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

(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.