The Problem With Ugliness
Maggie: Do you think people are either attractive or unattractive?
Kate: My mother was on the phone last night, saying, “You have to stop putting yourself down. You sound ridiculous.” I was saying, “But I feel bad sometimes. I’m just being honest.”
She wasn’t buying it. She is a staunch defender of my awesomeness. I definitely plan on being the same way with my eventual children. My fiancé likes to tease me by saying, “But what if they’re actually ugly?” We have this little debate. I say, “They won’t be to me. Or to other people who love them.”
“But what if you can just tell that they’re objectively ugly?”
“I’ll still try to make them feel beautiful.”
“But what if they just know they aren’t?”
“Then I’ll make sure they’re really, really smart.” It’s not an easy problem.
My mom said, “Some people are actually unattractive. You aren’t one of them.”
I thought, “Is it ridiculous that I feel bad about myself? Maybe I AM objectively attractive. Then I don’t ever have to think about this stuff again.” And then I thought, “Who are those actually unattractive people?” Do they know who they are? What’s the line that divides us? How are we split up?
It seems to me like the standards change a lot. In some places and times, women are ugly just because they’re heavy. Sometimes it takes more. Sometimes it’s a skin color. A hair color. Sometimes it’s a combination of a lot of things. And even when it’s a combination of hundreds of tiny factors, I wonder who gets to look at a woman and determine she’s ugly. Everyone does, right? But how does everyone collectively decide? It seems to me like even in cases where a woman doesn’t meet a whole army of beauty requirements, there are probably still people in the world who will find her attractive. In fact, I’d be shocked if there weren’t. So then being ugly is a numbers thing. It’s a democratic process. Everyone has to decide together, and the majority rules.
I have some problems with that. First of all, it’s not that easy to tell what the majority has decided. Some women turn heads everywhere they go. Most women don’t. Most women turn heads SOME of the places they go. Some almost never do, but can still definitely be considered attractive. Even the women who turn heads consistently are not necessarily considered attractive by most people. Maybe they simply have really big breasts. That seems to do the trick. Or maybe they wear revealing clothing. Or maybe they are tall and thin.
I don’t always agree with the general public. In fact, most of the time, we like different things. For example, I don’t understand what people like about reality TV. Or most cars. Or candy. I really don’t like candy. Here’s a big one: I don’t understand why people drink as much as they do. I have never liked the taste of alcohol, and never felt at all interested in getting tipsy or drunk. In college, everyone else was very interested in both of those things. That’s the College Experience. Everyone expected me to get drunk. When I came back on breaks, adults who knew me would make little “so—getting drunk a lot?” jokes constantly. I laughed along and had no idea why I was supposed to be throwing up all over myself in the basement of a frat house. So yeah. I don’t get it. I don’t get so many of the things the majority likes. Why should beauty be any different?
What if a woman lives in a cabin in the middle of a vast wilderness? With no mirror. What then? These are important questions we must always ask ourselves. Much like I must always ask myself, “How can it be that the subway randomly sees fit to skip my stop on days when I absolutely needed to be on it five minutes ago?” Alright, that last question should maybe be filed in a different category.
I can see all of the ways that I can fit into the idea of ugly on some days. But on the flip side, I can also see ways in which everyone, and I really mean everyone, can fit into the the idea of attractive. Even if I don’t personally find them attractive.
Maybe the key is that the standards people use to judge attractiveness need to constantly be reevaluated themselves. And even the concept of having standards to judge people’s attractiveness needs to be reevaluated. And after we do all that, we need to shrug and admit that we live in a world where people judge each other based on appearance, and that’s not going to change, just like people aren’t going to stop watching reality TV and eating candy and getting very, very drunk (sometimes all at the same time). But that doesn’t actually mean we can’t all find a way to feel beautiful and be beautiful to the people who matter.
Ugliness sucks. And it doesn’t hold water.
