"Handsome and intelligent face."
I was looking though a classic sci-fi story, and the main character was introduced as having "gray eyes in a handsome and intelligent face." It struck me what an immediately evocative image it was, and how well it set up the character in very few words. I reflected on how much I liked the descriptor of "handsome and intelligent face" in general, even when it didn't come with gray eyes--and the fact that it was quite a common one in fiction.
And then I thought about how it only ever applied to men. Men get to be "handsome and intelligent," the two qualities going side by side, each having an equal claim to the character's value and attractiveness. Women get one or the other. A woman may be described as smart, but that's separate from her beauty: in a man they are tied. If a book is going to talk about a woman's beautiful face, it will usually devote that phrase or sentence purely to her physical charms, and if it mentions her intelligence, it will be later. Even when a woman is described as "smart, beautiful, and funny," these are all separate qualities bundled together. The appeal of "handsome and intelligent face" is that there's the intimation of the two qualities depending on each other: the man's face is handsome in part because it is intelligent.
So then I thought, all right, well, how would I write a female version of that description? To be honest, "beautiful and intelligent face" just sounds too schmaltzy, and the other variations: "pretty and intelligent face," "lovely and intelligent face," also don't flow naturally. It needs to be more neutral, the attractiveness of the woman in question needs to be immediately apparent, but understated.
I think if it's a white woman, "her pale and intelligent face" works for me. If it's a woman of color, "her dark and intelligent face." If it's an Asian woman who's not particularly pale...I don't know. But I think we should use the "intelligent" description more often, with all sorts of other adjectives: her shy and intelligent face, her sly and intelligent face, her quiet intelligent face dusted with freckles, her mirthful intelligent face, etc etc etc. To me all these women, described this way, would read as "attractive," without the need to detail that their features are symmetrical, that they have pouty lips or shining eyes or cascading hair. (And the beauty I am picturing in these cases is a different type of beauty anyway.)
Funnily enough I feel like "her thin and intelligent face," as well as "her freckled and intelligent face" (different from my prior wording concerning freckles!) might evoke not so much "attractive" as "pinched, shrewish" or "plain," so that's something to consider too.
What do you guys think? And what kinds of physical descriptions of women (and men) do you like in fiction?
And then I thought about how it only ever applied to men. Men get to be "handsome and intelligent," the two qualities going side by side, each having an equal claim to the character's value and attractiveness. Women get one or the other. A woman may be described as smart, but that's separate from her beauty: in a man they are tied. If a book is going to talk about a woman's beautiful face, it will usually devote that phrase or sentence purely to her physical charms, and if it mentions her intelligence, it will be later. Even when a woman is described as "smart, beautiful, and funny," these are all separate qualities bundled together. The appeal of "handsome and intelligent face" is that there's the intimation of the two qualities depending on each other: the man's face is handsome in part because it is intelligent.
So then I thought, all right, well, how would I write a female version of that description? To be honest, "beautiful and intelligent face" just sounds too schmaltzy, and the other variations: "pretty and intelligent face," "lovely and intelligent face," also don't flow naturally. It needs to be more neutral, the attractiveness of the woman in question needs to be immediately apparent, but understated.
I think if it's a white woman, "her pale and intelligent face" works for me. If it's a woman of color, "her dark and intelligent face." If it's an Asian woman who's not particularly pale...I don't know. But I think we should use the "intelligent" description more often, with all sorts of other adjectives: her shy and intelligent face, her sly and intelligent face, her quiet intelligent face dusted with freckles, her mirthful intelligent face, etc etc etc. To me all these women, described this way, would read as "attractive," without the need to detail that their features are symmetrical, that they have pouty lips or shining eyes or cascading hair. (And the beauty I am picturing in these cases is a different type of beauty anyway.)
Funnily enough I feel like "her thin and intelligent face," as well as "her freckled and intelligent face" (different from my prior wording concerning freckles!) might evoke not so much "attractive" as "pinched, shrewish" or "plain," so that's something to consider too.
What do you guys think? And what kinds of physical descriptions of women (and men) do you like in fiction?