Hooray For Real-Life, "Un-Made-Over" Women! By D.M. Dismore
AFeminist@aol.com
Every once in a while, I'm so stunned by a woman next to me
in the grocery checkout line that it takes me several minutes
to realize she isn't even remotely close to the brutally restrictive
definition of beauty our society celebrates. And while a discussion
of the delightfully wide spectrum of shapes, sizes, ages and faces
I find attractive lacks major sociological importance, the ability
of some women to resist America's relentless campaign to discourage
all such natural variety, and to reject physical conformity is
something which DOES deserve to be highlighted and jubilantly
celebrated.
"MISS AMERICA" ISN'T THE MAJOR OFFENDER
Since 1968, overtly patriarchal spectacles like the "Miss America"
pageant have been rightly criticized for sending a two part message
: (1) What's most important for women - but not men - is what
you look like, and (2) There is a single, universal standard of
beauty which no woman watching will ever attain even on her best
day, and what little resemblance you may have to this ideal of
true beauty will quickly be lost to the inevitable processes of
aging. But while this particular malady strikes only once a year,
and is seen as a meaningless dinosaur from a bygone era by a gratifying
number of people, a slightly different - but equally disempowering
- message is being sent out year round by TV shows and magazines
whose audiences are primarily women. It's done through a ubiquitous,
and seemingly benign ritual known as the "makeover."
The message of the "makeover" differs from that of Miss America
in only one small detail. Yes, beauty is of paramount importance
for women. Yes, there is an objective standard toward which all
women should strive. BUT, it's NOT impossible for you to achieve
at least a certain degree if attractiveness, and therefore self-worth.
All you need do is cover up, color, clip, or tuck what makes you
"you," and make yourself over into someone new. Someone that we,
as a society, will then validate. So put on the mask and costume,
and before you know it, the character you play will become so
real that it'll seem as if it's YOU getting all the praise ! "Wow
- you look wonderful - nothing at all like yourself !"
How insulting ! Just ONCE when Aunt Mabel is brought to the
studio by her family, and hears the news that she's getting a
free makeover courtesy of a well-meaning talk show host, I'd love
to have her look into the camera and say : "I earned every line
in my face the hard way, one day at a time, and these emblems
of my maturity, knowledge, and experience are no more embarrassing
to me than a sergeant's stripes are to a combat veteran, so I
won't be trying to "minimize" them, thank you. If you don't like
the gray in my hair, take it up with Mother Nature, because this
is exactly the color human hair is supposed to be at my age. If
gravity has changed my body over the decades, then pardon me for
not choosing to escape it by spending my post-high-school years
floating around in outer space. If my nose, teeth, or chin aren't
like everyone else's - or ANYONE else's - they're not "imperfections"
to be "fixed," they're daily affirmations of my uniqueness and
humanity, and something any future partner worthy of my affection
will value as much as I do. And if you don't like the clothes
I wear, perhaps I'll just shed them here and now, and spend the
rest of my days stark naked so you'll have nothing to complain
about. And if anyone at home can't handle seeing a real woman's
body on a full-time basis, here's six dollars. Five for a Playboy
magazine, and one for some tacks so you can prominently display
the centerfold and escape reality whenever you wish." Now THAT
would be a message of empowerment, and hopefully have enough impact
to begin a rethinking of some assumptions. Not only would it reaffirm
the fact that beauty and self-confidence must be created on the
inside, and not "given" to someone as a reward for conformity,
but it might even prod a few people to recognize that it's normal
to recognize many different kinds of physical beauty.
I'M NOT THE ONE WITH THE FETISH .....