And speaking of working on feeling beautiful:
Un-Roast! OK. Today I love my profile. I know, I know. No applause, just throw money…It’s striking, bold, and unapologetic. I have those elements in my personality and I love them. I can love them on my face too.
Everyone: What do you think about physical ugliness? When is it real? Do you have a problem with it?
Wei-Wei responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 10:19 am #
I’ve wondered that since I was little… I’ve frequently pondered the dilemma of perception. We don’t know if what we perceive is different to anybody else’s perception. An example of this is colour: What I see is a red colour, my mind defines as red because that’s what I’ve been taught and I KNOW this colour is red. But what if in someone else’s mind, it’s green, but they define it as red because they always have? To clarify a little: If I saw what they saw, which in my eyes is green, I would say it’s green, but they’d say it’s red because they’ve learnt that that colour is red!
Okay that made totally no sense, but you get what I mean? Perception is a tricky thing, and it’s something I think is worth researching about.
As for those apparently simply “unattractive” people… well, the very word “attractive” literally means “attracts others.” So they could be unattractive on the outside, but have an attractive personality, right? That whole inner beauty thing… shame that our world judges so much on outer appearance.
Rob responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 10:35 am #
To me, the standard examples of “attractive” women such as Megan Fox and others on the Maxim top-ten list look less and less human every year. Olivia Wilde, who plays a doctor on “House” honestly looks like a kind of alien lizard-creature to me! The skin of her face is stretched as tight as a piano wire over a bone structure that looks so hard and angular you could cut bricks on it. If she face-planted on a sidewalk, the sidewalk would crack. Her smile is about as soft and warm as an icepick. What’s attractive about that? They say Helen of Troy had a face beautiful enough to launch a thousands ships, but something tells me she’d be laughed out of the Playboy Mansion today. If today’s supermodels were alive a hundred years ago, they’d be working at the freakshow. Five hundred years ago they might be burned as witches just for looking the way they do.
Cindy responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 12:12 pm #
isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder?
someone you thought was ugly becomes beautiful to you after you get to know them…and like you said…
a beautiful person on the outside can be a horrible person on the inside and after knowing them….MEH!
we need to look past our outward-ness.
in the end…a life of pursuing outward beauty? what a waste?
we all age..what did we DO with our life? buy makeup?
sheez.
I am with your MOM. you are beautiful…you need to just BELIEVE IT!
happy monday lady…still looking for that amazing lemon cake recipe! didn’t forget! the one that sounded good was crazy complicated.
grrr.
Kate responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 5:54 pm #
@Wei-Wei Nice thesis on perception! Did you ever read “The Giver”? You reminded me of that book, because in it, there’s only one character who can perceive color. Perception is such a tricky thing. What’s frustrating is that so often our perceptions are skewed by the dominant social ones, even if those are not the ones we would end up with otherwise. Thanks for the insightful comment!
Kate responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 5:57 pm #
@Rob It’s really refreshing to hear this from a male perspective. Sometimes as a woman, when I make comments about movie stars and models (and this is not to say they’re all only one thing), I’m afraid people will perceive me as being bitter or jealous. And thank you SO much for all of the possible images of Helen of Troy that just sprang into my mind. In some of them, she looks a little like me! What an exciting thought!
Kate responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 5:58 pm #
@Cindy— Exactly. I love those surprising moments when someone you never thought was attractive suddenly appears beautiful. Make up is really expensive, so I’d rather figure something else out
And find that recipe, woman!!
Christina (Dinner at Christina's) responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 6:03 pm #
I remember seeing something on TV once about how beauty was measured in symmetry on the face. They did random experiments of putting an attractive female in the same situation as an average looking female and the attractive one always won out. Even in the case of children when they had them as substitute teachers, the kids gave opinions that the attractive lady was a “nicer” teacher. Perhaps it has something to do with science like the perfect proportions of a woman’s body translating to a better carrier of children?
