I would venture to say that most men would rather be considered good looking than ugly. However, so little of a man’s personhood is linked to his appearance that most men will not go much out of their way to improve it. For many men, even if they would like to be better looking, what exactly “better looking” means is difficult to ascertain. Men are not used to objectifying themselves in the same way that women are, and since men are typically defined by more than their sexual characteristics, the very definition of “good looking man” is hard to pin down. Men are not used to seeing themselves as the other, and there is no real standard to which they can compare themselves. Therefore, I see a man’s desire to be good looking as analogous to those, “What would you do for a Klondike Bar?” commercials. Klondike Bars are pretty delicious, this is true, but going without one is not such an earth-shattering crisis than anyone in those commercials is willing to make too much of a sacrifice for one. They are willing to make the small sacrifice of minor embarassment, but it is small, it is minor, it is not ongoing, and when it is over, they have the Klondike Bar and they are done.
For women, on the other hand, the question of what they will do to be attractive is not so trivial. Being good looking and being ugly is not merely a matter of eating ice cream or not eating ice cream, but could be said to be a matter of life and death. To be a woman is to have one’s selfhood defined almost entirely by one’s sexuality, and if one is not attractive, one effectively becomes invisible, an abberation to be ignored. In order to grasp onto the tiny shred of humanity women are allowed to possess in a patriarchal society, one must fulfil the duty of Decorative Boner-Maker to the best of one’s abilities. It is thus no wonder so many women sacrifice so much of their life in order to be “sexy”; the alternative is social death.
Consider the extremes to which female celebrities will go to maintain their appearance. Over at Shapely Prose, Sweet Machine discussed an article from the Daily Mail which had one of their reporters training with the trainer of celebrities like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. The experience reads something like torture: grueling workouts that wear her down to the point where she is too weak and listless to do anything but train: her body becomes her life. Recently, I saw a tabloid purporting to offer tips from the professional dancers on Dancing with the Stars on how they keep their bodies so boner-inducing. I didn’t look at the article, but the blurb next to one of the women said that she forgoes all carbs except orange juice. Anyone who has ever dieted knows how consumed one’s mind becomes with food when one is not “allowed” to eat it. Multiply that by an entire food group and you get an idea of how much of this woman’s mental energy is devoted to thinking about her body. Of course, I can’t say for sure that this is the experience she has had, but I know enough to say that if it isn’t, she is an exception to the rule. It has been the experience of countless other women who make the same ridiculous omissions in their diet that she has. I think Courtney Martin does a good job of detailing this waste of energy in Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, which exposes just how much time many women spend obsessing about their body and how it serves to further their disenfranchisement, putting them at a disadvantage compared to men who do not have these pressing thoughts and obsessions. For men, being good looking is a fortunate accident, not something to spend too much time on, while for women, it is a calling.
Not only do women sacrifice their lives in the sense that their lives become subsumed with this striving for attractiveness, but they are often willing to risk death if it means it will make them better looking. This is the basis of the entire cosmetic surgery industry. Although the dangers of cosmetic surgery are woefully underreported, to the point that many women are likely to be unaware of the risk they are putting themselves in by having it done, the fact remains that many women are willing to undergo major surgery in order to prolong or improve their attractiveness. A disturbing portion do die or suffer complications. However, even if more women knew the dangers of cosmetic surgery, it is likely that many would still have it done. When faced with the options of the inevitable social death that comes with lessening attractiveness and the possibility of physical death from a practice that will stave it off, women will be willing to take the risk of physical death, and all because our personhood is dependent on something as transitory as the state of our body. Until women are defined as human beings in their own right and not in their sexual relations to men, this will continue to be the case.
Filed under: body image, fat phobia, gender roles, misogyny | 8 Comments
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I think the Klondike bar analogy is very apt. People who were once confused by my solidarity with others by not getting married have responded very positively since I came up with a good analogy. (http://femveg.org/blog/?p=165)
I have struggled with explaining to people exactly why the pressure women feel is so real and why men just don’t experience the same thing, but you do a good job here.
