Gender aesthetics
Someone posted a shoe-fetish shoe (picture of) at Facebook, which naturally triggered a lively discussion of the semiotics of catch me-fuck me shoes. I pondered the agony to the calf muscles that would be caused by attempting to stand on the damn things – the heels look taller than the foot is long, so how is that even possible?
Anyway, some fella came along to straighten it all out with an aphoristic insight into the nature of women.
Great shoes, fancy clothing, cosmetic surgery, lipstick, waxings, hairdos, jewelry, makeup, and perfume are all unnecessary. However, if they were eliminated, I think the gay male population would increase rapidly and the women of the world would all look like the babushka ladies in Russia …uggggh!!!
Such a sweet compliment, isn’t it?
Am I the only guy who thinks things like high heels, makeup piercings …, reduce a womans attractiveness?
I must admit, I did find Lady Gaga’s penis heeled shoes amusing. The heels were ridiculously high, but then I guess you wouldn’t want them to be lower, in this case.
Of course, such shoes are really only to be worn when …reclining.
I recommend abandoning facebook posthaste. This event provides yet another perfectly reasonable excuse.
-A
No, you’re not. But you’re also not the only guy who apparently thinks that your opinions of a woman’s attractiveness should be relevant to her decisions on personal style.
The appearance question is something of a minefield, though, so I’ll now assume that you really meant your remark as support for those of us with unorthodox choices. And that the obvious reading of “Teh laydeez should do what *I* like instead of what *he* likes” is just an accidental infelicity with words. OK?
A girl I went to school with years ago, had a scar running up through her eyebrow and part way up along her forehead. She spent so much time worrying that it made her unattractive, decided to ‘give up’ and not wear make-up, and eventually she just settled for the first guy who made a pass at her years later; a guy who turned out to be a right prick.
Personally, I found her appearance incredibly beautiful, it was the lack of confidence that was most off-putting. At the time, being a fool teenager, I had no idea why she was so nervous, shy and excessively self-depricating. (Gender privilege?)
I rather suspect that if women didn’t wear ‘great shoes’, ‘fancy clothing’ or undertake all the rest, people would be judging attractiveness by a different metric, and the dude with aphoristic insight would be one of them. And maybe young ladies with scars on their faces would be able to feel a bit more ‘normal’.
*damn, need edit button. That was addressed to Jim at #1, of course.
I agree with Mr. Baerg. Mind you, that’s MY opinion; don’t know why that should be read as being relevant to another person’s “Decisions on personal style”. Feel free to be annoyed or accusatory, but it’s no more a statement on what women SHOULD do than my preference of redheads over brunettes is a statement on the relevance of a women’s hair color. (jeesh)
If it’s not supposed to be relevant, then what’s the point of saying it?
I dunno, maybe to contradict the stereotype?
Gender stereotypes, like so many stereotypes, are, in my view, in a large part driven by capitalism to maintain the power elite and identifiable market segments to which stereotypical goods can be sold; in that regard we are all complicit. Most of us (I include myself) are so bound by the values marketed to us that we become quite isolated if we chart a more individual course and, for most of us, such isolation is too much to contemplate so we revert to our alloted stereotypes in shame and humiliation – or become hermits with a bitter imagination.
I’ve grown less inclined to condemn attention to fashion as I’ve come to recognize how often it’s a nerd hobby. Over the years, I’ve met numerous brilliant women (shout out to Donna Murasko, Dean of Arts & Sciences at Drexel) who seem to pay inordinate attention to appearance. But it’s their hobby, something they take pride in being good at outside of their academic or professional focus. I suppose we could lecture them on the poor example they offer to their less well-educated sisters, but, really, how is that their problem? Vanity is Human.
Whenever I see these sort of classical accoutrements of beauty, such as long nails, high heels, or large earrings, I tend to think little else than, “Hmm, that seems like it would be uncomfortable. Her choice, though, I guess.” But I get a rather skeevy feeling whenever I encounter a guy saying he is into such things.
And as for plastic surgery, that whole issue just makes me sad. My impression is just that it takes an extreme degree of dissatisfaction with one’s own body to go under the knife, so that while it is good that such options are available for people with disfigurements (such as a cleft lip), the wide adoption of plastic surgery seems to me a strong indicator of a society with a truly unhealthy view of appearance.
