Revenge of the Nerdette

[osprey_archer]

This article in Newsweek has bothered me for the past month. It’s called Revenge of the Nerdette, and ostensibly it’s about female math, science, and engineering students reclaiming their femininity by wearing high heels and working their sex appeal, and isn’t it just grand and empowering?

Yes, there’s an entire article in Newsweek devoted to the shocking fact that nerd girls have finally seen the light and dressed up pretty and—look at that!—they don’t clean up half bad. The best thing we can celebrate about female engineers is…how pretty they are. How feminine they look.

And the ones who are neither pretty nor feminine are clearly throwbacks to the bad old days of the patriarchy, when women in the sciences felt the need to hide their good looks and lipstick under a barrel in order to get anywhere. Yes, those days existed. Yes, they were bad. No, they are not the only reason why there are ugly or “unfeminine” women in engineering.

There are ugly and/or unfeminine women in engineering because, a) some women are just not pretty, and b) some women just aren’t interested in make-up and high heels. They’re worth just as much as the pretty, feminine ones. The only distinction between any of these women that really matters is whether or not they’re good engineers, which DOESN’T CORRELATE with whether or not they’re pretty.

But pretending that the only reason for ugly, unfeminine engineers was patriarchal oppression means that the article has a good reason to celebrate only the pretty engineers.

Because female achievement is worthless if it’s not accomplished by an absolutely ravishingly beautiful girl. The sine qua non of female worth is physical appearance; anything else is just gravy.

And, yes, it’s a step forward that we can bring ourselves to admire smart women, provided they happen to be beautiful too, but seriously? It’s time to move on. Physical appearance is important, and it will probably always be important, but whatsay we try to work past that and let other things be just as important?

And I’m not just talking about mainstream culture, either. The big message combating the obsession with being pretty is “Love your body” as it is. You can’t just accept your body; you can’t focus your self-image on parts of yourself that you are proud of; no, you have to LOVE your body. There’s just no way you could decide that your physical appearance is sufficiently unimportant to you that you aren’t going to expend the effort necessary to adore its imperfections.

It’s your body. It must, absolutely must, be so important to you that anything less than self-adoration will toast your self-worth to a crisp.

Dear universe: if you want to break stereotypes—if you really want to do something that will shock people—if you really want to go against the cultural grain—then defend ugly people. Don’t say that they’re secretly beautiful and you just have to look at them right; say that there’s nothing wrong with being ugly. And back it up.

Tell the ugly duckling story where the happy ending is the girl overcoming her pain over her crippling facial scarring by realizing she has a talent for math. And no fair having someone tell her she’s beautiful despite the fact that she no longer has a nose and one of her eyes is fused shut. Tell a story in which the main female character never thinks about her appearance at all.

Or, better still: write a magazine article about a woman without bothering to note whether or not she’s attractive.

Comments

[troublems03.livejournal.com]

I hate these kind of articles with a passion. I'm a woman and I study engineering and I agree that this story does nothing to break down stereotypes of any sort. If anything it is just a shallow representation that promotes all that it seeks to disprove.

That engineering is portrayed as 'unfeminine' and something only ugly women would take is ridiculous - I would not even agree that this is the current image of women in Engineering at all. I don't see how looks should come into this at all - hence, the basis of my disgust with the article. There's ugly people everywhere studying all sorts of courses but it is only in things such as Eng and Science where a big deal is made of this - by media outlets at least. And now this article tries to offer some sort of revelation that women can be pretty and be Engineers at the same time? Well, thanks, Einstein.

I don't have a problem with people looking good but:
a) What does that have to do with their abilities?
b) Surely they should be judged upon their skill and it shouldn't matter in the slightest if they look like a wild boar?
and c) It would not matter what the person in question looked like if they were a guy

I don't know where this message is going and I'm sure I've contradicted myself in the above somewhere but, long story short, I agree with you. Why should looks be the centre point of any discussion like this?

[girl-called-sun.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that it shouldn't matter a bit what you look like.

Women in science and engineering wouldn't all have had their femininity oppressed by the evil patriarchs in control; it's often just easier to get on with life without worrying about your appearance and what everyone else thinks of it. I bet some of them just didn't care. (And that would seem to be the greatest crime, according to the article.)

Yes, it's great that you can be a pretty girl and do computers; the people I am concerned about are the normal looking girls who do computers and engineering. Will they be ostracised now? Soldering in stiletto heels, or you're out?