I think beauty like you’re talking about is a cultural and societal thing. I caught an episode and some previews of Jessica Simpson’s new show exploring beauty all over the world, and I think there’s evidence there. Like the women who stretch their necks with the gold bands. In their cultural it’s beauty, in ours it would be a circus act. Some cultures tattoo or pierce for beauties, others try to have porcelain flat skin. It’s just the nature of your culture and where you were raised.
I certainly see a lot of people that I wouldn’t call “attractive” but now that I think about it, I can’t say I’ve seen somebody and thought “Wow, they are UGLY!” People are just people, I tend to just look at them as who they are and who they’ve introduced themselves to me as. They can become more attractive as I get to know them and love them or they can become less attractive as I see unattractive parts of their personality or habits.
j responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 9:47 pm #
For most of my life I was severely quiet to the point that my family and doctor thought I was on the autistic spectrum. I wasn’t pretty and I’m convinced that I was left out of a very important family event once because I wasn’t up to par with the others.Pale, freckle-faced, acne, redness. Bushy,dark, much-too-long, unable to tame wavy–sometimes knotted hair. I looked like a vampire. A gawky vampire and I didn’t discover makeup until I was 16, so the years before that were rough. Huge, bushy eyebrows and teeth with gaps that turned into teeth with braces. I read too many books and ruined my eyes young so I was also a wearer of glasses and had baby fat. Oh yeah, and I was a tomboy–still am. Freshman year of high-school I discovered tweezers and flat-irons and poof! Suddenly people I had gone to school with since pre-school who had either ignored me or teased me relentlessly wanted to be my friend or date me. . . whiskey tango!
Long story short and years later people would remark that the man I was dating at the time wasn’t “up to my standards” and boy did that get me pissed. Who were they to say such a thing? Looks come and go, but personality and intelligence–that’s what you’re stuck with when you’re seventy five years old and in a rocking chair.
I suppose the whole point of this was to just to show how firsthand I saw people treat me differently based on my appearance. It made me very wary of my actual friends and fiercely loyal to the friends I had before I became what society accepted. You’ve even remarked once or twice on my photos. One of these days maybe I’ll put an *old* photo up. That would really shock quite a few people!
Andrew responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 10:11 pm #
Kate,
Next time my mom’s at the shul, you should engage her in a conversation about alcohol. You have the exact same viewpoint. As in, word-for-word.
As for attractiveness: people finding people physically attractive comes naturally; I almost feel like it can’t be analyzed in depth because it’s so instinctive and (often) random. So many factors, mostly biologically driven, so it seems.
I focus on how people apply their physical attractions. A lot of people apply some “threshold” to the company they keep and feel pressured to maintain “standards.” I’ve always considered that to be the true crime against human relations, but maybe it’s part of a greater reflex that is virtually universal.
Aren’t we all shallow? Looks are the obvious first layer of shallowness, but what about intelligence? Most people (ok, “women”; guys don’t really talk about this stuff unless we’re really drunk, which kinda leads back to my original paragraph but then goes nowhere) I talk to would insist that judging people for their intelligence is a decidedly unshallow characteristic, but I think it’s shallow. Judging people, and eliminating them from your circle of association or your dating eligibility list, whether for looks, intelligence, or familiarity with Belle and Sebastian albums, is shallow. And I’ll certainly say that there are different levels of shallow, judgment based on looks being the most criminal and obvious, but they all have one thing in common: they don’t get to the core of a truly important person’s value in another person’s life. A lot of the chest-beating I hear about looking for depth in people seems to be rooted in deflection. It’s often unwittingly sexist. If a woman is turned on by a man’s wit or conversational skills, and a man is turned on by a woman’s looks, they can call each other names and sit on their high horses all they want, but ultimately, each is just chasing what turns them on. Frankly, it’s just human nature to chase things/people that seem exciting, or hot, or refined. I don’t know if we should even be condemning shallow desires.
OK- that’s most likely my first foray into actually writing about the elements of human nature that I think about daily. I make no guarantee of accuracy. Thanks for the mental stimulation.
