while the prefatory remarks are brief, the text itself is, well, not so much
I was going to go to sleep half an hour ago; and then I was just going to skim through my friends page and go to bed; and then I had a really strange reaction to Sunil's post and I thought I'd try to jot down my feelings about it.
I'll sum up these brief prefatory remarks by stating that none of this should be interpreted as critical of the post, or of Sunil himself; that's not my aim here at all. I'm a little weirded out by my own reaction.
Anyway.
"...the pretty women of the world, they do have a mysterious power over you, the ability to make you feel that you are better than you are, for a small moment." That phrase in particular - I'll be honest here - made me roll my eyes hard, in a mix of anger and exasperation - resignation, a little? Irritation, yeah, that too. Because - why? Why do another person's looks factor into one feeling better about oneself? Why do - okay, I tend to parse the above quote into: "Attractive people are better than ugly people, and when they acknowledge you, it makes you feel like you aren't one of the ugly ones, even though you know you are." So, you know, I'm bringing a lot of baggage into it from the start, aren't I?
I don't know why I immediately assume that that sentence privileges "the pretty women of the world." But I guess, speaking as someone who never thought of herself as attractive - who had braces for years, and huuuuuuge thick glasses for even more years, and was skinny like you would not believe, who was a paragon of Awkward Adolescence - and if I'd had red hair I would've changed my name to Meg Murray and never looked back - someone who still has trouble thinking of herself as attractive; who's cringing as she types this because in her mind the previous clause parses to, "I'm so beautiful but I don't know it, give me compliments!" and she doesn't want to be told she's pretty and she doesn't want to want to be told she's pretty because, I don't know? Look, my mother never, never wears makeup. Never in my life have I seen her use anything other than untinted Carmex or, more recently, Lush's Whipstick. My mother dyed her hair red when she was in grad school, but stopped when she got pregnant, and if she was vain at all she hid it so deep that I never saw the slightest sign of it. So I think I come from a different perspective than a lot of people; I mean, my parents never told me I was pretty. That's not a bad thing - because they told me I was smart, and bright, and healthy, and that they loved me. But my looks were never discussed as an area worthy of praise - or of examination, or even much attention. And hey, I had makeup when I was younger - and I went through a very long obsessive phase where I'd buy cute little lip glosses almost compulsively, the detritus of which still litters my dresser, and I should really do something about that. I never had a daily regimen de maquillage (do you like how I made up a sorta-French phrase and threw it in there to make this sound more academic?) but I used my lipglosses and mascaras frequently. And then less frequently. And then, maybe five or six years ago, I really couldn't keep up the pretense of caring about painting crap onto my face in the morning. I didn't have time, I didn't have the energy. (I still stop in the drugstore sometimes, though, in front of whatever new "LipJuice" or whatever gimmicky gloss is being promoted, and have to stifle the urge to buy a tube.)
What I'm trying to say is that I had never felt entirely at ease fitting in with this framework of beauty, and I took myself out of it. (Became an-aesthetic, if you will? That's an odd pun, there.) And I'm stubborn, so I guess I'm still, in the back of my mind, obstinately saying, "I don't have to play your game!" - proving, I'm not sure to whom, that beauty doesn't have an effect on me. Whether it's my own or someone else's.
Helen Mirren gave a great interview recently in which she talked about trying to avoid being labelled as sexy: "I'm still trying to wriggle out from under that label. [...] Being a sexual object is mortifying and irritating, yet it's giving you power--an awful power that you've done nothing to deserve, a powerless power. I think some young women fall in love with that power, and it's really objectifying." I think she's hit the nail on the head, and I submit that it's literally objectifying: being lauded as sexy is not about what you've accomplished, the change you've effected in the world, or your capabilities as an agent; it is about you being the recipient of other people's desires and fantasies, your suitability as an object. It comes right back around to woman as a vessel. (I say woman for expediency's sake, and because I'm a woman; but men can be objectified, too, of course.)
Several months ago, at work, we were looking at a range of baby photo albums. I can't remember much about them now, but I do remember that the "girl" albums carried inscriptions about how "beautiful" the baby was, with her "tiny toes" and "sweet little nose" et cetera; the "boy" albums, on the other hand, had inscriptions about how he was "exploring" and "growing". So here again it's the same pattern. The girl is described in terms of what she is, with static nouns and adjectives. She's an object. The boy is described in terms of what he does, with verbs. He's an agent.
It was more overt than usual, and I remember being entirely put off by it.
And then I started noticing how in nearly every publication, whenever a woman was interviewed - or even referenced in more than passing - her looks were mentioned. Much more often than men. Vastly more often. On tv - particularly those nauseating celebrity news faux-grams like Entertainment Tonight and the rest of the Hour Of Suck - female guests are almost invariably introduced as "The stunning _______" or "The lovely _______" or "The gorgeous _____" on and on ad fucking nauseam. If they're talented, they're "beautiful and talented."
I fucking resent that. I fucking resent that it's hammered home - constantly, continually, un-fucking-endingly - that as a woman my primary virtue is my beauty. That my looks are the most important thing; and that everything else - what I do, what I want, what I think - hell, even that I think at all - is therefore less important. And, a corollary: that anything I do matters less if I refuse to play by the wax-it-off/paint-it-on/push-it-up/suck-it-in/pluck-it-out rules.
I'm so far away from the original impetus for this entry now, and it's well after midnight and I'm clearly getting (fucking) cranky and need my sleep, but I'll bring it back around to: why should a pretty woman's attention validate someone as a person? Does a less-pretty woman's attention validate one less? Why do we still buy into the bullshit, why do we let the standards become ever more impossible and implausible, why is "pretty" so reductive - just, why?