The only reliable criteria in judging anyone’s (female or male) appearance, I find, is whether or not however they present themselves makes them feel good and comfortable. Anecdotally, I know many men who dress in ways that could be called slovenly, but as they are comfortable with it, they appear just as attractive as other men who dress fashionably. I find the same applies to women. I know of women who can turn up in tracksuit pants and a t-shirt and look very attractive, but who would look utterly uncomfortable (and therefore unattractive) in a sartorially extravagant outfit, and vice versa (and women who are equally comfortable with both extremes).
Although, you have to take into account that this is coming from someone who couldn’t describe what someone was wearing thirty seconds after they left the room, though, so maybe my opinion isn’t valid.
#4 Cath
Right, I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘objectively more beautiful’. There is just what appeals to person A, the other things that appeal to person B etc.
There is some interest in knowing how many people prefer what though.
That’s fine Jim – as I said it’s quite hard to negotiate this particular conversation. I was genuinely assuming your goodwill, even though the way you wrote it was dodgy.
For Joe, who seems to have missed the point:
Entitled Douchebag: “Womenz are ugly unless they scrubs up the way I tells them to. Gals, use X,Y, and Z. Or else you is so ugly I’d bang a dude before I’d do you. Which is really super-gross and nasty.”
Dodgy Replier: “Hey there, Entitled Douchebag, you are wrong on criteria X, Y and Z. It should be A, B and C.”
Note that the actual problematic part of the claim isn’t addressed..
Better reply: “What makes you think you have the right to judge? And why should anyone care what you think? You, sir, are a misogynist, a homophobe and a douchebag. And by the way, dear fellow readers, Entitled Douchebag doesn’t speak for anyone but himself. Just for example, my personal aesthetic/sexual preference is usually A,B and C.”
If a male says he prefers women who don’t wear makeup and heels he’s accused of dictating women’s preferences, whereas if he says he prefers heels/makeup he’s obviously guilty of the same thing. The safest choice would be to loudly express no preference at all on the grounds that women have no business taking male opinion into account….oh no, that would be dictating, too.
When the truth is unfortunate it’s better to appease the opinion leaders, I suppose. This isn’t the place for it, though, so I’ll venture this. Many women want to know what men find attractive, think they’ve found out and factor that into their decisions, which I’ve noticed vary widely. Some women, and some men as well, have attached a strong political valence to these decisions, so that it’s said that certain people shouldn’t express an opinion on other peoples attractiveness strategies, especially when the opinionators are men opining about the attractiveness of women. I don’t agree. With a little tolerance of differences we can all have opinions and express them responsibly without being tyrants. Now excuse me while I close comments (in my own mind).
Babushka ladies…. and hippie chicks too!!
Actually I didn’t take “some fella” to be commenting on the nature of women at all. It’s more likely he was commenting on the nature of men. But more interesting to me is the question of what it would mean if men and women didn’t care how they appeared to each other. How would that work? I don’t see any way of running an experiment that suppresses the various individual strategies in favor of a single look. We could all wear Mao jackets and soupbowl haircuts. But having chosen that, would we have accomplished something worth doing? I don’t think so. We would be suppressing a desire, not eliminating it. To say this would be unjustified would be to understate matters.
Anyway, as soon as people get out of jail they revert, even before there’s time for capitalist reeducation. It looks to me that people are extraordinarily interested in creating a particular look for themselves, in a way that goes beyond the usual invocation of capitalism, patriarchy, false consciousness or any other of the familiar categories people are assigned to when they don’t conform to what we want. People want to decorate themselves the way they want to, for themselves, for those they want to appeal to, or for other reasons we don’t understand.
Is the shoe actually meant for walking?
Why do I get the impression that, one day, the man you quoted is going to be having a somewhat awkward conversation with his significant other about stretched dresses, mysterious ladders in her hosiery and the fact the backs of her best stilettos have been trod down.
Seriously, go buy some lippie and enjoy yourself, but quit telling the rest of us what floats our boats.
If you’re judging someone as a potential sexual partner and for no other reason, aesthetic, regardless of gender is not an unreasonable criteria to use. The fact that the quote in question comes from a shallow misogynistic ass only proves that some men are shallow misogynistic asses. No surprise there.
Steve @ #21…
It also proves funny, or at least a bit of snark in the direction of the shallow misogynistic ass is. I’m feeling that somehow this has been lost somewhere in discussion.