Rob responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 11:36 pm #
@Christina: I’ve heard about those experiments you mentioned. Body symmetry is an indication of strong, healthy genes. People with damaged DNA often look “irregular” so this is one primal way of recognizing good genetic material. This applies to men’s faces as well. Regarding men, facial symmetry would unconsciously imply virility and sperm that are good swimmers. regarding women, facial symmetry would imply a better carrier of children (more likeliness of a successful conception/pregnancy) so you’re right on that account.
@Andrew: I like your take on shallowness! I think you’re right, we’re all programmed to seek out our own turn-ons, which needless to say nobody gets to consciously choose. For every man out there who is accused of being a philanderer or a proverbial “penis with eyes” there’s a woman who only hooks up with most disrespectful, abusive “bad boy” a**holes.
Why is this? Men, biologically, are programmed to want to impregnate as many women as possible. It’s an evolutionary strategy from primordial times when our species survival was less certain. It was a smart investment to spreading it around, so to speak. A man produces a near-infinite amount of sperm, so he can make a “donation” to Woman A on Monday, Woman B on Tuesday, Woman C on Wednesday and so on without slowing down. They’re also programmed to be attracted to young (i.e., teenage) women even as middle-aged men, because youthfulness implies higher fertility and a better possibility of delivering a healthy child, not to mention a better possibility of staying alive long enough to raise that child.
Women, on the other hand, as the ones who carry the child are tied up for at least nine months with every successful pregnancy. Their strategy has to be quality over quantity. Biologically they are programmed to be attracted to the most virile, stereotypically masculine alpha-male types: in our society, the football quarterback, for example. Those men were the ones most likely to out-compete the their rivals for food and resources, so they would make more reliable providers for the woman and child, not to mention having stronger genes. By the same token, they also have more testosterone, which is responsible for the jerky, aggressive behavior that tends to go hand-in-hand with those kinds of men.
So, men and women point fingers at each other for their failings in the domain of romance, because in modern times the game has changed. Affluence and brain power are now valued over brute strength and athletic prowess. An alpha-male is no longer the best provider in our society. He’s somewhat more likely to be aggressive or abusive because of all that testosterone. Plus, because of overpopulation and the depletion of natural resources, the alpha-male strategy of sowing as much seed as possible is now a detriment to our species survival, plus faithfulness to a single partner is now a virtue. Also, childhood is protracted in modern times because our life expectancy is so much longer. Teenage women today are no longer expected to have the emotional maturity or level of responsibility that they did before the industrial revolution. Obviously they don’t make the most appropriate wives or child-bearers anymore.
Not to turn this into a battle-of-the-sexes bitch session (I promise!) but the thing that bothers me is that women who fall for abusive jock a**holes are usually pitied as passive, helpless victims, while men are actively condemned for being unfaithful and having the tendency to “stray”. Plus they are labeled as deviant for showing interest in women who are “barely legal”. Yet millions of years of genetic programming cannot rewrite itself overnight because the values of society or its laws have changed. That is just as true of women as it is of men. So in a sense, both men and women are victims to their own outdated predilections. Saying that a man’s genetic obsolescence make him morally reprehensible while a woman’s simply make her a victim of poor decision-making is an unfair double-standard. It should be hard to see how it does a disservice to both men and women.
Rob responded on 26 Apr 2010 at 11:42 pm #
(Correction to that last sentence: “it SHOULDN’T be hard to see how it does a disservice to both men and women.” I made an uncharacteristic amount of typing errors in that post, especially for such an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist! lol)
lauren responded on 27 Apr 2010 at 2:07 am #
No matter what, it is so difficult to get past our own hang-ups. Sometimes i feel so awful about subjecting people to my own appearance that i do not want to go outside or i awkwardly cover up bits of my face or body. i am not attractive at all. and it should be ok. i have come to understand that i will always have friends and grad school (for at least 5 more years). even when i have been “attractive”-ish (ie too little body fat) I was not really thin, no one found me attractive, and my body couldn’t function properly. now, at 23, i am finally starting to convince myself that appearance doesn’t have to matter. and if my face and ass and santa claus tummy put people off, they can avoid me. nevertheless, i cannot imagine myself completely not caring that i am unattractive. it seems to speak to the need to be accepted, to be loved, and baser more primal needs of being an acceptable mate. sigh – damn my more foundational emotions!
