Tales from the Frontlines: Why Are My Accomplishments Less Important than My Face?

[Wetzelbill]

I saw Jessica Bennett on The Young Turks a few months ago, she consistently does great work. -WB

Tales from the Frontlines: Why Are My Accomplishments Less Important than My Face?

From reader Julie, who lives in Japan (!):

As a kid I didn’t understand that just wanting to be treated decently made me a feminist. I thought it was normal to expect equality and to ask for fair treatment. I was probably a teen before I realized that I had been a feminist all along… I also know I get reminded of WHY I am a feminist every day.

When I do just as well or better than my male coworkers, partners, friends, or what have you, I watch the compliments and congratulations they get. He’s a hard worker. He did a good job. He is a great leader. He shows promise. Then it is my turn.

“She’s the prettiest girl/teacher/worker/student/employee we’ve ever had!”

Not once in all my life have I heard anyone praising a male coworker, fellow student, group member, et cetera, by praising his looks. Sure, I am happy you think I am pretty. I work hard to stay in shape and to look nice. I do. But, I also work hard to be the best damn employee/student/friend you have ever had, too. And I KNOW I am performing just as well if not better than the men sitting around me, being told how clever/hard working/productive they are.

What I want to know is, what about the girls who aren’t “pretty”? What are these jerks complimenting those women on? Making a good pot of coffee? Or are they just totally invisible?

http://equalitymyth.com/post/641306162/tales-from-the-frontlines-why-are-my-accomplishments

[BlancheSplanchnik]

1. Great catch. I can vouch for the truth of the author's experience.

I'll bet a lot of women here can.

lower pay and lesser promotions too, plus a general perception of higher competence given to men. It's all connected.

and what happens to the ones who aren't pretty? Well, now that I'm no longer eye-candy, I'd say the alternative is invisibility.


Seems a little ironic to me, to have a woman doing an editorial report like this on TYT, which is very focused on the parallel to their news focus: titty and bootay stories. Have a look at their YouTube homepage where you can see All Vids. I haven't bothered to watch the content, but with cover page advertising like that, it's pretty obvious what they want to see re: women.

[zazen]

3. I'm glad she has friends; it was the jealousy/vindictiveness of women that was hardest

We shoulda hung out, BlancheSpanchenik. :-)

Plus 20-30 years ago, if you brought this up, people acted like you "had it all" so why were you complaining. One was never supposed to bring up the social reality of one's own "attractiveness," even if that meant that everywhere you went, day in and day out, grocery stores, restaurants, library, class, nightclubs, the park, walking down the side of the road, church, you were hit on, several times a day. Stalked. It was like being a celebrity without any of the money or glory, just the entitlement of complete strangers to your personal space.

In the 80s and early 90s, when this was my experience, as a young person who had skipped two grades and was expected to go on for a PhD, it was unspeakable. There was no model for it. The intellectual (which always had a "male" gaze) was the person who went about in the world, freely experiencing it, being a junior anthropologist. But I learned quickly not to gaze at anyone, lest it be seen as an invitation to be further hunted. The men were always looking for ways to blame you for their bad behaviors.

I did have a friend who's a professor now who talked about finally getting, in her early 20s, to make her dream trip to Italy and having to leave after three days because the sexual harassment was so bad. I'm trying to prepare my daughters for this. It really was something you weren't socially allowed to talk about, for it would make the other girls even more jealous and mean to you and make the men who couldn't "have" you all the more hostile. What? To be a serious intellectual, radical feminist, and simultaneously occupy the space of "young beautiful woman" was beyond comprehension.

I'm enjoying being an attractive "older woman." I'm a lot less visible, but get the attention I want. Even if you're considered very attractive at an older age, men don't feel like they can follow you up and down streets and into stores and on buses and show up at your doorstep (I had two married men, on separate occasions, do that). They're afraid to. Now men are beginning to do that shit to my teenage daughter because she appears on the outside to be so "vulnerable." More fool they. I've raised her to be anything but.

Thank God the environment's so much more validating for her though. I don't ever want her feeling that being hunted is her fault, that she can't gaze out at her world with the same intellect, curiosity, and determination as her male peers.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

4. :)

I've been both.....

and was verrrrry caught up in the belief that my only worth was my looks (a variety of factors contributed to that)

it's a fact that in this culture, women main way of getting any attention depends on their youth and looks. Hopefully, as women increase their numbers in jobs that hold responsibility and decision making, we will change the culture.



ha, I want to spend more time replying here but I need to get going!

It's not often you can really discuss the beauty issue. It is very complex and has deep ramifications, I think.

[Greyhound]

2. Does the fish taste water?

It is so completely pervasive that one is usually unaware of it, and when one does see it, it takes constant vigilance to avoid it.

Even then we frequently slip.
:kick: & R