I’m going to ignore the minefield of general gender politics, and focus solely on FB douche-nozzle. :)
The fantasy in his mind is apparently that women are only attractive when they go to extreme lengths… because it is apparently part of a magical ritual. This ritual prevents men from automatically becoming homosexual, and women of all ages, sizes and shapes, and ethnic background to all magically from birth (or possibly puberty) become 70 year old Eastern European grandmothers. Because it is either or, and that’s the way the world works.
In other news, the ugly girl at school becomes hot when she takes off the glasses and loses the ponytail, and if you buy enough Budweiser and coolers of ice bikini models will show up at your house.
There’s another dimension that has been largely ignored here: the original FB post is also horribly homophobic.
As my wife used to say about those dressed-and-made-up-to-kill types: “Nice package. Anything inside?”
Hmm. I guess I’m naive…I hadn’t thought of that. So the idea is that it’s actually possible to sell very expensive shoes that are literally not meant for walking but only for fucking?
Justicar – but the whole point is that the original comment wasn’t about “any given person,” it was about all women. It announced that without cosmetic surgery and makeup and the rest of it, all women are uggggggghhh. And it’s not about analyzing things in your own head, it’s about saying/writing things in public – the very opposite of your own head.
Most of the cosmetic and costume enhancements in women’s fashion are meant to simulate the appearance of youth, particularly the early childbearing years. High heels give the illusion of a certain coltish legginess you see in girls around 15 or 16. The same adolescent look is sought with with everything from eyeliner to hair care products.
Yes, women that age are now legally off limits, but this is a very recent idea, particularly in evolutionary terms. This is going to be around for a long time, even producing monstrosities like the sort of beauty pageant circuit that featured Jon Benet Ramsay.
But it gets much, much worse. The cruelest traditions in fashion, like the current ultra-thin fashion model, are not a creation of male sensibilities at all. The Twiggy look is partially the invention of gay fashion designers, who like their women models to look like boys. But it is mostly encouraged by other women, who are the most ruthless critics of other women by far. Frankly, most straight men don’t get women’s fashion at all. Women are not more peaceful than men; the just fight with different weapons. If male attitudes are a brick wall, this is the Himalayas–it even supports the denigration of women in religion, since to those women who think they are winning the game, it is yet another weapon to be wielded against the competition. Even Victorian morality worked very well… for Victoria.
I think there’s a slightly wider issue at stake here than who finds what attractive, whether they should be saying it out loud, and whether they should be qualifying it as strictly a personal preference or a verdict on the state of womanhood (or manhood for that matter).
Not only is this guy saying that all women would be so fundamentally unattractive if they failed to be sufficiently decorative that men would then turn to other men for sex (presumably both out of both disgust and confusion, because how could you tell one from the other without copious amounts of makeup, high heels, and bouncy implants), but the implication is that it will devalue all women.
That implication, in my mind, is the most problematic one. Obviously, both genders judge the sexual attractiveness of whatever target population they are generally attracted to. Also obviously, whether we like it or not, a person’s culture plays a huge role in which particular signs that person reads as “attractive”. Neither, in itself, is necessarily problematic. What’s problematic is that, almost across the board, a woman’s attractiveness seems to always be factored into her status. We don’t do this to men, or not nearly to the same extent. Look at a photo of a scientist or a politician or a musician in a magazine or on a website — if they are female, their appearance will automatically be one of the first things you think about,; if they are male, it may or may not be, usually attracting notice only if there’s something extraordinary about it, or none at all. There are contexts, many of them, where men’s appearances simply don’t matter (and this seems to apply across the board, regardless of the age, gender, and sexual orientation of the viewer), but women’s appearance never seems to be so irrelevant that it simply escapes notice.
The original commenter is a first class P.O.S., of course, but I think we are all guilty of automatically thinking, at least to some small, hidden extent that an article titled “Gender Aesthetics” will discuss women’s appearance. Or, at least, that’s how I see it.
Mark – well to be sure, it was a woman who posted the shoe picture, and declared herself in love with it.
Anna – quite so. And the title was deliberate that way – pseudo-androgynous on purpose.
Yes, very very disappointingly true. But the douche that sparked this isn’t thinking about anyone’s status, skill or intellect, he’s thinking about what gives him a hard on. Apparently women only do this for him when dressed like hookers: his bad and his tragedy (which is not to disparage hookers by the way, they have to be market led as much as any business person). Incidentally, the repressed homosexuality (and thus the repulsive homophobia) in the comment is almost tangible. Perhaps his fate is not to have a truly meaningful relationship with anyone of any gender. Sad really!