Jamie responded on 27 Apr 2010 at 9:06 am #
WOW you are getting essays as comments! You obviously struck a chord here : )
Kate responded on 27 Apr 2010 at 1:04 pm #
@Andrew
First of all, your mom rocks. And not just because we agree on stuff.
I hear you about shallowness. We’re all shallow to an extent. You can meet two really amazing people and only be attracted to one of them. And you can justify and justify, but it might come down to the fact that one person is just “hotter” to you. And we can’t really criticize that, because no one can help it. It’s natural. But at the same time, I love that the category “hot,” can include a lot of things, and that sometimes, when we analyze the shallowness, it’s actually less shallow than expected.
Attraction is confusing because it’s both completely simple and completely complicated.
We can say, “He just wants her because she’s skinny and has big boobs,” but there’s a world of cultural norms, personal history, social expectations, and emotional hang-ups that go into his interest. And I tend to believe that people are actually pretty complex and diverse. The same guy who hits on the skinny blonds with the big boobs might also go for a huge number of other women (or at least be attracted to them), and all for different reasons. Intelligence is ALWAYS a factor, whether or not people think they’re including it. Come on, we all talk to each other.
We need to be able to judge each other somehow, because we need to be able to make choices. I agree that it’s hard to condemn people for wanting each other. Rob makes a good point about the tendency to condemn guys when they make distasteful relationship choices but see women as helpless victims. It’s true that everyone’s involved. (The only qualification I’ll make here is that women who were abused as girls may pursue dangerous men as a result, which is a separate but sometimes confusingly similar-looking situation.)
So where does all this leave us? I don’t know. Maybe we need to pay attention to what we’re pursuing in a partner and try to ask ourselves why we want those things. We might learn something about ourselves, even if we don’t crack the code of attraction.
Thanks for reading and writing!
Kate responded on 27 Apr 2010 at 1:12 pm #
@Jamie
And now I’m writing essays back! It’s out of control!
@Lauren
There are definitely days when I don’t want people to look at me, because I don’t want to have to imagine how they perceive me. But by what standard are you deciding that you “aren’t attractive at all”? Can you start by finding one thing you find beautiful about yourself? That’s why I’m trying to do this un-roast idea (which is at the end of every post). Everyday, I find something I like about myself. You can start small. But you only get this body, and you might as well learn to feel good about it.
Rob (R.M. Levitt) responded on 27 Apr 2010 at 5:03 pm #
@Kate:
———-
“Maybe we need to pay attention to what we’re pursuing in a partner and try to ask ourselves why we want those things. We might learn something about ourselves, even if we don’t crack the code of attraction.”
———-
I think that’s the key. What we seek in others intimately connected to what we feel we lack in ourselves. Only by understanding ourselves better can we can learn to see that some objects of desire are best left unsought and that some of what we need most is already inside us and always has been. There are some “holes” that no other person can ever fill. we can only fill them ourselves, by doing the hard work of self-reflection and confronting our personal issues head on. To make things a little more complicated, that last should not be confused with self-absorption!
I think what it comes down to is that we cannot be happy with somebody else until we learn to be happy with (and by) ourselves. Two incomplete “half-persons” trying to make themselves whole by latching onto each other can never have a healthy, mutually beneficial relationship. They can only have varying degrees of codependency. A healthy relationship takes two people who already feel whole and complete on their own, so that together they add up to something even greater. I know it sounds romantic to say “I need you; I can’t live without you,” but it’s better to honestly say “I know I can live without you, but why would I want to?”
