NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/women/20065

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-20 | 4.1 KB

Xref: sparky soc.women:20065 alt.feminism:4801 soc.men:19702
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.feminism,soc.men
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!news.nd.edu!berlin!slarsen
From: [e-mail] (susan larsen)
Subject: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
References: <[e-mail]>> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:47:42 GMT
Lines: 73

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Heiner Biesel) writes:
>[e-mail] (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>
>>...[]... The way I see it,
>>it is much easier for a person to develop and change their personality
>>than it is for them to change their looks (which they are basically born
>>with).
>
>Ah! This, I think, gets to the heart of the matter. Personality is under
>our immediate control, and looks aren't, or at least so Muffy believes.
>
>---deletia---
>
>Looks, by contrast, require merely an investment in cosmetics and plastic
>surgery, something that would appear, to me at least, to require much less
>time and willpower than to change one's personality significantly.

I've been thinking about why women get so riled about supermodel or
super-woman type images and came up with this thought:

It isn't so much an issue of looks over personality as much as an
issue of looks versus actions.

If you think of society as having just so many slots "at the top", just
so much fame, fortune and reward to go around.  Now, think of the
existence of quotas for those slots, women being allocated so many slots
and men being allocated their share.  Now, look at who fills those slots
and why......

Many women are "at the top" because of who they are, not what they've done.
Women who are supermodels, for instance, must be a certain height, weight,
have a certain fat distribution, a particular look, cooperative hair, etc.
Although some of these attributes are subject to limited personal control,
the bulk of these qualifications are genetic, a happenstance of birth.

Few of the top slots occupied by men are filled because of who they are.
These slots are filled mostly by men who have done something, succeeded
at business or sports, fame in their field of endeavor.  Some of these
guys may have an edge because of birth, a Kennedy for instance, and
a few may have parlayed good looks into success, like Tom Selleck.
But the impression here at the bottom is that a top niche can be
owned by a man who does something and does it well.

Back to the top women...  How many got a leg up because of marriage
or connections with a top guy?  Marla Maples, Princess Diana, the
grande dames of both coasts.  Again, looks can play a very large part
in this traditional feminine road to the top.

The top men....  Marriage or associations?  I can't think of any examples.
Are Cher's boyfriends respected men?  Not hardly.

The frustrating thing about this, for women, is that if there is only so
much room at the top and if so many slots are given over to women who
simply are, where does it leave the women who are trying to get to the top
through actions?  We see a world of reward going to men who achieve,
regardless of who they are and then feel gypped when that same road to
the top is so crowded with women who are succeeding because of good
genes or lucky associations.

Now, I'm not saying that there actually are only so many fame slots or
the cookies comes automatically to good looking women.  What I am saying,
though, is that women can come to feel that female success, whether it
be monetary, dating, social whatever, comes in disproportionate volume
to looker-women over doer-women.  While a man can comfort himself in
knowing that fame came to an Al Unser because Al tried harder, a woman
finds small comfort in reconciling fame and goodies going to an
Elle MacPherson because Elle was born a "better" woman.

Of course, these are generalizations; your mileage may vary.


Sue Larsen
[e-mail]