Or I could fill up the thread practicing html…Soz!!
It’s not even that though, or rather, not just that – it’s that all women who don’t give him a hard on are “uggggh!!!” It’s anger at women who have the gall to clutter up the world while being not to his taste sexually or aesthetically. It’s anger and hostility at women who fail to be attractive enough. It’s the background idea that attractiveness is the only possible reason for women to take up space.
“So the idea is that it’s actually possible to sell very expensive shoes that are literally not meant for walking but only for fucking?”
Figuratively speaking, of course.
Wull that’s why I said literally, innit.
Justicar……………..what? What are you talking about? Who is James? There is no James on this thread apart from your invocation of him just above.
What “assertion” of mine are you talking about? I was citing the quote in the post, not anything anyone said in a comment here. You seem to be arguing with me about various things that other people said, but I didn’t say those things. The quote in the post, though, was indeed about all women. I didn’t say it was about all women needing to do anything. I said what I said – ” It announced that without cosmetic surgery and makeup and the rest of it, all women are uggggggghhh.” That simply is what the guy said – look at the post.
Maybe your dispute is with Cath. But I’m not Cath.
My apologies. Jim. I did, I’ll note, reference the post at which the person in question’s comments could be found, in addition to transcribing in full his precise remarks.
You said, and I’ll quote you, to me: “Justicar – but the whole point is that the original comment wasn’t about “any given person,” it was about all women. It announced that without cosmetic surgery and makeup and the rest of it, all women are uggggggghhh. And it’s not about analyzing things in your own head, it’s about saying/writing things in public – the very opposite of your own head.”
This must be in response to the only other comment I’ve ever left here since it addresses me by name and I’m the author one, and only one, post. The post to which you were responded was itself a response to Cath, as you implied. Since my comments were directed to her, by name, with respect to her response to Jim, by (correctly) name and post number, your originally comment to me made no sense unless I drew the conclusion, which I did for argument’s sake, that you thought I was referring to your article even though I’d address Cath by name.
So, it would seem you’re addressing my post in light of a post to which it wasn’t directed; thus, my response take the form it did.
Oh and another thing –
You seem to be incredibly confused. That’s not my claim! It was the claim of some guy on Facebook, and the very thing I was disputing.
Right; your comment #27.
Could you take a slightly less chippy tone? Since, as you note, you haven’t commented here before (though I’ve seen you at Eric’s), it might be helpful to dial down the scorn a little.
I was responding to your comment addressed to Cath, but the comment also generalizes; I was responding to the generalizing, based on the thinking in the original post.
I am not confused about what I wrote. You were confused about the topic to which my comment was directed; it was not, again, about the person in the article. It was about Jim’s comment in the first post on this page, and Cath’s response to it.
It seems that we’re talking to cross-purposes.
Here’s how: you said in # 28
But the subject matter of my post and of Jim’s comment and of Cath’s response wasn’t evaluation of one person, it was evaluation of all people of one sex. So your saying “I can evaluate one person any way I want to” isn’t strictly relevant and isn’t what the post is about. That was my point.
You certainly were confused when you said I claimed “that barring cosmetic surgery, and makeup women are categorically unattractive.” I didn’t claim that. You said I did. That’s confused.
I was, in the main, speaking about a very specific person and his exact claims; I fail to see how that is generalized.
Alas, the Tone Card. Your house, your rules and all, but I do note it does seem to be a conspicuously low bar for what constitutes playing said Tone Card. Duly noted, and I’ll remember that in the future (say on Eric’s blog) if we have occasion to discuss anything I’ll just make sure to steer clear since just being direct is intended as being “chippy”. I take my leave now so that I can go find some eggshells to practice walking on in case you ever have the misfortune of reading something I might write somewhere.
Regards,
Justicar
Pffffffff. Yes, “the tone card.” There’s no principle at stake here, so “the tone card” is not a diversion or an excuse. You could have been less huffy and you could have refrained from misquoting me. Big woop.
That FB post is really repulsive. And kind of self contradicting. All these things are unnecessary, but without them all women are “ugggh!!!” ? WTF?! The most offensive to me is that he says cosmetic surgery is somehow necessary. The gay reference is just idiotic topping.
