Can We Tell the Truth About Our Looks Yet?

When Naomi Wolf released "The Beauty Myth" years ago, repeatedly she was told (by non-feminist critics) that she was "too pretty to be a feminist."  Because she was young and conventionally attractive, she obviously couldn't write about how the pressure to look a certain way affects women!  (*cough* irony *cough*)  But that was nearly two decades ago--we're past that, right?  We've critiqued "The Beauty Myth" for its legitimate faults, including unexamined white privilege and lack of discussion of class, etc., and we can now talk openly about how appearance and its relationship with privilege, including the complicated experience of being on the receiving end of that privilege.

Or not.  Recently Katy wondered if she was selling out by taking a job that she knew was, at least in part, available to her because of her looks.  It's a damn good question.  Plenty of people will tell you that of course you can use your looks to get ahead, but let's be honest.  When you're a woman whose job involves looking hot, people disrespect you.  Even if your job doesn't clearly involve how you look, if you're a conventionally attractive woman, people will say you're "sleeping your way to the top," or getting by on your looks.  And if you aren't attractive in a mainstream way, people insult you, ignore you, marginalize you.  So when it comes to looks, if you want to be taken seriously and be visible, only very few, biologically male, privileged people can win.

I think most of us would benefit from talking about how we handle this in our own lives and choices.  If you're broke and pretty and you get a waitressing job that's a lot about how you look in short shorts, do you feel empowered, humiliated, happy to have a job, oppressed by your class or by sexism, like a sell-out, just bored?  If you make a living doing sex work like stripping, are you a victim or part of the problem?  It depends on the person who's experiencing it.  If we really want to end sexism, we have to listen to these stories from the people who live them--not just one, but many people, without dismissing them.  How women experience our looks and our bodies in this world is relevant.  It's not the only thing worth thinking about, but it's at least as important as our shoes.  Hell, it is about our shoes, isn't it?

I can't count how many times on this site I've read nasty comments blaming women who are "sluts," "skanks," etc. for giving "the rest of us" a bad name or destroying the family or whatnot.  It's like we think that by insulting women who are sexual then we wouldn't be insulted in that way.  But any woman can be accused of looking too sexual (or not sexual enough), or being too sexual (or not sexual enough), or using her looks (or being ugly).  You aren't immune, I'm not immune, none of us are.  Even if you're the one pointing fingers.

I am a very cute girl, and sometimes the attention I get looking conventionally pretty is too male and very uncomfortable. But I'm also a lot more comfortable myself when I look conventionally feminine--I'm just really girly.  I'm small and I've got curves and a very feminine face, so I don't ever look androgynous, even I when tried.  Plus when I tried to "look" queer, I felt...not myself.  I like skirts, I like feeling pretty, and I usually feel like I'm playing a silly game of dress up when I go for men's workpants and baggy shirts.  (For one thing, they never fit).  I've come to embrace my queer femme experience, and next month I'm (hopefully) attending the National Femme Conference for radical queer femmes.  We're going to be talking about the invisibility that comes with visually passing for straight, trans and gender-nonconforming issues related to appearance, white privilege, class, even meditating with the body for social change--among other things.  Is this a waste of time?  Hell no.  It's important to think critically about how we appear in the world, how we live in and understand our bodies and the affects of our looks, especially as we age and change.  It's a lie to say that feminism means, "I'm not just how I look, so talking about my looks is a waste of time."

You're living in this body, honey, and you can't ignore it.

Moreover, EVERYBODY performs when it comes to looks.  What you put on in the morning, how you cut your hair, whether or not you put on earrings or lipstick or shave--you try to present an image, even if you're not conscious of it.  So let's get conscious of it.  Let's be honest about it.

And let's not jump down someone's throat if she says, "I'm pretty and this is how that plays out in my life."  Let's not bash women who opt for a difference appearance than our own.  Let's listen, let's ask questions, let's tell our stories, and let's dismantle the thinking that women are only worth our appearance, that attractive women are bimbos, that you can know somebody's whole self just by looking at her.

Or not.  It's up to you.