Beauty, self esteem, and bullying

[firecat]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169208/upside-ugly

I'm not crazy about the title of this article ("The Upside of Ugly"). It talks about a girl who was bullied for her looks, and whose cosmetic surgery was funded by a nonprofit organization that helps children with facial deformities. There's a before and after picture of her. In the before picture, her ears stick out and in the after picture, they don't.

I feel angry about this, but I think it's misdirection to feel angry at the girl for wanting the surgery or her mother for seeking it or the organization for funding it. I am angry that my society promotes the idea that the girl in the before picture is "ugly" and the idea that the best way to address bullying is to change the traits that are the target for bullying.

I somewhat like this quote:

There may be a bit of head-shaking over young girls going to drastic measures to feel beautiful, but we never seem to question the idea that feeling beautiful is a worthy goal in the first place. We should tell girls the truth: “Beautiful” is bullshit, a standard created to make women into good consumers, too busy wallowing in self-loathing to notice that we’re second class citizens.

Girls don't need more self-esteem or feel-good mantras about loving themselves—what they need is a serious dose of righteous anger. But instead of teaching young women to recognize and utilize their very justifiable rage, we tell them to smile and love themselves.

However, I don't agree with the "one-true-wayism" of the quote. I think it's fine to have "beauty" as an interest or hobby. Where I do agree with the quote is that I think pursuing beauty should not be a requirement.

I feel like I'm swimming upstream though. I fear that most people and societies will always rank attractiveness and will always be more accommodating to people who are perceived as more attractive.

(And just to completely negate everything I wrote other than the penultimate paragraph: I think the girl in the before picture is more attractive.)

Comments

[ailbhe]

I think before looks better too but quite see that after is more conventionally pretty.

[shehasathree]

This was my response, too.

[selki]

All this.

[andrewducker]

I think it's fine to find different people attractive. My main problem is with the monoculture which says that I have to find the same thing attractive as you do, or that people _are_ attractive, rather than "some people find that particular look attractive". Beauty is a judgement call, and everyone has different judgement - it's when we're sold the line that everyone likes the same thing, so everyone who wants to be appreciated needs to fit into the same niche that we get really toxic problems.

[cleverthylacine]

this to the infinite power!

[firecat]

My main problem is with the monoculture that says "As a woman, you had better care about your attractiveness at least as much as anything else in your life."

And secondary to that, I have a problem with "There's only one form of attractiveness." That's secondary because even if that changes, the first one is still in force.

(frozen comment)

[laughingrat]

It's such a complicated mess, and it hurts so many people. I agree that the situation is very complex, but I bet the author is approaching it this way in order to forcefully put across the new-to-many idea that "beauty" is subjective and far too powerful a force in deciding not only who gets what opportunities, but how people even get to feel about themselves. People seem to be approaching this from a number of directions, most of which I have some mixed feelings about (everything from "fuck appearance" to the "hard femme" presentation), but it's such a vast and sprawling problem that we probably need all these different approaches chipping away at it simultaneously in order to make any change at all.

(frozen comment)

[cleverthylacine]

It's not just a matter of needing all these approaches; it's that ultimately a person's chosen approach is their choice, and trying to deny them that is denying them their bodily autonomy, which I find far more problematic than any set of reasons a person might have for choosing to alter their appearance either temporarily or permanently.

(frozen comment)

[laughingrat]

Knowing that what we do doesn't happen in a bubble, but is influenced by a poisoned culture and influences/perpetuates that culture in turn, and viewing our own choices and the choices of others through that accurate lens, is not "denying" anyone anything.

(frozen comment)

[cleverthylacine]

Do you seriously think there is anyone who is reading discussions like this who actually doesn't know that our culture is pretty toxic?

Personally I think the mindfuckery people resent when they have to deal with a frilly pink princess who's NOT submissive or demure or accommodating is pretty damn instructive to some folks who need the instruction! The only way NOT to perpetuate the bullshit is to break the system of correspondence between personal styles and cultural expectations, not to suppress some of the styles.

And when people are unpleasant about other people's self-expression and bodily autonomy, they are forcing the other party to choose between associating with them or changing the way they present themselves. That IS denying people the freedom of expression they need, and I've certainly experienced it in certain "feminist" and "progressive" circles, as early as my teens when I was given khrappe for coming to protests against the draft in skirts and blouses.

(frozen comment)

[firecat]

Do you seriously think there is anyone who is reading discussions like this who actually doesn't know that our culture is pretty toxic?

I think the people reading my journal know it, but not all of the people reading the original article do. (The comments are proof.)

I definitely think being an unsubmissive pink princess is a good way to cut through bullshit. I also think that there needs to be room for people to criticize feminine-as-a-requirement.

I really wish we could come up with ways of talking about this where it's clear that if I say "In society's hands, this damages me" that doesn't automatically mean "I think everybody who uses/does this is an unwitting tool of society." Because I don't want to pressure people to make different choices about their personal style; I want to celebrate style diversity. And I also want to be able to talk about my damage.

When it seems that language doesn't exist, and any comment on one side seems like a silencing of the other side, I feel like society is sitting in a corner snickering because it's gotten us into a game of "let's you and them fight."

(frozen comment)

[laughingrat]

I really wish we could come up with ways of talking about this where it's clear that if I say "In society's hands, this damages me" that doesn't automatically mean "I think everybody who uses/does this is an unwitting tool of society."