If you think a love like that is an impossible dream, then you’ve made your own self-fulfilling prophecy because you’re willing to settle for less. Personally I’d rather stay alone for the rest of my life but get to put my own needs first, than accept all the attendant compromises and sacrifices just to be in the kind of totally mundane, ambivalent miscarriage of a relationship that I see people having all around me.
Togetherness in itself is overrated. If you’re going to give up so much for someone else, don’t you deserve something at least as valuable in return? That’s the crux of the problem: too many people don’t think so, because they’ve been taught to undervalue themselves as individuals. It’s especially true of girls. In our society, women aren’t forced to undergo female circumcision or wear burkhas. Thank God we’re so much more enlightened than those barbarians, right? We encourage our women to bare as much skin as they want and we mutilate them psychologically instead.
I grieve. I truly do.
Ilana responded on 27 Apr 2010 at 10:18 pm #
So, I love this. I’m going to start a book with every one of your entries that i love…cuz i just i love it! you are an amazingg writer. can’t get overr it <3 so smart and talented miss kate fridkis
p.s you are beautiful inside and out and i agree with mommy fridkis, you are WAY to hardd on yourself!
Kate responded on 28 Apr 2010 at 2:04 am #
@Ilana
Aww… you’re the sweetest. Seriously, you gotta stop being so adorable before the world implodes from your adorableness. <3
Fern responded on 28 Apr 2010 at 3:19 pm #
um… okay, i just read Rob’s comment and i felt the need to respond immediately. say what?!!? olivia wilde is gorgeous. i can agree with the stretched skin whatever, and i do think her jaw, face shape is a little jarring, but her EYES are straight up stunning. and so are most of the models today. i really wonder what you look like to have the audacity to say such things about women who are being paid LOADS b/c of their appearances.
ugly ppl have just got to deal with it and make the most out of their personality. like kate! she’s funny and witty and she doesn’t take herself too seriously!
Bronwyn responded on 28 Apr 2010 at 3:55 pm #
Wow, I totally read this early this morning, before an exam and was like damn I wish I hadn’t read this because I don’t have enough time to read it all and comment with some coherent thought. It did however give me enough time to think about it.
Then Fern’s comment appeared and I have to say, whoa. Why does Rob have to agree to Olivia being beautiful? Isn’t the entire point of this post that there is SUBJECTIVITY in beauty? Should we all just say, well that girl is being paid because she’s pretty, so she must be pretty? When did that become the consensus for a beauty standard?
And by the way, Ugly People shouldn’t just have to “deal with it” because who gets to decide that there is one grand category of beauty and one grand category of ugly people? I don’t think it’s that black and white.
I think we want to believe there is a simple answer to beauty and ugly, but there isn’t. We can’t find a scale of the iptome of beauty and a scale of iptome of uglyness and rank everyone in the world on it. True, there’s a lot of biological factors, but there are a lot of societal factors. I think we forget the nurture part of beauty a lot when we discuss things like face symmetry big eyes, sultry lips, and the perfect waist-to-hip ratio. We forget that a lot of people care about what other people think, and if we think that society values stick thin girls, then maybe men who want to be seen as alpha males will be attracted to those girls more because they know (or just believe) others will be envious. The same can be said for girls, who want to be seen as desirable and even maybe helpless, because they know there’ll be envy.
In my own personal path I’ve looked at people and compared myself to them, wondeirng if I’m pretty or not. I’ve also had the before mentioned experience where a person’s personallity has actually changed their outward appearance, or at least my perception of their appearance. Not on purpose, they’ll just snarl or say something nasty, and all the face symmetry they posssess just flies out the window. Or vice versa, someone I view as slightly plain might be suddenly gorgeous when he tells a funny story or is really understanding and caring.
Wow, that was a lot of writting, and I could totally go on. I just don’t think ugliness and beauty is simple.