Since by nature it challenges society's customs, assumptions
and stereotypes, the one place that ought to be the most free
of all these things should be the adult video industry. But though
it's true that many of the small, "amateur video" companies offer
a delightful variety of ages and body types, many of the large,
established firms still keep to a "traditional values" format
which reinforces precisely the same definition of beauty as "Miss
America" and the talk show makeover. A careful survey of porn
catalogs (anything for science, folks ...) shows only two basic
categories of erotic videos : (1) the "main section" with dozens
and dozens of pages of ultra-thin, "barely legal" 18 year olds,
and (2) a few pages in the back (the "fetish ghetto") where the
other 99% of humanity is represented. Needless to say, I realize
that business is business, and that adult videos FILL a demand,
not CREATE one, so I have no quarrel with their priorities, which
reflect the prevailing views of society. But I do question those
views themselves, and the assumption that it's "normal" to be
attracted only to the thin, the young, and those with faces and
bodies carefully honed to a boring, assembly line standard. Older
women, plumper women, and those whose features aren't made artificially
symmetrical and precisely the "right" size are considered "unattractive"
and therefore sexually arousing only to those cursed with some
sort of abnormal "fetish." But it seems to me that those who can
find only the "supermodel" segment of the population visually
stimulating have the "fetish," and are missing out on the joys
of living in MY world where every crosswalk, bus bench, or bank
line contains enough natural beauty that it's like passing by
a sound stage at "Baywatch" would be for others.
CHANGE, LIKE VARIETY, IS A GOOD THING
Now, despite my pet peeve in regard to certain types of makeovers,
the idea of changing one's appearance, or spending time and effort
trying to achieve a certain look is by no means inherently bad.
What's critical is the motivation and the goal. For someone who
has suffered disfigurement as a result of accident or disease,
trying to restore their former appearance is a very healthy thing.
Far from rejecting whatever form of natural beauty they had prior
to their challenge, they're embracing it by trying to restore
it. (Equally admirable are those who refuse certain types of reconstructive
surgery, so this is purely a personal choice, and either option
gets my unqualified support.) Those at the opposite end of the
spectrum, who simply want change for the sake of change should
also be free of criticism, because their "makeover" is "inner
driven" and not something imposed from the outside by society.
A quick way to tell the difference between "good" and "bad" motivations
: If someone spontaneously adopts a radically new look, or has
to explain in great detail to someone else what they want done,
that's "good." If they've been prodded into it by others, or simply
say "make me look like THIS" and point to a photo of someone else,
it's probably the "bad" kind.
CHALLENGING THE CASTE SYSTEM
Though the past three and a half decades of feminism have brought
about major improvements in the status and self-image of women,
a look at any magazine rack shows that there's still a lot of
very destructive messages being put out about how women "ought
to look" and why those who fail to meet arbitrary standards of
beauty should resign themselves to a life without the kind of
power and admiring glances women on magazine covers must surely
be "entitled" to. A few may still meekly accept this assumption
and suffer precisely the kind of ego-deflation that a patriarchal
society revels in. (Women who lack self- esteem are much easier
to control, and as an extra added bonus, by creating a caste system
in which the "plain" and the "ugly" are seen as objectively inferior
to the "attractive" you've effectively divided and conquered a
significant section of the female population.) Fortunately, there
have been meaningful challenges to this idea in recent years,
and though the fight against "looksism" has yet to be as accepted
as the struggles against racism or sexism, progress has been made.
But in many cases, the approach isn't nearly radical enough, because
it fails to challenge the underlying assumption that "beauty"
has some objective meaning, and often simply preaches "ugly people
deserve respect, too." But there ARE no objectively "beautiful"
or "ugly" people - only those who are "close to" or "far from"
whatever unique set of physical characteristics that you, personally,
have been programmed by genetics and environment to respond to.
The best way to expose society's "big lie" that there are objective
standards of beauty all women should try to adhere to (and be
disempowered if they can't meet them) is to begin by attacking
the most obvious manifestation of that lie - the "makeover" -
and start telling the truth about the beauty of nonconformist
women.
SOMETIMES YOU CAN TELL A BOOK BY ITS COVER (OR BETTER YET, "NON-COVER")
Since our physical characteristics are determined by genetics,
while our personality is heavily influenced by experience and
environment, common sense suggests that what someone looks like
on the outside is often unrelated to the kinds of values, interests,
and goals they may have on the inside, and which are far more
critical than appearance in determining whether it's possible
to establish and maintain a loving, long term relationship. So,
though my appreciation of those who have the kinds of physical
characteristics that nature and environment have programmed me
to respond to has remained undiminished over the years, I long
ago stopped making any presumptions about whether someone I might
find attractive would have any more than a random chance of being
a life-partner willing to put in the time and energy necessary
to spend several decades improvising and inventing whatever sort
of unconventional relationship two unrepentantly independent individualists
might come up with if given 30 or 40 years to work on it. But
lately, I've been thinking that there could be exceptions to the
old rule that "you can't tell a book by its cover" because anyone
who confidently and proudly defies social norms about beauty is
- with noted exceptions - someone who thinks for herself, and
has a powerfully positive internal self-image, two things which,
it seems to me, provide as objective a definition of beauty as
we're likely to get.
