So, Who's to Blame? (Suzanne Forster)

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog on appearance discrimination, based on an Oprah show I’d seen on the same topic. It’s a social issue that pushes lots of buttons, and the comments I got were both thoughtful and thought-provoking. But one in particular has stayed with me since the blog was published. It raised some questions that I haven’t been able to answer, and that seemed reason enough to throw it out there for more discussion.

I mentioned in the blog that women are more likely to be the victims of appearance discrimination than men. I believe my exact words were “how we tend to focus on women as symbols of our need for physical perfection.” This provoked an interesting observation that came via a private email, and I wanted to share it here. Btw, I got permission to share the observation only, not the observer’s name. I think “he” might be a little worried about stirring up a hornets’ nest, so I promised to protect “his” identity, but I should probably say that “he” is someone I know well.

Anyway, here it is:

“One of my pet peeves is that women often complain about injustice as far as looks and appearance go, but for the most part they themselves are responsible for it. It is not men, usually, who produce the glamour mags, the shows about beauty and what is "good" and what is not. It’s women. Women have their own ideas of what is beautiful and they all but shove that down the throats of other women. It's true that men have played a part in this, but in today's world, I honestly believe women are far more responsible for this mess than men are.”

Hmmmm. My first reaction was no way. This is all about reproductive biology, isn’t it? With the female of the species gussying up and finding ways to attract the biggest, strongest male for mating purposes? Do women wear bustiers, stiletto heels, and thong underwear for other women? I’m just asking. Do they get Brazilian waxes? And is it really women who run the beauty contests? I do believe Donald Trump is in some way involved in the Miss Universe contest, is he not?

Okay, so possibly I’m a bit defensive on the subject. But once I got that out of my system, I had to admit that the emailer had an interesting point—and one that’s been made before. We’ve all heard that women dress for other women, and I think there is some truth to that, but only some. Besides, the standard of beauty I had in mind in my original blog wasn’t limited to how women dress. It was about preferred length of hair, body measurements, make up and grooming choices. It was about everything that defines a woman’s appearance today.

So, could it actually be women who set the impossibly high standard of beauty for other women? Well, I dunno, maybe, partly. I’m no expert but I think it is mostly women who publish and edit the glamour magazines. The movie, The Devil Wears Prada, comes to mind. It’s loosely based on Anna Wintour’s ongoing reign at American Vogue magazine and her role as a fashion arbiter. Wintour, and others like her, supposedly have as much to say about how women should look and dress as the couture designers do.

And I do think that women may be more critical of each other than men are of women, which btw was the premise of the original blog, i.e., that more discrimination occurs within groups than between groups. In this case, the women being one group, the men being another. On the Oprah show that started this topic, there were two African American guests, a mother and her son, who said that the relative darkness of their skin, compared to others of their race, had made them victims of considerable painful discrimination, but the discrimination had come from within the group, from members of their own race, not from other races. It would seem that we are very hard on those most like us, but I do wonder if it isn’t because we’re so acutely aware of our own flaws.

So, yes, women are probably complicit in their own appearance discrimination, but I’m not convinced it’s women who set the standard for female beauty. Or maybe there’s more than one standard at work here? For example, what about Playboy and Esquire and many of the other magazines aimed at men that feature women in various states of undress and airbrushed to perfection? Nobody can tell me they don’t play a role in shaping women’s concerns about men’s expectations for what a woman should look like. I know they did my concerns. Heck, I can remember thinking if that’s who these guys are fantasizing about what hope is there for me?

I was fifteen when I got my first look at a Playboy magazine, and I still bear the emotional scars. Don’t scoff now. None of us get out of this life without a few weird traumas, and Playboy was one of mine. I was at the neighbor’s, babysitting, and I came across a small stack of the magazines in a bathroom cabinet when I was looking for Neosporene for one of the kidlet’s boo boos. Once the kids were in bed, you can bet I went straight back to that cabinet and pored through those magazines. There are times I wish I hadn’t.

The problem was I matured physically incredibly late. Seriously, I didn’t get breasts until I was in my forties. So, you can imagine my horror when I realized what women were supposed to look like, based on what this magazine was telling me men secretly fantasized and dreamed about. No way would I ever come close. And no way did I ever come close. Who could? Victoria’s Secrets models? Puleeeze. Do those skinny, big-breasted (expletive deleted, but you know the plural word that starts with B I’d like to use) really exist in real life?

Well, yes, they do. And yes, they’re airbrushed, but there really are fabulous physical specimens of womanhood out there, and they are constant reminders that 99% of us do not measure up. As Anne Stuart posted yesterday in her brilliant blog, life ain’t fair. We don’t all have the equipment to be supermodels or Playboy centerfolds, this is true. But we do all have equipment, which includes any number of other things besides physical beauty—and will last a lot longer.

Brains, character, personality, charm, boldness and bravery. I could go on and on. Beauty really is fleeting and life is about so much more. At some point, life is about coming to terms with the looks we’re born with—and to my way of thinking, the quicker the better. So, what do you think, are women to blame for our impossible standards of beauty? Are we too critical of each other in that way? And how do you deal with your blessings, or lack of them, in the looks department?

Suz