Justicar – WTF? I get Cath’s initial reaction. Women are already almost constantly reduced to their looks IRL, on the web it’s even more asinine due to the anonymity. Try posting a picture of any woman – e.g. next to and article she wrote – and observe the cesspool of comments from idiots who fail to address the article at all and only spout bullshit about her looks.
Maybe I fail at reading comprehension, but reread Cath’s comment #15: there’s a perfect explanation of the first reaction, it seemed to Cath as if Jim wasn’t adressing the awefulness of the FB post, only saying that different criteria were more important (to him). Maybe Cath was jumping the gun a bit to you, but I think that was justified as Jim’s first post wasn’t too clear. Jim clarified and Cath elaborated about her process of thinking. I hope I’m not misrepresenting Cath?
Justicar, you were at least mistakingly assigning a statement of Cath to Ophelia and misunderstanding what Ophelia said in #35.
I was writing more about how in certain settings (with mutual understanding, or people being friends) comments about appearance may be ok, but usually off-topic and unsolicited comments are a bad idea.
Because my initial idea ended up long-winded, so in short: telling someone you like a particular article of clothing can be fine, but saying something about a body part is bad – and usually just plain insulting.
I guess PersonalFailure’s snarky post says it better, especially her explanation about c) sincere.
Let it be noted that sometimes women wear high heels in order to be taller, to put themselves on a more equal footing with men.
Yes, I would be very surprised were it not possible. I’m not informed enough to direct you to particular brands, but I feel confident in there being either such a thing, or a shoe simply meant to be seen.
This jackass hasn’t seen my wife first thing in the morning and still gorgeous!
My immediate reaction to the guy quoted was “thanks for warning me to stay well away from you.”
That’s kind of abstract—I am not looking for more partners—but it’s so over-the-top that this man doesn’t actually like women’s bodies or minds that it’s hard to imagine that anyone out there would choose to try to meet his expectations.
Yes, there are women doing most of the things he talks about, but the degree of entitlement as well as misogyny is striking.
StaticMotion, I think that’s fine.
And I wasn’t jumping on Jim at all, just pointing out what I assumed was an accidental piece of bad phrasing. It’s a mistake to focus on the content of the preference, instead of on the entitled bullshit of proclaiming that all women should take efforts to match your preferences.
Everybody is entitled to their own preferences. Even if you genuinely prefer the highly artificial fashion model look, that’s OK. It does take a lot of time, money and work to sustain, but there are some women who are seriously into it. (I know some in the retro fashion scene, which is similar.) With luck, one day you may meet someone like that. And if you prefer the au naturel look, I would like to assume you won’t go off in a rage about how disgusting those friends are for wearing 50s frocks and makeup.
Just would like to say that I wear fun skirts and cute shoes because I WANT TO. I think they’re pretty, and I like pretty things. I get really tired of people equating self-decoration with “dressed like a hooker” or “putting on airs.” I think the desire to self-decorate is inherent in the biology of the female. Yeah, I said it. ;) Where the idiot who made the comment in question has it wrong is thinking it’s my “job” to do it “for him.” Screw you dude. I show off my legs cuz I love em myself. :)
Jenergy–
What makes you think self-decorating is specifically female? Our culture encourages more of it in women, and the kinds of decoration that are demanded or even accepted vary by gender: but plenty of non-female people care a lot about their clothes, spend serious money on hairdos, wear jewelry or tattoos, and so on? If my long hair is self-decoration, so is my brother-in-law’s. If my earrings count, so do my partner’s. And so on.
Yes, by all means do it for yourself, but the ways we show things off are also about interacting with other people.
And then, what exactly is it that makes a shoe cute or a skirt fun?
As a male, I’m reluctant to comment in this thread, but I feel compelled to point out the extent to which some of the women around me attempt to dictate my appearance — I’m frequently told how to dress, how to groom (generally this latter generally starts off innocuous, then inevitably segues into something along the lines of total removal of all body hair), which specific muscle groups I need to work out more, etc. And as someone else already mentioned, some women can be the most ruthless critics of other women. I’d therefore submit that the problem here is that some people want to dictate to other people what their appearances “should” be. As to whether more of the people dictating, vs. more of the people being dictated to, are male or female, I lack enough empirical data to form a conclusion.
Perhaps they were all warped by Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Heehee.