(no subject)
Many things are happening in the world, including all over the Internet.
There's the whole Samantha Brick thing. I don't know how I came across the original article but I read it and thought, "Oh yeah those things used to happen to me" and thought further that I would never dare put something like that online, because first of all, not matter how beautiful you are, you are never going to be beautiful enough for everyone, and secondly, while no doubt IRL she's quite pretty and probably those photos are not doing her justice, I mean, come on.
I feel like she could have written something quite interesting about she gets on better with men than with women and how she feels about it, but instead we get this "women hate me because I'm beautiful" bs. I would much rather have heard how she feels about believing in her own looks, and how that's been for her, then to find it being broken down to "I'm gorgeous so other women hate me." I just don't read a lot of writing in which women will be straight out, "yeah, I'm attractive, so what?" without having to be all apologetic about it in the next sentence, or having to admit to hating parts of themselves, and make up for having been publicly OK with themselves.
I have certainly found that being attractive to men, or experiencing myself as being attractive to men, does affect my relationships with other women, but I don't think it has anything to do with jealousy (although of course I might be deluding myself). In my own case, I think it's meant that since relationships with men, whether romantic or friendly, have been pretty easy to happen upon, and since I have sisters that I'm close to and whom I have a lot in common with including in the looks department, I ended up not having many close female friends for long periods in my life. I mean, nobody except my sisters ever asked me to be a bridesmaid, either, but I never thought it had anything, directly to do with my looks, more my personality. I will freely admit that I'm not that friendly, although it's not because I hate people. I'm just kind of a relatively unsocial type, which on occasion I regret but not enough to really put a lot of energy into changing that. I suppose you could read that as "she's a snob!" and to be sure some people have, but there you are.
I know that the original piece is just one of those exploitative "let's get lots of pageviews" Mail Online extravaganzas, and clearly intended as troll bait, I'm still kind of astonished at the intense reaction. Just as I continue to be astonished at all the bile that gets flung at women who publish strong opinions online, of which there are many but hey here's a few of the more famous links of recent months:
“throw them under the bus!” or how mean girls deserve nothing
(actually this is a link to requires only you hate's own roundup; I find linkblogging a little tedious for myself so I will just stop here)
So where are the nuanced responses? I realize that a lot of these comments are on the fly, and anonymous, and blah-blah-blah that's the whole problem with the internet, especially the tabloid internet. But maybe there are some somewhere.
There's the whole Samantha Brick thing. I don't know how I came across the original article but I read it and thought, "Oh yeah those things used to happen to me" and thought further that I would never dare put something like that online, because first of all, not matter how beautiful you are, you are never going to be beautiful enough for everyone, and secondly, while no doubt IRL she's quite pretty and probably those photos are not doing her justice, I mean, come on.
I feel like she could have written something quite interesting about she gets on better with men than with women and how she feels about it, but instead we get this "women hate me because I'm beautiful" bs. I would much rather have heard how she feels about believing in her own looks, and how that's been for her, then to find it being broken down to "I'm gorgeous so other women hate me." I just don't read a lot of writing in which women will be straight out, "yeah, I'm attractive, so what?" without having to be all apologetic about it in the next sentence, or having to admit to hating parts of themselves, and make up for having been publicly OK with themselves.
I have certainly found that being attractive to men, or experiencing myself as being attractive to men, does affect my relationships with other women, but I don't think it has anything to do with jealousy (although of course I might be deluding myself). In my own case, I think it's meant that since relationships with men, whether romantic or friendly, have been pretty easy to happen upon, and since I have sisters that I'm close to and whom I have a lot in common with including in the looks department, I ended up not having many close female friends for long periods in my life. I mean, nobody except my sisters ever asked me to be a bridesmaid, either, but I never thought it had anything, directly to do with my looks, more my personality. I will freely admit that I'm not that friendly, although it's not because I hate people. I'm just kind of a relatively unsocial type, which on occasion I regret but not enough to really put a lot of energy into changing that. I suppose you could read that as "she's a snob!" and to be sure some people have, but there you are.
I know that the original piece is just one of those exploitative "let's get lots of pageviews" Mail Online extravaganzas, and clearly intended as troll bait, I'm still kind of astonished at the intense reaction. Just as I continue to be astonished at all the bile that gets flung at women who publish strong opinions online, of which there are many but hey here's a few of the more famous links of recent months:
“throw them under the bus!” or how mean girls deserve nothing
(actually this is a link to requires only you hate's own roundup; I find linkblogging a little tedious for myself so I will just stop here)
So where are the nuanced responses? I realize that a lot of these comments are on the fly, and anonymous, and blah-blah-blah that's the whole problem with the internet, especially the tabloid internet. But maybe there are some somewhere.