Andrew responded on 28 Apr 2010 at 5:35 pm #
@Rob (the Rob who responded to my comment; apparently the comment section is booming to the point where we may have to return to grade school and use the first initial of our last names in addition to first names)
I truly subscribe to the biological/evolutionary truths you mention. It’s the 900-pound gorilla in the room, and it’s supremely unfortunate that our nature drives us toward polygamy, whether we like it or not. Now, I’m not saying we’re powerless; we’re very much in control of what we do, but it takes some effort and self-control to fight those urges. Sometimes just a little effort will do, and sometimes it takes a ton of willpower.
It’s good for men to be aware of our biological desires and those of women, because it helps us decode human interactions just a little bit more. As well as understand where to focus our efforts, if we are indeed making efforts (I’m taking an extended break from such efforts… too much insanity and corruption in the dating world)
Rob (R.M. Levitt) responded on 28 Apr 2010 at 10:37 pm #
@Andrew
———–
I’m pretty sure I’m the only Rob who has been posting here. I know I’ve been confusing by signing some of my posts differently but I’ve settled on sign them as Rob (R.M. Levitt) in case this place DOES get to the point where there are other Rob’s. Let’s face it, I don’t want anyone else getting credit for my awesomeness!
You’re right, we all do have the ultimate say over our behavior, regardless of how we’re programmed. If anything makes us different from other animals, it’s that. The right thing to do is often very different from the easy thing to do. That’s something we should never stop reminding ourselves of.
@Bronwyn
————-
Well said, and thanks for getting my back!
@Fern
——–
Well, although I respect that that’s your opinion, don’t you think Olivia Wilde has more than enough people professing her beauty already? You’re right, she gets paid loads for her appearance. Does she need anyone to stand up for her, especially on a blog aimed mainly toward women who struggle with feelings of self-criticism because they don’t get anything like the kind of validation she breathes? Why exactly did it strike such a nerve in you that you feel the need to respond “immediately”?
As for what gives me the “audacity” to say those things about her, clearly what you call “audacity” I call sincerity. Why shouldn’t I say those things about her? The millions of dollars she makes places her above criticism? I don’t worship golden calves (or thighs!) and I certainly haven’t spent anything of mine on her. I will agree though, that her eyes are a very pretty color, lest you think I’m only trying to tear her down. I have nothing against her personally; just the societal values her success represents.
I think the thing that struck a nerve in ME and made me feel the need to respond immediately is that you said: “ugly ppl have just got to deal with it and make the most out of their personality. like kate! she’s funny and witty and she doesn’t take herself too seriously!”
Do you think “ugly ppl” are just jealous that they’re the ones who don’t live up to whatever standard society happens to value the most? Although I’m sure many are, or at least go through that stage, I’m certainly not one of them. I’ve made a lot of my personality that I probably wouldn’t have if I’d had the so-called “luck” of being a blond Adonis that people would line up to worship even if I were a total jerk. I feel fortunate to be the person I am precisely because I’ve gotten to cultivate my heart and soul in ways “beautiful ppl” have little need to. It’s the supermodels who wind up with the booby prize in life. (Heh.)
Did you realize you were giving Kate a rather mixed compliment, that she’s done very well for someone with a sad disadvantage? So nice of you to approve, but I can’t help wondering what YOU look like that gives you the audacity to call it that way! Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t see that you’ve made much of your own personality. Unless you look like Ms. Wilde, I guess that means you’re 0-for-2. Kate’s blog has the potential to do much more good in the world than all the compliments, money, drool, and “other things” expended toward Olivia Wilde ever will!
@Kate
———
Feel free to redact or delete this post if you think it’s too hostile. I’m not trying to provoke a flame war here!
Kate responded on 28 Apr 2010 at 11:08 pm #
@Rob
Thanks for defending the blog, but I don’t think there’s any need to attack Fern. She’s certainly welcome to explain what she meant further, but I don’t want to make too many assumptions about her! She certainly has a right to think any actress she likes is beautiful. (By the way, I’m totally assuming that you’re female, Fern. I only know Fern as a female name.)
