New Project: Chapter 10
Women give. That is their prerogative or prison.
At first, the giving is sexual. In his essay, Toward a Performance Model of Sex, Thomas Macaulay Millar writes, “Women are guardians of the tickets; men apply for access to them. This model pervades casual conversation about sex: Women “give” it up, men “get” some.”
Women’s bodies are currency, their kisses coins. They learn early to maximize value by twirling skirts, curling silken hair around tiny fingers, and casting eyes to the ground. They are pretty or cute, but never beautiful or accomplished because beauty and accomplishment have power and power is something they should never claim if they want to belong.
In her article, Why aren’t We Allowed to Think We’re Pretty, Kate Fridkis says, “I’m ugly. Why? Because beauty feels important; even when I’d like it not to, even when there are a million other, bigger, more pressing things in my life, beauty feels sensitive, because we know, let’s be honest, we know it matters.”
Ugly has never started a war, broken a marriage, or angered the gods. Ugly women have good friends. They make people laugh. They’re one of us. Beautiful and/or accomplished women are dangerous. This knowledge, buried deep in our bones, goes back at least two thousand years when the myths of Eros and Psyche and Arachne were revisited by the Latin poet, Ovid. His interpretations marked a cultural shift that aligned with the onset of Christianity and the cementing of a patriarchal world.
What is interesting about Ovid’s interpretation of the myths is this: in both instances goddesses punished women for being too beautiful or accomplished. Women oppressing women is that old.
In earlier versions of the myths, the goddesses demonstrated more kindness, more empathy toward the women. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the goddesses were cruel. I won’t go into the scholarly work around either of these myths or how others believe they have influenced us. I am merely interested in the fact that women punished women two millennia ago for qualities that should have been celebrated, and would have been had the unfortunate victims been men.
Why?
Three months pregnant with my third child, my then husband and I attended his partner’s wedding. I wore a red dress with a belted waist, long skirt, and plunging V-neck. Pregnancy suited me, clearing my skin and glossing my hair, and, for the first time since morning sickness ended, I felt beautiful.
The reception was held at the groom’s house, an old Victorian with a postage stamp yard and U-shaped floor plan. The place was packed. My husband headed toward the kitchen while I stopped to relieve my insistent bladder. When finished, I made my way through cramped rooms ringing with women’s laughter. Eyes narrowed to disapproving slits and tracked my progress. Voices whispered. I heard the word, “slut” as I rounded a corner. By the time I found my husband, tears threatened my mascara.
After the birth, my mother came to visit. With two toddlers and a newborn, I seldom had time to shower much less keep up my appearance. Money was tight, the house a mess, the marriage strained. I lived in leggings and sweatshirts and hurried through my days as the wife of a police officer who had definite ideas about how things should be done.
Like my husband, my mother’s opinions had weight. Consequently, when she told me the biggest problem with my marriage was how dowdy I looked, I believed her. I washed my hair, put on a better shirt, and applied some makeup. Then, referencing my leggings, my mother said I looked like a slut.
She meant no harm. In fact, her intention was the opposite. She really wanted to help, wanted my marriage to work and me to be happy, so she did what she’d been taught. Her judgment stung.
Beauty is permissible if it’s unattainable. We can pursue the ideal as long as we don’t get too close to the reality. In fact, it’s our job. Advertisers depend on this and women buy their products in pursuit of perfection and the possibility of rest. Women are exhausted and beauty can land husbands with big bucks, personal promotions, and greater financial success. Beauty has power. Get some, but not too much. Too much or too little causes women to denigrate and police themselves.
Like the women at the party, my mother called me a slut because my appearance threatened the status quo. In each moment, I was inappropriate. Young mothers are still mothers. Their days as sirens and temptresses are over. The red dress would have been fine without the neckline. The shirt, makeup, and freshly washed hair would have been perfect without leggings that emphasized my butt. In each instance, I was a threat to the other women present, regardless of my actions or intentions, because in that moment I appeared to have it all. I was a married woman and a sexy mom. I had the house, the man, the bright young sons and, because I retained some sex appeal, wasn’t entirely dependent upon them. Beautiful women can get unstuck. They can take what another got and, worse, don’t need to belong. They are free to move unilaterally.
The problem is most of us don’t consider ourselves beautiful or, for that matter, accomplished. There is always something we lack, something more we can do, something we should have that keeps liberty (and thus equality) at bay. In addition, desire to belong to a social construct keeps us hiding and lying to ourselves in order to maintain a semblance of normalcy and an arbitrary status that can be taken away without notice. So how do we change the game?
There are several ways. The first is to understand that beauty and sexy are not the same. They both have power and may embody qualities of the other, but they are distinctly different. Sexy invites attention, stirs sexual desire, and offers the lure of possession. It can be playful or serious, harmless or dangerous. However, regardless of intent or desire, it is temporal. Sexy requires substantial energy and one simply cannot be sexy all the time.
Beauty is different. Despite popular opinion, it does not reside in the physical alone. The particular aesthetic of a face or body is irrelevant to our understanding of beauty and especially pleasing faces are often cold. The etymology of beauty indicates its definition has evolved according to culture.
In its earliest incarnation, beauty meant to do, perform; show favor, revere. As late as the fourteenth century, beauty meant physical attractiveness and goodness and courtesy.
A 1977 Miriam Webster New Collegiate Dictionary defines beauty as: The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that give pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.
Beauty is not solely a physical attribute, nor is physical aesthetic a prerequisite for beauty. Beauty is what we do and give. The doing and giving light us up and bring happiness to those fortunate enough to observe us. We are beautiful for who we are, not for our appearance.
I don’t know how many times Steve has snuck up on me while I’m working and whispered, “You’re beautiful.” I never feel beautiful while working. It honestly doesn’t cross my mind. I’m busy thinking about the task at hand and not conscious of my appearance. For years, I shook my head and denied his compliment without understanding he meant every word. I didn’t have to be groomed or dressed, paying attention to him, or being anything more than myself for him to revel in the beauty I possess.
Writing the last sentence, I cringed. Was that thunder in the distance? Lightning? Will God strike me down for my unexcused arrogance? Who am I to be beautiful? Or talented? Or accomplished?
Marianne Williamson answered those questions in her book, A Course in Miracles. She wrote, “Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
This passage is quoted so often it is almost cliché, but I repeat it here because it means something. We are beauty embodied. Beauty is not an attribute awarded to us for physique or social status. It is the manifestation of our love of self and others. We can spice it up, add a little sexy when we want, but beauty is inherent, not an accomplishment. So where did its concept go wrong?