And in a sign that God is smiling down on me, Ani's "Not a Pretty Girl" just came up on my iTunes. Good night, all.
I'll sum up these brief prefatory remarks by stating that none of this should be interpreted as critical of the post, or of Sunil himself; that's not my aim here at all. I'm a little weirded out by my own reaction.
Anyway.
"...the pretty women of the world, they do have a mysterious power over you, the ability to make you feel that you are better than you are, for a small moment." That phrase in particular - I'll be honest here - made me roll my eyes hard, in a mix of anger and exasperation - resignation, a little? Irritation, yeah, that too. Because - why? Why do another person's looks factor into one feeling better about oneself? Why do - okay, I tend to parse the above quote into: "Attractive people are better than ugly people, and when they acknowledge you, it makes you feel like you aren't one of the ugly ones, even though you know you are." So, you know, I'm bringing a lot of baggage into it from the start, aren't I?
I don't know why I immediately assume that that sentence privileges "the pretty women of the world." But I guess, speaking as someone who never thought of herself as attractive - who had braces for years, and huuuuuuge thick glasses for even more years, and was skinny like you would not believe, who was a paragon of Awkward Adolescence - and if I'd had red hair I would've changed my name to Meg Murray and never looked back - someone who still has trouble thinking of herself as attractive; who's cringing as she types this because in her mind the previous clause parses to, "I'm so beautiful but I don't know it, give me compliments!" and she doesn't want to be told she's pretty and she doesn't want to want to be told she's pretty because, I don't know? Look, my mother never, never wears makeup. Never in my life have I seen her use anything other than untinted Carmex or, more recently, Lush's Whipstick. My mother dyed her hair red when she was in grad school, but stopped when she got pregnant, and if she was vain at all she hid it so deep that I never saw the slightest sign of it. So I think I come from a different perspective than a lot of people; I mean, my parents never told me I was pretty. That's not a bad thing - because they told me I was smart, and bright, and healthy, and that they loved me. But my looks were never discussed as an area worthy of praise - or of examination, or even much attention. And hey, I had makeup when I was younger - and I went through a very long obsessive phase where I'd buy cute little lip glosses almost compulsively, the detritus of which still litters my dresser, and I should really do something about that. I never had a daily regimen de maquillage (do you like how I made up a sorta-French phrase and threw it in there to make this sound more academic?) but I used my lipglosses and mascaras frequently. And then less frequently. And then, maybe five or six years ago, I really couldn't keep up the pretense of caring about painting crap onto my face in the morning. I didn't have time, I didn't have the energy. (I still stop in the drugstore sometimes, though, in front of whatever new "LipJuice" or whatever gimmicky gloss is being promoted, and have to stifle the urge to buy a tube.)
What I'm trying to say is that I had never felt entirely at ease fitting in with this framework of beauty, and I took myself out of it. (Became an-aesthetic, if you will? That's an odd pun, there.) And I'm stubborn, so I guess I'm still, in the back of my mind, obstinately saying, "I don't have to play your game!" - proving, I'm not sure to whom, that beauty doesn't have an effect on me. Whether it's my own or someone else's.
Helen Mirren gave a great interview recently in which she talked about trying to avoid being labelled as sexy: "I'm still trying to wriggle out from under that label. [...] Being a sexual object is mortifying and irritating, yet it's giving you power--an awful power that you've done nothing to deserve, a powerless power. I think some young women fall in love with that power, and it's really objectifying." I think she's hit the nail on the head, and I submit that it's literally objectifying: being lauded as sexy is not about what you've accomplished, the change you've effected in the world, or your capabilities as an agent; it is about you being the recipient of other people's desires and fantasies, your suitability as an object. It comes right back around to woman as a vessel. (I say woman for expediency's sake, and because I'm a woman; but men can be objectified, too, of course.)
Several months ago, at work, we were looking at a range of baby photo albums. I can't remember much about them now, but I do remember that the "girl" albums carried inscriptions about how "beautiful" the baby was, with her "tiny toes" and "sweet little nose" et cetera; the "boy" albums, on the other hand, had inscriptions about how he was "exploring" and "growing". So here again it's the same pattern. The girl is described in terms of what she is, with static nouns and adjectives. She's an object. The boy is described in terms of what he does, with verbs. He's an agent.
It was more overt than usual, and I remember being entirely put off by it.
And then I started noticing how in nearly every publication, whenever a woman was interviewed - or even referenced in more than passing - her looks were mentioned. Much more often than men. Vastly more often. On tv - particularly those nauseating celebrity news faux-grams like Entertainment Tonight and the rest of the Hour Of Suck - female guests are almost invariably introduced as "The stunning _______" or "The lovely _______" or "The gorgeous _____" on and on ad fucking nauseam. If they're talented, they're "beautiful and talented."
I fucking resent that. I fucking resent that it's hammered home - constantly, continually, un-fucking-endingly - that as a woman my primary virtue is my beauty. That my looks are the most important thing; and that everything else - what I do, what I want, what I think - hell, even that I think at all - is therefore less important. And, a corollary: that anything I do matters less if I refuse to play by the wax-it-off/paint-it-on/push-it-up/suck-it-in/pluck-it-out rules.
I'm so far away from the original impetus for this entry now, and it's well after midnight and I'm clearly getting (fucking) cranky and need my sleep, but I'll bring it back around to: why should a pretty woman's attention validate someone as a person? Does a less-pretty woman's attention validate one less? Why do we still buy into the bullshit, why do we let the standards become ever more impossible and implausible, why is "pretty" so reductive - just, why?
And in a sign that God is smiling down on me, Ani's "Not a Pretty Girl" just came up on my iTunes. Good night, all.