Here’s what I want to know: Why didn’t anyone respond to Fern’s last comment by saying, “What?? Kate is totally beautiful!! How can you even imply that she’s ugly?”
Come on, guys! I’m a little hurt, here.
rose-selavy responded on 01 May 2010 at 3:36 pm #
i had to respond to lauren.. i have a very similar to you!
i think women have a much different experience of what they find physically attractive- it can change depending on the person’s personality. Just about every straight woman I know has had the experience of thinking that some guy was really “gorgeous” or “hot” until they met him, and then suddenly found him ugly (physically) because he acted like a jerk! this has definitely happened to me..
but with men, the physical attraction is dependent on appearance. a woman can have the coolest personality and be a wonderful, sweet person, but if the man doesn’t find her physically attractive, it ends there. there is a level of “prettiness” that has to be reached, otherwise you’re just “one of the guys”.
i’m a straight girl who is, well, not “conventionally attractive”. my female friends remark on how amazed they are that i am never approached by men, after all, i have a great personality! so many people tell me “you are so beautiful, inside!”
i know, obviously, that “it’s what’s inside that counts”, and i know that not being “pretty” has made me richer in other ways- i have amazing friends, both male and female, i love my job, & i stay healthy.
but as lauren mentioned, the “need to be accepted, to be loved, and baser more primal needs of being an acceptable mate” just doesn’t go away. it’s frustrating for me when other women tell me “just wait, the right man will come along who will be attracted to your inner beauty!” Men just aren’t like that, whether it’s an issue of body symmetry or evolutionary strategies or biological programming, i’m not sure! but in my (very sad) dating experiences, being physically attractive is a prerequisite, the inner beauty is a pleasantly surprising bonus. the men i know who do appreciate my inner beauty are good friends, but they do not want to date me! (and no, they are not ALL gay, hahaa)
anyway.. i guess i wrote quite an essay! i just wanted to show lauren some solidarity
rose-selavy responded on 01 May 2010 at 3:40 pm #
hahaa, oops, lauren, i have a very similar situation to you (i should check for missing words before posting)
Eat the Damn Cake » Guest Post: Gena Talks Body Image, 2 responded on 20 May 2010 at 10:20 am #
[...] any newcomers to check out some of the other stuff I offer over here, like discussions about the problem with ugliness, being homeschooled, wedding gown shopping, the way mirrors always lie, and the flat stomach [...]
Julie responded on 21 May 2010 at 4:57 pm #
Okay, I don’t know you and am only judging from your two photos that I see, but you don’t seem ugly to me. I have to say that I was surprised by the tone of Fern’s email, but perhaps she didn’t think it through.
Really, though, that is not the point. I always felt very ugly when I was younger, never dated until college, and dreaded groups of boys because they would yell insults at me. I assumed that I must truly be ugly because why else would these things happen? I’ve come to realize that because I felt horrible and insecure, I carried myself in a way that encouraged people looking to make fun of others. I never smiled and wore clothes that I hoped would make me invisible. When I look back on photos from high school, I see that I was not ugly, just cowed and not wearing anything that would flatter me. Not that I want to ‘blame the victim,’ but I think that my projected image had less to do with my looks and more to do with my lack of self esteem.
Fast forward twenty years. I got plastic surgery to ‘improve’ my looks. I’ll be honest, some people do treat me differently now. However, I still don’t feel beautiful, and I still notice that mainly when I get treated as pretty is when I feel (and therefore act) pretty and worthy of attention. Trust me, I’m 40 now. Don’t wait until you start to notice the aging process to enjoy what is attractive about you now. There are plenty of things about you that are attractive. And, in the end, it is so much better to be a kind and loving person than to be pretty. People remember how you made them feel, not only how you look.
Julie responded on 21 May 2010 at 5:02 pm #
And one more thing. ‘Ugly’ is just a code word for not being what is currently thought attractive in a given time and place. All you have to do is look at Renaissance paintings of plump, small-breasted, pale-skinned women with ‘Roman’ noses to see that.