A few days ago, I read a blog post somewhere (my brain is beyond fried, so I have no idea where, sorry) about how women want to be taken seriously and not judged solely based on their looks. This statement made a lot of sense to me. Then I read one of the comments, in which the writer begged to differ that women don't want to be objectified. Compelling evidence was presented in the number of plastic surgery procedures conducted on women each year. When I read that, I sighed because I can't really disagree with that point entirely.
Sure, there are a lot of reasons why women undergo plastic surgery. Even I submitted to the knife, although it had nothing to do with how I looked. (Only plastic surgeons do breast reduction procedures and I needed to unload half my chest before my damn shoulders and back caved in from the weight dragging me down in front. I honestly thought I would look worse after the surgery. I'm happy that I was wrong.) Can we really separate out the effects of living in a world that so values feminine beauty and sexiness (demonstrated by only a very small variety of body types) with someone wanting plastic surgery for her own self-esteem? I don't know. For example, there are a number of women I know who chose to get breast surgery after having a baby so that they could look like they did before pregnancy changed their bodies. That doesn't strike me as buying into some beauty myth since they were just trying to return to themselves.
It's hard not to want to look good in a world that places so much value on looking good. While I put about zero effort into my appearance, it doesn't mean that I don't obsess about it, too. I know that I will never have a flat stomach and lean thighs. It is just not my body type, and wrangling myself into a shape that is unnatural for me would mean that I could never eat ice cream, cake, or cheese. No thanks. At the same time, I cringe when I look at my "big" hips in the mirror or when I notice my bulging thighs when I am sitting down. I don't care enough to wear make-up, shave my legs, do my hair, or strut in high heels let alone get plastic surgery, but I'd be lying if I said that I don't want to be considered attractive.
Are there any women out there who don't worry about their looks? Do women care much more about how they look than men? Statistics tell us that increasingly this is not the case. Still, I have to agree with both the blog poster (we want to be judged on our abilities) and the commenter (we want to be objectified). We live in a world that splits women in half. What we want and what we can achieve within its social structures make us schizo. As a result, generally, most women want to be judged for their abilities and objectified. It's fucked up.
"most women want to be judged for their abilities and objectified"
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head. Women today want to be the CEO and the supermodel.
A lot of men I know put way more effort into their appearance than women.
ReplyDeleteAs for myself, I do put effort. but it's only to make myself happy. I don't give a rat's ass what other people say, as long as I like looking in the mirror at myself. If they like it too, bully for them.
I'll stop before this comes s a full-out rant.
For the record, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong in wanting to look good. It's a normal human desire, although I think our society often makes it get out of control.
ReplyDeleteAre there any women out there who don't worry about their looks?
ReplyDeleteI've become increasingly less concerned as I look the older I get. (Okay, granted I've "held up" pretty well: I don't smoke or sunbathe, rarely drink...the things that make me an incredibly boring person have granted me a face that looks about ten years younger than it should.)
In my twenties, I was one of those women who never left the house without a full face of makeup. It's a little easier to relax when you're "out of the game" so to speak. I'm sure if I were competing with a much younger woman for a job (or --yikes -- a man), I'd be as shallow as I ever was. It's naive to think that there will be a future when women will be judged solely on their ability to do a job, or be good mom, whatever, with complete disregard for their looks. I think, like you said, we'll see men becoming more focused on appearance than women becoming less.
I work fairly hard to stay in shape, look & be healthy and I like to wear nice clothes and spend money on a good haircut, but no artifice. Looking at me I would like people to make the assumption that I care about myself and am reasonably self-disciplined and genuine. I would encourage such a judgement because people can then further assume that this care, authenticity and discipline carries through to other areas of my life, like my work, my relationships. So, I think that the face people present to the world represents what they would like people to know about them, because, of course, we make our first judgement of people based on appearance. We can't pretend it's not important. Your abilities, character though is what will get you through in the long-term
ReplyDeleteI don't see any reason why you can't want to look good and at the same time want to be taking seriously for your abilities. I mean no one ever says about men. Personally when I worked outside the home, I hope that people were listening to what I had to say and judging me on that. At the same time, that doesn't mean that outside of that conversation I didn't care about what I looked like. If we, meaning men and women, truly didn't care, we wouldn't even bother to brush our hair in the morning.
ReplyDelete