I would put up some ideas as things men do have to deal with in almost the same way women are pressured to obsess over their bodies. If a man is particularly effeminate or particularly short, they often must come up with extreme coping measures in certain situations. And, the lack of magazines telling men how to cope with these horrible shortcomings are few and far between, whereas women have it *easier* since the solutions to our woes abound in every glossy page on the newsstand.
I understand that there are things that suck about being a man under patriarchy, but I don’t really feel the need to discuss them in every post. If I’m writing a post on things that suck about contemporary definitions of masculinity, yeah, I’ll talk about that, but when I’m specifically talking about women, I don’t think it’s necessary.
Hmm, I have just realized I phrased that extremely strangely. I was reading your reply and thinking, “I didn’t tell her to add those thins to her post. It’s great just like it is.”
But then, I reread my comment and I DID say that. Sorry, I meant “I would put up” in the way that I am putting these ideas out there as part of my comment, not indicating you should expand you post. You are right, men don’t need to be included in everything.
I gotcha, Lizzzzzzzz. I was a bit confused before because you don’t seem like a “what about teh menz” type.
I think the patriarchy is pretty good at alienating people from their humanity, no matter their sex, but the case of women has been particularly destructive because men’s personhood has been so dependent on being better than women for so long, and continues to be so. Ugh. People really gross me out.
“For men, being good looking is a fortunate accident, not something to spend too much time on, while for women, it is a calling.”
Excellent post and the above quote nailed it particularly well. The best thing about becoming a feminist is that it gave me a sense of liberation — to a degree — from oppressive beauty ideals. I began to see how extraordinarly contrived and absurd these molds are that we struggle to fit ourselves into, and I’m very happy to say that the cosmetic surgery I’ve been craving since my teenage years is no longer something I desire or even give any thought to nowadays. I was one of those women who would’ve gladly risked death for a more “perfect” physique, and, sadly, my ex-husband was solidly behind the idea but, fortunately, we were young and broke and cosmetic surgery was not a realistic goal at that time. Now that I’ve finally gotten my head on straight, I realize what a jerk I’d married. The issue was my low self-esteem, brought about by cultural obsession with female beauty and objectification of women (and people in my life whose attitudes were hurtful, not helpful), *not* my body. I think the best way to transcend the madness is to surround yourself with positive people whose perception of beauty isn’t limited to cultural ideals, and who think you’re beautiful as is, and that is, unfortunately, a significant challenge for most women.
I bow before you, Mighty Crankosaurus, in deference to your ferocious wisdom; I also note that I sometimes miss things on my first read. That said, there’s a big-ass omission, not from your post per se but from your thesis. You are talking about straight men, not all men. Gay men have managed to establish a standard of physical desirability that is superficial, punishing, and well-nigh impossible for many (if not most) men to achieve – certainly out of reach for men outside a particular age bracket. Its become quite brutal – the criticism, mockery, derision, and devaluation meted out to those who deviate from either the Abercrombie or the very-young-and-slender (and preferably Asian) templates. Plastic surgery, gazillions of dollars spent at the gym, with stylists, on toiletries and wardrobes, and I’m sure increasingly on cosmetics.
Not that this should have been in your post, which is completely valid on its own. With the caveat that you’re not talking about *all* men. Blah blah blah, etc.
It sometimes seems to me that culturally we’ve travelled this arc from a time when any / all people could be seen as commodities (when slavery was legal) to a brief window most people (meaning, women) were commodities, back to any and all people as commodities.
Nanella, I’m glad you’ve dumped the douche. I think that not only is it important to realize that “beautiful” describes many more people than the dominant culture would have us believe, but also that it’s a lot less important to be beautiful that they would have us believe.
Nina, I suppose that is a little bit heterosexist of me to ignore the beauty standards gay men pose on themselves. I’ll definitely have to think about it a little more. I feel that gay men’s time in the male gaze is more limited; for women, it’s pretty much constant.
“For men, being good looking is a fortunate accident, not something to spend too much time on, while for women, it is a calling”.
Agree with Nanella – this is a great line.
Being good-looking is a genetic bonus. It’s not the be all and end all. Men are afforded the ‘luxury’ of being able to think this way, but women are not.
They should be.