SOME DARE TO GO BARE: FULL FACIAL NUDITY AS BOTH EROTIC AND
REVOLUTIONARY
Though the cosmetics industry is hardly teetering on the brink
of bankruptcy, I've begun to notice an increase in the number
of women who do something previously reserved only for the "before"
photos (which I LOVE) in makeover articles: Go about their public
lives without any kind of makeup at all. And though we're still
talking about a small population, this delightfully healthy rebellion
also has one personal benefit. It's one of those rare times when
attraction actually has some sort of a rational basis. Of course,
there are exceptions. If it's 3 a.m. and an un-made-up woman is
out buying a single roll of toilet paper, it's safe to assume
we're dealing with less of a political statement than an urgent
need intersecting a lack of time for grooming. And though polygamist
wives and those in similarly repressive, patriarchal cultures
exude a natural beauty that's rarely equaled, their not-in-the-mainstream-of-modern-fashion
look is due to sectarian ultraconformity, so there's no iconoclastic
social statement or compatibility there. But other than those
obvious exceptions, a woman who seems happy - even proud - of
herself in her "not- made-up-or-over" state may be properly assumed
to be making a wonderfully important sociopolitical statement:
"I feel comfortable about myself - as is - and I accept others
on that same basis, and don't look to others for validation."
Now, how could any feminist be anything but enamored of such a
rare juxtaposition of both inner and outer beauty ?
YOU'RE A LOT MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE: A CASE
IN POINT
A perfect example of how totally wrong someone can be about
her attractiveness was demonstrated to me several years ago. I
was working at home, and since I was doing something which required
more than the usual amount of concentration, I turned down the
volume on the TV set, and just glanced at it occasionally in case
something interesting should come on. It did. I had absolutely
no idea who the show's guest was, or why she was there, but based
on nothing other than her looks, I was immediately entranced,
and after many seconds of stunned rapture, I finally managed to
unfreeze myself long enough to turn up the volume. I was shocked
to find out that she was an "anti-looksism" activist who, after
a lifetime of being harassed, insulted, and verbally abused because
of her supposed "ugliness," was militantly determined to fight
for the rights of "unattractive" people like herself.
She handled the interview with perfection - and when the hosts
kept telling her how if only she'd do this or that she'd look
just fine, it was then and there I first realized the offensiveness
of the "makeover," and the fact that some people simply don't
realize how incredibly beautiful they are to others just by being
themselves.
A GRADUALLY SELF-SOLVING DILEMMA
Over the years, that total disconnect between how attractive
someone seemed to me, and how unattractive they thought they were,
has haunted me and caused what so far has been an insolvable dilemma.
If someone as intelligent and insightful as that activist could
think that no one would find her attractive, and that any future
partner would have to like her "in spite of" what she looked like,
instead of partly "because" of her appearance, how many less-liberated
and less self-confident women who had never even thought of challenging
the beauty myth are still under the totally erroneous impression
that "no one" finds them attractive ? And while TV shows always
provide viewers with an easy way to write to guests, in "real
life" it's not so easy to communicate with total strangers, and
even if there was, there's just no diplomatic way to go up to
someone in a grocery checkout line and say : "Even though you
don't look like the women on these magazine covers, what distinguishes
you from them is what I find incredibly attractive." So how do
we, as individuals, or a society, tell women with nontraditional
beauty and nonconformist features that they should take pride
in both ?
Fortunately, in more and more cases, we don't have to. Progress
may be slow, but it's steady, and the past 35 years of feminists
fighting for women's rights and dignity have clearly created millions
of women who have rejected the beauty myth and have no need to
be told what they already know: Inner beauty is what really counts,
and no matter what form your natural outer beauty may take, there
are many of us who can and do happily appreciate that as well.
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D.M. Dismore AFeminist@aol.com
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