2011-09-11
Explanation
The comic follows an academic who visits a restaurant (likely a Hooters-style establishment) where all the waitresses share a similar appearance. She confronts the owner using scientific language, asking why all the females have the "same phenotype" (observable physical characteristics). The owner explains it is because that phenotype represents "youth and fecundity" to males. The academic protests that youth and fecundity should not be the primary metrics for estimating female social value, and the owner appears to have an epiphany, saying he never considered his metric analysis was just one of many.
The joke is that the academic plans to use this intellectual approach to change the owner's ways, but her friend points out she has been in academia too long. The final panel reveals the punchline: when the academic actually tries to confront the owner "later," she stumbles over the scientific jargon ("What's a phenotype?") and simply asks why all the waitresses have such big boobs. The owner's blunt reply -- "Because we couldn't find bigger" -- undercuts the entire intellectual framework. The comic satirizes the gap between how academics discuss social issues in theory versus how those issues play out in the real world.