “hot” and more “crazy” (so, you don’t fit their beauty standards and you’re too emotional), you are less valuable as a person. Just let that sink in.
It would be easy to pick apart every section of this graph, but I will leave it at this: showing emotion and not conforming to society’s every expectation does not, under any circumstances, decrease your value as a person. Nobody should be judged based on only two criteria because human beings are so much more complex than that. In conclusion, the Hot/Crazy scale means exactly nothing.
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