Did women of the late 19th century go out of their way to look homely?

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=elmwood]
. . . it’s very rare that I’ll see a woman that looks even remotely attractive by today’s standards.
[/QUOTE]

You do realize that 1886 was 122 years ago, right? Do you really think these women were trying to look beautiful by the standards of 2008? I’m sure by the standards of their own time, they were just as attractive as today’s women.

I wonder what the people in another 122 years (2130) would think of today’s women? “Ewww, their breasts are covered and they don’t even color the whites of their eyes. And how can they just sit there with their ears showing? And my God, they still have *TEETH!!! *And why are they all smiling? They must have gone out of their way to look homely.”

22

[QUOTE=Snarky_Kong]
Really? All the rest I either agree or can’t tell for the photo, but I did an “EEEK!” at this one.
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Are you serious? That girl is gorgeous - I was going to nominate her for “hottest of the list”. Look at her eyes!

I was looking to see if Himself still has any of his wet plate photographs of me (a not incredibly unattractive woman) online - he doesn’t, but here I’ve found one of one of his friends. This is the first one he ever did that came out right. Obviously it’s the lower left black and white one. Compare and contrast the “modern dandies” and see how his buddy looks so much more “authentic” for the era they’re trying to appropriate. Seriously, staring at the camera for five, ten, fifteen seconds? That’s how it makes you look. Mad, like Bertha.

23

[QUOTE=A.R. Cane]
The Victorian era (1837-1901) had a great influence on women’s dress and deportment. Also the habit of smiling was not popular, people tended to look more serious and refind for photographs, which were expensive and somewhat rare for the average person.
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I have an old very formal photo of my mother’s family, from the 1910’s. My aunt, about 6 or 7 at the time, had tears running down her face. According to my mother, my grandfather had caught the girl smiling, and he smacked her.

24

[QUOTE=elelle]
Well, here’s some more food for thought: that women started being more appealing when they had the freedom to express themselves more, about the turn of the 19th century. No wonder those gals looked grim, it was still a grim existence for women then. With freedom came expression of femininity, and , surely, more smiles at having a better life.
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Trust me, what brought “smiles at having a better life” was photography technology. I’d like to see you hold a smile for fifteen seconds and have it not be a rictus grin. Try it now. One mississippi two mississippi… it’s a long time. Even as the exposure time got shorter and shorter, it was still pretty long. No “Whoops, I closed my eyes!”.

25

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
Here are some more pretty women… I got these from the Vintage Photo Livejournal Community
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
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Those are not all pretty women. If fact, most are not.

10 - poor photo but you could probably give her a bath and send her to a salon and fix her up.

12 - I saved myself just after I clicked on that link and didn’t flip over backwards. Not appreciated.

13 - Baby face. Not fugly but not good either. Her best hope for a prom date is still coming from the special ed department. I bet she didn’t even own a toothbrush.

14 - 15 - Once you clean them up, the should be able to walk the streets without passerbys barfing but they are definitely only people that frat guys would pick up as a peer pressure stunt.

16 - She needs to get rid of the corset. She is probably unhealthy and sterile at this point. I never understood why fathers ever let their daughter strangle themselves at the waste.

17 - She has got a world-class rack but that is offset many times over by the face. If you got her to a dentist, forced her to hit the gym, and then hit he plastic surgeon, she could pass in modern society.

18 - She has a nice face but there is no body shot.

Verdict - #10 and #18 are potentially pretty but they would still need all kinds of work to become a hot, modern female.

I wouldn’t screw any of them with somebody else’s dick and there is no way in hell I would kiss any of them without tens of thousands of dollars in dental work. Can you imagine if a Victorian chick time travelled to 2008 and you got so dunk that you picked her up in a bar? You go back to your place and start to play around and you undo her corset. Bam, you get slammed into the wall and you went from a skinny chick to a fat one in .02 milliseconds. Screw it you say because you are drunk and horny. You decide to kiss but the loose teeth and abbesses aren’t so appealing.

Plan B requires you do go down on her. It has been a while since her monthly bath and she has quite the sexual odor. You puke a few times and get back to business. She has quite the bush and you try and try. Finally, you figure out that ladies back then did not have access to Tampax and the little bumps in the bush are congealed blood and the eggs of public lice. Even as a horny boy, enough is enough and you throw the nasty skank out of your apartment.

26

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Those are not all pretty women. If fact, most are not.
…
…

[/QUOTE]
Since this is not the pit, I can’t say what I would like to say to you. But I think I can speak for everyone else who is interested in this thread and discussing the difference between today’s beauty standards and those of 100 years ago in an intelligent manner, please spare us any more of your immature, ignorant, and misogynistic comments.

27

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Those are not all pretty women. If fact, most are not.

10 - poor photo but you could probably give her a bath and send her to a salon and fix her up.

12 - I saved myself just after I clicked on that link and didn’t flip over backwards. Not appreciated.

13 - Baby face. Not fugly but not good either. Her best hope for a prom date is still coming from the special ed department. I bet she didn’t even own a toothbrush.

14 - 15 - Once you clean them up, the should be able to walk the streets without passerbys barfing but they are definitely only people that frat guys would pick up as a peer pressure stunt.

16 - She needs to get rid of the corset. She is probably unhealthy and sterile at this point. I never understood why fathers ever let their daughter strangle themselves at the waste.

17 - She has got a world-class rack but that is offset many times over by the face. If you got her to a dentist, forced her to hit the gym, and then hit he plastic surgeon, she could pass in modern society.

18 - She has a nice face but there is no body shot.

Verdict - #10 and #18 are potentially pretty but they would still need all kinds of work to become a hot, modern female.

