Comments on: Beauty

By: Stacey Stardust

Stacey Stardust — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:02:29 +0000

Lori, on July 31st, 2009 at 10:10 am Said:
Stacia said: Is it possible it’s even more of a societal crime when a conventionally pretty woman gets fat?
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People behave as if you have failed in your moral duty to be decorative! And that duty is all the more weighty (ha-ha) the more decorative you started out.

I’m just rereading this beautiful (hee!) post because someone linked to it in the comment thread on the “We Saw The Epidemic, and It Was Us” post, and this is such a good point. The “she used to be so pretty, but she’s really let herself go” type of reasoning pisses me off to no end – and this is an important reason why, but I hadn’t been able to articulate it as well as you did.

By: jennydecki

jennydecki — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:41:18 +0000

@AnotherKate So well put! I remember so well wanting to be that chick that walks into a bar and all the dudes flock.

Having a friend that seemed not to appreciate it made it worse for me.

Of course, in hindsight, she was right to be annoyed and I was lucky not to be looked at twice in that situation.

*sigh* Why couldn’t I have been this smart at 16? LOL
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This post is beautiful, and I’ve bookmarked it because my beautiful daughters are only 3 & 4 now but with wildly different body types … they will both need to read this one day.

The very thought of zero-sum beauty gave me chills.

By: wellroundedtype2

wellroundedtype2 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:32:13 +0000

SM, just wanted to say that I find myself re-reading this quite a bit. This post is definitely hall-of-fame material.

By: jamie

jamie — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:41:45 +0000

Interesting post and responses. I am not sure where I am in this one. I have always considered myself to be not very attractive and decided I must find my worth elsewhere. I was smart, kind, helpful and tried to be a good person. I was taunted and bullied a lot in school and became suicidal. Being a chicken saved me at that point. People were more forgiving by senior year but by then I was sure everyone was looking down at me. There were a few very attractive girls and I was jealous that they could do no wrong. I didn’t hold it against them but the essential unfairness burned. I felt completely written off before I even spoke. For me being invisible was sad but also a relief. I would come to realize through talking to others being “pretty” or “beautiful” offers no safety, security or reward when we’re all just objects to be enjoyed then discarded according to whim. I realized that no would ever write sonnets about me but at least I wasn’t dealing with angry guys who felt slighted because I had the nerve to not be interested in them. I still resent the idea you can be brilliant at what you do, a veritable saint in character or both but you must look damn good doing it. The saving thing for me was realizing I didn’t look at anyone in my life through that lens. The people I admired most were amazing mostly at being themselves. Who they were completely transcended the arrangement of features or what style of clothing they wore. I remember the friends who could always make me laugh, or listened to me vent, or just had a kind word on a crappy day. I know I don’t say thank you enough or tell my friends why I appreciate them enough. I try not jumping to quick conclusions about anybody because of what I learned. Sorry this ran so long, I’m mostly a lurker.

By: DLD

DLD — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:35:50 +0000

Amazing post SM.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:55:28 +0000

Gottalovemn, thank you for your feed back.

I know my case is curious, and I’ve ever been someway conscious that most girls are not so worried about their height (they are much more about their weight, breast size etc.)
Anyhow, I know it sounds ridiculous, was sure that this defect was the main reason I was out of the highest ranks of these beauty social classes I mentioned.
I almost thought, as the post suggests, that any tall girl like you was born with the aim of making me look like a flea. An insignificant, ugly flea.
And if I had heard word like yours from a tall girl ” I’ve always ALWAYS felt like a giant. I often felt sad standing next to my shorter friends because I was sure that I looked like a mountain next to their pixie-ish cute desirable frames”, …I would have thought “yeah, she says so, but indeed she pities me”.
I’ ve fought against these feelings a lot of time, and I still do. But at least, now I’m trying to learn to think about myself just as a person, a human being, who deserves love and respect as anybody else, and not like the “”pretty but short, what a pity” in this meaningless daily beauty contest that seem to involve the female half of the Western world.
Now I wouldn’t be afraid anymore of you and your 5’8. Thank you again.

By: gottalovemn

gottalovemn — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:01:46 +0000

Sometimes I am afraid that every woman is identified as member of a sort of “beauty social class”: the stunning , the very pretty, the acceptable ones, till the “not attractive but still fuckable” and so on. Now I have started to reject and refuse all this, but or much time I have felt really inconfortable with my height , doing absurd things like checking if a I was the smallest one in a group of girlfriends: I was afraid to stand next to a tall girl, I was sure to appear pathetic.

Sandra! This is so interesting. I have also had this idea of an imagined hierarchy of attractiveness in my head for quite some time, but I’ve never heard it laid out so clearly.

Also: so interesting you were insecure about being short. I’m around 5’8 (funny story- I’m 21 and had figured I was done growing, but I actually grew an inch in the last year!!) but I have almost always been the tallest friend, and I’ve always ALWAYS felt like a giant. I often felt sad standing next to my shorter friends because I was sure that I looked like a mountain next to their pixie-ish cute desirable frames!!!

By: Lori

Lori — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:10:27 +0000

Stacia said: Is it possible it’s even more of a societal crime when a conventionally pretty woman gets fat?
——————————–
People behave as if you have failed in your moral duty to be decorative! And that duty is all the more weighty (ha-ha) the more decorative you started out.

By: Lori

Lori — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:07:45 +0000

Love this post! I could totally related to the sense of being in some sort of unspoken competition wth other women. Letting go of that has been a crucial step towards becoming a more secure person, because even when I “win,” someone prettier could walk in the room at any second! Appearance is not a safe base for my self esteem.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:17:49 +0000

Thank you for this post.
I am almost 30, and in my life I’ve heard really a lot of people telling me I am cute “enough”, that my face is pretty and I am so lucky to be skinny etc, but..what a pity for me to be quite short (5 ft 4), as to say, you are pretty-but- not-enough -to-be-a-model-or somethinglikethat. Sometimes I am afraid that every woman is identified as member of a sort of “beauty social class”: the stunning , the very pretty, the acceptable ones, till the “not attractive but still fuckable” and so on. Now I have started to reject and refuse all this, but or much time I have felt really inconfortable with my height , doing absurd things like checking if a I was the smallest one in a group of girlfriends: I was afraid to stand next to a tall girl, I was sure to appear pathetic.