See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/310655429

Catherine Hakim: Erotic Capital: the Power of Attraction in the Boardroom

and the Bedroom

Article  in  European Sociological Review · February 2013

DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcs050

CITATIONS READS

2 6,882

2 authors, including:

Andreas Schmitz
GESIS - Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences
96 PUBLICATIONS   508 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Web Server Logs and Logfiles View project

Process-Oriented Methodology and Spatial Methods (Methods of Social Research) View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Andreas Schmitz on 16 March 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 European
European Sociological
Sociological Review
Review Advance Access published March 28, 2012
VOLUME 0 NUMBER 0 2012 1–2
Book Review
Catherine Hakim: Erotic Capital: the
Power of Attraction in the
Boardroom and the Bedroom
New York: Basic Books, 2011. 304 pp.
The erotic as a subject has frequently been discussed in
the social sciences. Georg Simmel, while searching for an
‘individual law of the erotic’, described the development
of erotic situations as the specific tension between
promise and denial. Talcott Parsons examined the
relevance of eroticism for the socialization process, and
Anthony Giddens discussed the erotic in terms of a
physically symbolized cultivation of emotions. Pierre
Bourdieu described charm and charisma as methods of
defining legitimate physicality, and their effects on, for
example, one’s success on the labour market. Many other
sociologists, such as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault,
Niklas Luhmann, and Roland Barthes, have examined
the erotic in regard to its various manifestations and its
changing impact on the social. Yet it is also true that the
erotic, perhaps due to implicit biological connotations, is
usually not a central object of sociological inquiry. This
may seem surprising, considering the fact that our own
everyday experiences suggest that eroticism plays a
significant role in social relationships. In her book
Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom
and the Bedroom, Catherine Hakim reminds sociologists
of this often neglected phenomenon, while also present-
ing a comprehensive insight into the sphere of erotic and
physical attraction.
As the book’s title suggests, Hakim was, to a certain
extent, inspired by Bourdieu’s capital concept. Based on
the distinction between economic, social and ‘human’
capital, Hakim introduces attraction, based on physical-
ity, as an individual asset, which she calls ‘erotic capital’.
In the first section of her book, Hakim defines erotic
capital using seven ‘distinct’ elements, namely beauty,
sex appeal, social skills, ‘liveliness and vitality’, ‘social
presentation’, sexuality, and fertility. Based on the
assumption that this form of capital was ‘overlooked’
by Bourdieu, and that it exists independently from other
forms of capital, Hakim discusses erotic capital with
regards to its measurement, convertibility, distribution,
and effects. An important theoretical aspect is that
women in particular can capitalize on their erotic capital
ß The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
1
because—thanks to an omnipresent ‘male sex deficit’—
women find themselves in a strategically favourable
bargaining position. Hakim then goes on to provide an
answer to the question of why women can rarely utilize
their erotic capital effectively: it is because of the level of
male oppression in many societies, which is also
reproduced in the (still mostly male) social sciences.
Furthermore, the effect of feminism is discussed as a
mechanism that reinforces the disreputability of female
erotic capital: the author suggests that feminist ‘lawyers
and scientists’ have discredited any kind of respect or
Downloaded from http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on March 29, 2012
reward for attractiveness. In the next section of her book,
Hakim focuses on the effects of erotic capital in everyday
social life, in particular on social relationships and
careers. In this context, the author considers erotic
capital to be just as important as Bourdieu’s forms of
capital. Finally, she criticizes the male dominance of
society, and calls on women to become aware of the
mechanisms that she describes. She asks women to invest
more in their erotic capital, and to capitalize on it more
proactively. Her political suggestions include the de-
criminalization and destigmatization of sexual services,
appropriate ‘commercial fees’ for surrogate mothers, and
an end to puritanical and patriarchal moral values.
Finally, the appendix contains more specific information
on measures of erotic capital and recent sex surveys.
Erotic Capital is a compound of ecclectic observations,
scientific journalism, and political polemic, and will
therefore appeal more to the general public than to a
scientific audience. Hakim presents an extraordinary
selection of individual observations from the most his-
torically, geographically, and culturally diverse sources,
including the European royal families, fiction, autobio-
graphies, the advertising industry, film, archaeology,
and many more. The book is likely to win over a
non-scientific audience, thanks not only to its readability
and entertaining depictions of erotic capital. These
illustrative sections are often interesting, but suggest
that erotic capital enjoys an omnipresence that is
marginally backed up by empirical evidence. The
evidence for the existence of erotic capital is mostly
based on plausible examples, such as when Hakim
describes chances in the job careers and partner markets.
However, the main empirical pillar of Hakim’s argument
is a selection of secondary studies (questionnaires).
The author could here have referred to Bourdieu’s
2 BOOK REVIEW
anti-essentialistic methodological suggestion not to pos-
tulate forms of capital as something independent of
space and time, but to empirically construct capital
dimensions in relation to one another in specific social
contexts.
The recognition of erotic capital, alongside other
personal characteristics, is of political significance for
Hakim. She considers it unfair that men are more likely
to be rewarded by society for their attractiveness than
women. This fact is certainly problematic, but in our
view the problem cannot be solved by its reproduction
by women: through investment in attractiveness and
charm, individual women may experience advantages in
certain fields and situations, but this—depending on the
active context—may also result in disadvantages, par-
ticularly of a socially differential nature. Bourdieu,
though quoted by Hakim, would see the call for
investment in erotic capital as an encouragement to
reinforce the role of the female as an object, in doing so
submitting to symbolic patriarchal dominance. Bourdieu
was explicit—in sharp contrast to Hakim’s theory—in
his understanding of the practice of emancipation from
male perceptions of attractiveness, particularly in relation
View publication stats
to ‘unfeminine’ clothing and behaviour. Hakim’s nor-
mative call-to-arms will likely be criticized by feminist
sociologists, among others.
On the whole, however, Hakim’s book is full of
colorful anecdotal evidence of the significance of erotic
appeal in different social contexts. We wholeheartedly
agree with the author’s request to see theories based on
the power of physical (and relatively autonomous)
attraction developed further. Necessary, however, would
be a consistent theoretical and methodological grounding
of the research object in, perhaps, Bourdieu’s habitus-
field theory, or methodological individualism, in addition
to a systematic collection and analysis of data, one that
also would include the possibility of falsification.
Andreas Schmitz and Hans-Peter Blossfeld
Downloaded from http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on March 29, 2012
University of Bamberg
andreas.schmitz@uni-bamberg.de;
soziologie1@uni-bamberg.de
DOI:10.1093/esr/jcs050, available online at www.esr
.oxfordjournals.org