I wouldn’t screw any of them with somebody else’s dick and there is no way in hell I would kiss any of them without tens of thousands of dollars in dental work. Can you imagine if a Victorian chick time travelled to 2008 and you got so dunk that you picked her up in a bar? You go back to your place and start to play around and you undo her corset. Bam, you get slammed into the wall and you went from a skinny chick to a fat one in .02 milliseconds. Screw it you say because you are drunk and horny. You decide to kiss but the loose teeth and abbesses aren’t so appealing.

Plan B requires you do go down on her. It has been a while since her monthly bath and she has quite the sexual odor. You puke a few times and get back to business. She has quite the bush and you try and try. Finally, you figure out that ladies back then did not have access to Tampax and the little bumps in the bush are congealed blood and the eggs of public lice. Even as a horny boy, enough is enough and you throw the nasty skank out of your apartment.
[/QUOTE]

I wonder what those women would say after having a sexual encounter with you, assuming you were also born/living in that time period. I have no doubt you’d revolt most of them.

28

[QUOTE=samclem]
I wonder what those women would say after having a sexual encounter with you, assuming you were also born/living in that time period. I have no doubt you’d revolt most of them.
[/QUOTE]

Undoubtedly that is true just as it has been all of my life in the late 20th and early 21st century.

29

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Those are not all pretty women. If fact, most are not. Blah blah blah…

[/QUOTE]

Was this supposed to be funny or clever? :confused:

30

[QUOTE=Snarky_Kong]
Really? All the rest I either agree or can’t tell for the photo, but I did an “EEEK!” at this one.
[/QUOTE]

You may take your “EEEK!” over there. I’m going to admiring this hot babe for a while, now.

What’s the number to Rent-a-TARDIS?

31

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
Since this is not the pit, I can’t say what I would like to say to you. But I think I can speak for everyone else who is interested in this thread and discussing the difference between today’s beauty standards and those of 100 years ago in an intelligent manner, please spare us any more of your immature, ignorant, and misogynistic comments.
[/QUOTE]

I am interested in this thread. Like I said, I started an extremely similar one a long time ago. It is pretty hard to judge beauty if you don’t look at pictures and judge beauty. There isn’t any other way if you think about it.

How would you suggest that people figure out relative beauty in different time periods if you can’t comment on the evidence? The OP based the question on preconceptions which are the same ones that I always had. There is no problem with that.

To be fair, I didn’t realize what forum I was posting in. I thought it was in IMHO. I try to answer question in GQ in a more academic and dignified way. I stand by my ratings because you can’t answer a question about beauty without being subjective.

32

It’s the same effect that causes us all to look like criminals in our passport pictures: no smiling, being required to maintain a neutral expression. In their case it was to remain still during long exposures. In our case it’s so the image-recognition software can read in our faces (at least that’s what they told me the last time I got a passport).

33

I think the staring into the camera - combined with the lack of smiling - is what makes them look zombified.

(Checks the world population figures…) Apparently they were beautiful enough.

34

I’d be interested in seeing what a typical selection of modern people would look like photographed in the same Victorian outfits using the same Victorian equipment and under the same Victorian conditions. For comparison, they could also be photographed in the same outfits under modern conditions with modern equipment, and in modern clothes.

I’m curious what effect modern aesthetic preferences like tanning might have, and also whether different diets, pollution levels, etc, might have had an effect on general appearance. Has anyone actually done this?

Edit: #5 is seriously beautiful.

35

To make it clear, I apologize for my posts above. I really didn’t mean to post to GQ that way. I write in a few different styles and that is not one that I ever intend on using in GQ.

I am really interested in the thread because it is something I am interested in too. However, I still don’t see how you can judge relative beauty if you can’ comment on the pictures. Unless you can bring 19th century women to appear on a reality show today, that is all the evidence we had. Most of them look terrible to me as well even if you can get past the facial expressions. A couple are passable. Once you get to the 1920’s, you start to see some true beauties in the modern sense.

36

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
To make it clear, I apologize for my posts above. I really didn’t mean to post to GQ that way. I write in a few different styles and that is not one that I ever intend on using in GQ.

I am really interested in the thread because it is something I am interested in too. However, I still don’t see how you can judge relative beauty if you can’ comment on the pictures.
[/QUOTE]
As you said above, you thought you were in IMHO. Your comments, IMHO, were not exactly what you should have posted in GQ. As you said.

37

Seriously, Shagnasty, it isn’t your GQ versus IMHO style… that was just kind of revolting. And I’ve never felt that way about you. These are real women, you know? I feel you either can’t see past the hairstyles or you can’t get over the “screwing my great grandma” thing, because otherwise I can’t square it with what I know of you. I mean, really?

38

Shagnasty, beauty is a matter of taste and your taste is your own, so if you don’t think these women are attractive then so be it, for you. I wouldn’t otherwise comment. But when you comment negatively on the teeth of women with their mouths closed, and suggest that women in photographs who are showing no visible dirt need to take a bath, your opinion on their beauty cannot be taken seriously. If you are having trouble understanding why women in the past don’t seem attractive to you, I think that looking inwards rather than outwards might find the answer quicker.

39

I’m not very photogenic, and I’m sure that if I had to keep smiling and not blink while looking at the camera’s bright light for 15 endless seconds, it would be an even worse affair. These women just look like any women today-- even Angelina Jolie takes a crap picture every now and then, and looking through a high school yearbook would have a similar success rate to the sorority photo. Imagine you got to sit for a photo ONCE (in your life, even), rather than toss out the 35 bad takes from the digital camera. No do-overs.

40

[QUOTE=elmwood]
Delta Gamma Sorority, 1886
Imgur
[/QUOTE]
There is no way anyone will be able to convince me that the one in the very top row on the far right is not a man in a drag.

Well, real dead women, anyway. It may not have been GQ material, but I got a chuckle out of Shagnasty’s post, particularly the part about corset removal.