So this was the best way you could think of to express that you find these women unattractive? What are you, a 15-year-old from the “special ed department?”
Whatever forum you are in, surely you could come up with a more intelligent way of expressing your opinions. There isn’t any forum on the SDMB in which this type of immature drivel would be appropriate.
And to echo what Princhester said, why the focus on dental hygiene when you can’t even see their teeth? And none of them look dirty… in fact they are all clean and well groomed. So why the focus on “cleaning them up” or giving them a bath?
I agree with you. And I going to hazard that this particular lady was a green-eyed redhead.
Looking at the sorority photo again, the girl on the far left, not-quite-front row looks astonishingly like my mother when she was a similar age. I just sent her a link to that picture to see if she can guess which one I’m talking about, and to find out if she knows of any ancestors who may have been in that sorority at that time. The resemblance is uncanny.
The two girls front row center appear very attractive to me. The right front girl, whom somebody thought was the only attractive one, I’ll bet actually had a very flat face if you saw her in profile. Now, the girl above her left shoulder (the one standing, with her arms behind her back) looks like she would sit down with the geeks for a game of D&D
So you think Little Miss Saucy Eyebrows on the bottom row would fill the room if she unlaced that whalebone? Because I’m an extremely hetero woman and I’d hit that.
Her birth name was Jeanette Jerome. She married Lord Randolph Churchill. Due to the bizarre way the British aristocracy works, she became Lady Randolph Churchill.
Did women of the late 19th century go out of their way to look homely?
I would say, in a sense, yes. But not for purpose of looking homely (to our eyes), rather to follow the style of the day. Two key aspects, as I see it, are smiles and hair. Smiles have been pretty well covered already, but hair has not been fully discussed yet.
We are used to seeing lots of women with hair down beside their faces, even with many short styles. It is often quite becoming. But these photos are from an era where a woman letting her hair down was a significant gesture of relaxation and often sexuality. The gals in the sorority photo thus all have their hair up on the sides. There is no framing of the faces, no “crowning glory.” I would bet that with more modern hairstyles many of them would look much more appealing.
Yep, see most of those ladies with their hair down and smiling, and it would be “hubba hubba.”
It’s the lack of smiling. In Cameroon, people do not smile in photos. Some of my friends there are the most amazingly beautiful women I’ve ever seen, but they look plain and manly in their photos.
Also, it’s worth remembering that most people are not all that attractive. Next time you go to the grocery store, picture all the women you meet with unstyled hair, no makeup and no smiles. You’ll be lucky if you find one that would still be attractive. In real life, we get over that by having personalities that make us beautiful even when the tricks arn’t there. But in a photo- especially a formal and expressionless one- that doesn’t shine through.
I think the photographic limitations are a red herring. paintings don’t look sexy until the mid 20th century either. In fact, I had assumed there was just something about painting faces that made it hard to realistically depict women until I started seeing post 1950s representational art and I was stunned by some of the beauties.
I agree with Gary T - the hair and the lack of smiling have a lot to do with it. Mister Rik in post #2 also has a point - these are respectable middle class girls at college in an era when that was fairly uncommon. As well as skewing the sample they probably wanted to look serious.
From our point of view the dresses - 1880’s day dress - are pretty hideous. Even for the late 19th century they are pretty all enveloping with their high necklines and massive skirts. Upper class evening dress - with a bit more decolletage - before and after this date might well show them to better advantage!
One specific difference not yet pointed out in detail is the lack of modern-day eye makeup – not even shadow, necessarily. A little eyeliner and mascara makes a significant difference.
Two of the women in the sorority photo resemble young women I know IRL. Hair, makeup, and modern dress account for about 90% of the difference in appearance.