The thing is, we DID use language that made that clear. But people who are defensive about their choices and why they made those choices will spring to the attack every time.

(frozen comment)

[firecat]

I really wish we could come up with ways of talking about this

I think I gave the impression that I was talking about your comment when I said that. I apologize for my lack of clarity and insensitivity. I wasn't talking about your comment, I was talking about the general conversation around body acceptance and body choice.

(frozen comment)

[laughingrat]

Here's the deal: since Firecat won't keep her space clean, I guess I'll have to be the one to say this. You are responding to YOUR PROJECTIONS onto what I said. You're the only person here who's talked about judging anyone. You're defensive, whiny, and full of anger about something that's legitimate, BUT ISN'T RELATED TO ANYTHING I SAID. You take YOUR shit, you deal with it YOURself, and don't you fucking dare use me as a punching bag, here or anywhere else. And if third parties won't keep you from doing your nasty, irrational, acatrash, "smart words veiling a layer of irrationality and garbage" bullying BS in their space, then it's up to me to call you on it when you pull this on me.

This is not the week for irrational, morally lazy assholes to start shit with me. I deal with these issues every day, precious, and I stand a hell of a lot firmer than some spineless, whiny weasel, in the face of a hell of a lot more internal and external pressure, than you will ever know. And for what it's worth, unlike YOU, I don't seek out fights with individuals about it, I don't make it personal (until someone like you has made it personal, like you have in this thread), and I don't go around trying to find people whose choices might freak me out and telling them what I think. YOU, on the other hand, have done all of that. Who's morally superior now?

I'm sorry to lash out in your space, Firecat, but I decided the last time someone pulled this that I won't let it happen again. Tiferet has no doubt already found that they're unable to message me directly or comment in my space, so they tried to continue the fight THEY started, in a thread which had nothing to do with them and which contained no judgment or nastiness of any kind, over here in yours.

(frozen comment)

[cleverthylacine]

I haven't tried to message you or comment in your journal, and I find it highly bizarre that you are assuming I would or did attempt such a thing. I'd be offended by that assumption if I weren't so flabbergasted. I have zero interest in trolling you or anyone else in their own space. I went to bed last night shortly after I made my comment, and then I woke up to this in my email.

Who is actually responding to projections here? I don't know who in the world attempted to troll you in your own journal after disagreeing with a comment you made in someone else's journal before you had even responded, but it sure wasn't me. I don't think I'm morally lazy, but if this is where you're coming from, I can't find any fucks to give if you think I'm morally lazy.

I think Firecat keeps her space pretty clean, but I also think she understood what I was trying to say, based on the reply she made to me, and that you took my disagreement as a personal attack, so I really see no need to continue this, save to tell Firecat that whatever someone else did to you in your own journal, it was absolutely not me and it wouldn't have been whether or not you had banned me, which of course is your absolute right.

Sheesh.

(frozen comment)

[firecat]

I'm sad that this thread is turning into an example of why it's so difficult to talk about this stuff, and I'm freezing it. If you want to discuss this, PM me.

[sasha_feather]

How is having one's ears stick out a "facial deformity"? Will Smith's ears stick out. (Oh wait, he's a man...)

[evilawyer]

I fear that most people and societies will always rank attractiveness and will always be more accommodating to people who are perceived as more attractive.

I have to agree. Sadly. It's like it's ingrained in homo sapiens, but I fear it will ultimately contribute to humankind's undoing.

[wild_irises]

Have you read Ted Chiang's "Liking What You See"?

I do agree that culturally assigned attractiveness will (probably) always be rewarded, but I think how much it is rewarded can ebb and flow a lot.

[firecat]

I haven't read that and I think I borrowed the book it's in from you...

Good point about the ebb and flow.

[cme]

I had a friend who had a specific, deberate policy of going out of his way to be nice to women who played the conventional beauty game because he liked looking at them and wanted to reward them for their effort. We had a large argument about it. I was never able to persuade him that this was the bad kind of discriminatory behavior, and I started drifting away from him at that point.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I think people have a right to make their
own body choices.

However: nothing will ever make you "pretty
enough" for people who have decided to
hate you. They'll always think of some
other reason to shit on your life.

[cleverthylacine]

I actually think that the jaw surgery may have been medically necessary; it could just be the photographic angle, but the way her jaw is set in the first picture looks painful to me.

[firecat]

I read somewhere that it was medically necessary but I can't find it now.

[sabotabby]

So let’s teach girls to survive a misogynist culture with a fist, not a smile.

Love this quote. And the article.

I can't fault the girl one bit—I'd have jumped at an offer like that in my youth, feminism be damned. But I do fault the organization, and yes, the mother. They're adults, and part of the culture that foists an unattainable beauty standards on girls and women. I'm sure it must be hell as a parent to have your child bullied, but it's your obligation to stick up for her, not to cave into the bullies' demands by permanently altering your child's looks.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

"There may be a bit of head-shaking over young girls going to drastic measures to feel beautiful, but we never seem to question the idea that feeling beautiful is a worthy goal in the first place. We should tell girls the truth: “Beautiful” is bullshit, a standard created to make women into good consumers, too busy wallowing in self-loathing to notice that we’re second class citizens."

This was said a lot by feminists in the 60s and 70s, very well, worth repeating. But they emphasized the "good consumers" part: label some natural thing as ugly, then sell some product to hide or change it.