I was in the teller window driveway this afternoon waiting to make a deposit and I looked over and saw a young woman in an adjacent car that looked to be in her early to mid 20’s. She wasn’t the elephant woman but she wasn’t attractive either. In fact she was fairly unattractive. Nose too small for her face, eyes a little bulgy, squarish face with and slightly blotchly complexion and a few lbs overweight etc. etc. She looked like any woman you might see any day of the week in the supermarklet or the bookstore. She was just your everday, garden variety, dumpy looking unattractive woman.
She could have been the nicest and most interesting person I would ever want to meet but by any objective generic “beauty” standard for western society she was not that attractive.
Now when a man is not that good looking he can least console himself that if he accumulates enought wealth or power he can become more “attractive” via these attributes. The reverse is generally not true for unattractive women. An unattractive woman with money and power is simply an unattractive woman with money and power to most men.
My question is this. If a woman is not that good looking and western society prizes female beauty so highly, how does she come to an accomodation about her looks without falling into despair? How doe she come to accept herself when everything around her she tells her that her value as a person is dependent on how physically attractive she is?
You really know nothing about this woman-perhaps she was having an off day-once fixed up, maybe she looks better. Maybe she’s married to the most fantastically wonderful man in the world.
The way astro asked this question, by picking on what he considered an “unattractive” woman, I’d :rolleyes: too. Squarish face? Few pounds overweight? That seems really petty.
I think the question he’s really trying to ask is, with the “beauty industry” so deeply ingrained in Western society, how do women (both “attractive” and “unattractive”) deal with the constant barrage of media images of “beauty” with their self-esteem intact?
You learn to love yourself. I am not saying it is easy, but that is what you do.
I wouldn’t trade my years of being overweight (and therefore by society’s standards, quite unattractive) for anything. They made me who I am–someone who knows that physical attractiveness is not as important as character. I knew I was a good person and that being a good person was more important than how I looked. I don’t know how attractive people learn that lesson. I suspect some of them don’t.
I’m not beautiful by societal standards. I carry extra weight, though I do try to keep it down some, my face tends to be blotchy, and I’ve got those tiny, squinty eyes. My mother always called them “thieves eyes”.
How do I not fall into despair? I like myself. I didn’t like myself so much when I was younger, but as I’ve gotten older (currently 28), I’ve realized that there are people out there who aren’t going to like me, simply on the basis of how I look, so I darn well better like myself. And I do. I’m a smart person, I love to laugh, and I have a good time in life. Who cares if I’m not the most beautiful person around? I don’t.
I’m not “picking” on her. I don’t know her from Eve and as I said she could be the most wonderful and interesting person I would ever want to meet. The question I’m trying to get at is,
“What are the real world coping strategies for unattractive women specifically (however defined) in an environment that pushes objectification and encourages people to define and judge themselves by how physically attractive they are?”
It’s difficult enough for a man to be unattractive and it’s twice as tough for a woman. I want to know how unattractive women cope.
I think the others that said it’s self esteem are correct. I don’t meet the requirement for a beauty, but if people don’t like me for what I am, I just feel I have better things to worry about. Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My husband sees me as a beautiful woman, so I don’t really car what others think. And IMHO, having more money doesn’t make anyone more attractive. I personally know people that are physically attractive and well off, but they are so nasty that I could never think they are beautiful.
Hmm, tough question, and I’m not really the one to answer this. I’m a guy, I really can’t say whether I’m attractive or not either. I guess I’m not stunningly handsome, that much is certain, beyond that I don’t know.
My general feeling is that everyone can look good. I know this sounds hokey, but there are few people I’ve met that couldn’t look good under the right circumstances. Ok, so some people are just goofy looking or kind of repulsive, I’m not so sure that this doesn’t have a lot to do with factors that are external to their physical feature. What I mean to say is that a lot has to do with physical attitude or health. I say this because I’ve found a lot of people very attractive that didn’t at first. It is amazing what getting to know and like someone does to your perception of them.
As for how to cope, good self-esteem, good friends and good attitude, I think that might work.
How can she make herself more attractive? By being wonderful and interesting. Perhaps I am being naive, but I find that women who are smart, funny, and interesting are more physically attractive than women who aren’t.
Brynda, we always knew you were attractive where it mattered most…
astro, it looks like we’re actually in agreement about what you meant. I just objected to singling out certain characteristics of “unattractiveness”. I think your OP would have been a lot more forceful if you’d made it without describing someone.
Since Astro hasn’t posted a photo of this repulsive eyesore, it’s impossible to say whether the lady really has a problem. My hunch is that it could be him, not her. There are very few genuinely ugly people, apart from those with some sort of disfigurement. But there are lots of women who are not Barbie lookalikes (thank god), and that puts them beyond the pale in the view of some guys who have been brainwashed into thinking white/blonde/boobs/thin waist/long legs = beauty.
I remember thinking “yuck, give me the girl next door anyday” when “10” came out and we were invite to believe Bo Derek was a goddess.
Ditto. My brother and I both agree that our physical eccentricities have made us into who we are, fascinating people rich in character. In high school, he had horrific cystic acne, which left him pretty scarred. He is still a devilishly handsome man, but character makes up in spades for what he lacks. I have been overweight since middle school to some degree or another, and it has forced me to value myself as something other than a pretty plaything. My question is how do ATTRACTIVE women cope with life? How do they grow older, live with themselves, or develop any secure sense of self-worth when so much of their identities is tied up in something so ephemeral as physical beauty? When I see really attractive women, I often pity them the burden they carry.
um, Guinastasia , I think you are missing the point. It doesn’t matter why she was unattractive to Astro, or how to make her more attractive. It doesn’t matter if you would find this woman attractive. Astro is asking how women who know that many (or most) would consider them unattractive deal with that knowledge, given society’s emphasis on physical beauty for women.
shrew , I love your question about how attractive women live with getting older and presumably less attractive. I have the unusual good fortune to be much more attractive now than I was when I was younger. As I said earlier, I learned to love myself then, so I don’t think it will be as hard for me to grow older as it can be for women who base their self-worth on their physical beauty.
Sadly, one of my best threads in IMHO has been sent to the great message board in the sky by the hackers. :mad: It was about how we learned to see ourselves as “fat”. I would say more than half of the respondents were heavily influenced by family rather than media. Those who did rely on the media also seemed to be far more prone to comparing themselves to every woman they met negatively.
I was not taught that my value as a person depended on my looks. In fact, I got something of a “You can be smart, or you can be beautiful - we prefer smart” message between my family and the media. This was generally reinforced by my experience that the really model level good looking girls when I was in HS and college tended to be mindless, if not mean-spirited.
As I learned to think more about my looks later on, I also learned the truth that I got in a fortune cookie: “Physical attraction comes with a meeting of the mindes” The woman you saw may not be beautiful to you, but she may be gorgeous to her SO, and that is the most important relationship to her. Of course, she may have ended up in an abusive relation with a person who reinforces her negative self-image too; that happens to some women.
I’ve really met very few “unattractive” women in my lifetime. As long as a woman displays her feminine side, and is not ashamed of it, and takes care of herself, she is beautiful to me.
Speaking as an unattractive – even ugly – woman, I say it’s all in the attitude. Two things I keep in mind:
Having a significant other is not the be-all and end-all in life.
I have too many valid things to worry about to waste time having my feelings hurt by unworthy people who discount me on the basis of my appearance.
I’m ugly. So what? I write poetry that has made readers feel they have been transported to other worlds. I write stories that have moved readers to tears. (This is not me being arrogant – this is straight from reader reviews.) THERE lies my beauty.