The only thing that matters should be your ability.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The situation may even be worse than not caring about your appearance being the greatest crime. I think the article (and much of the world) simply can't admit the possibility that there might be women who don't care about their appearance. It's unthinkable. Women who think they don't care about their appearance are only pretending, because they've had their latent femininity oppressed all these years, poor dears.

And yes, the structure of the article totally suggests that all the normal-looking computer whiz girls in the world are letting the side down. Because people will see them, and think the computer girls are ugly! Which is such a terrible outcome that it totally overshadows any "Wow, girls can be BADASS and COMPETENT" reaction that might occur.

Because the only important thing about women is whether or not they're good-looking.

On a tangent--I wouldn't want ability to be the only important thing; minimal social skills, for instance, are a great asset in the workplace. But certainly ability ought to outweigh attractiveness by a very wide margin.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

I just wrote out a long message replying to this and accidentally deleted it. Oops.

Reviewed answer:

C) Uh, yes it would. The idea of loving our bodies is not just a feminine one any more, and I don't think it ever really was. Guys are under a lot of pressure to look right, just as women are. And there are stereotypes. Point in question: if I mentioned a builder, 90% of people would think of jeans and shirt, builder's bum and a cigarette.

[troublems03.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you post somewhat but you do have a valid point in regards to your example of the builder stereotype. However, I wasn't trying to say that the idea of loving our bodies is purely feminine but rather that there is a greater importance put on acting/being beautiful for women, especially in Engineering where, in my experience, it is much more acceptable for men to not bother with their looks than for women to not bother with their looks.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much the same in music. The reason we're given is that "Music has been a male dominated career for so many centuries that now that there are women in it, they need to stand out."

Because, y'know, the way we play isn't important! :P

So I do understand your argument, and I don't really know why I'm still speaking out against it... just that I think the stereotype is reinforced by our culture rather than a few bigoted antifeminists.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh, agreed; judgment based on appearance is a stereotype reinforced by culture, not just a few bigoted antifeminists. If it was in any way a minority opinion there would hardly be a problem.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Sorry for playing devil's advocate on this one, by the way.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't worry about it. If no one plays the devil's advocate then everyone gets stuck in a rut and stops thinking and eventually ethical calcification sets in.

Besides, it's made the comment thread so beautifully long.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

Hehehe :P

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. It's not like guys can walk around looking however they like (male engineers with ponytails can't get jobs, for instance), but generally the pressure to look right hangs a lot more heavily on women than it does on men. There are probably plenty of guys who angst about their weight, but women are much more likely to feel so badly about being overweight that they starve themselves to death.

So the difference is in degree, not in kind.

I'm not sure what you mean about the stereotypes, though. It's not like there aren't stereotypes about how women dress: the slutty-looking dumb blonde, the dowdy elementary school teacher, the severe, constipated-looking librarian...

Perhaps you're referring to the fact that men generally have less choice in the clothing in women, because there's generally accepted "appropriate" clothing for pretty much everything men do, and deviation will be mocked?

That's probably both a curse and a blessing. Women have more opportunities to look individual and interesting, but they also have more opportunities to make mistakes.

[girl-called-sun.livejournal.com]

I think, with guys, they can be expected to look a certain way in a given situation, and feel pressure to conform to that expectation, but they do not necessarily have to look attractive. Appearance and attractiveness aren't as closely linked for them as for women. Ugly men can be attractive, for their power, or wisdom, or humour. A girl can be pretty and stupid and attractive, but it's not so easy to be ugly and clever and attractive.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY.

You're brilliant.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

I would say that it was true in the past, but certainly in the last few years the divide between appearance and attractiveness in men is less pronounced. (Although I agree that there still is a divide.)

Wit, or humour, or intelligence, are just as attractive in either gender. I don't see why an ugly smart woman would seem unattractive, especially in our era of capitalism and career-oriented families.

Individual people see their own values, whether they're physical or intellectual. Someone who finds dumb beauty attractive will find someone who meets their expectations, just as someone who desires ugly intelligence will look for those individuals. As a society we are very appearance-conscious, but as individuals we have only our own opinions to care about.

What I was wondering was, we're discussing people who are attractive as either 1) physically attractive or 2) mentally attractive. What about people who are neither?

[girl-called-sun.livejournal.com]

As a society we are very appearance-conscious, but as individuals we have only our own opinions to care about.

This is very true, I think. When you know someone personally, you judge on everything you know about them, not just looks.

Following on, therefore, people can be normal looking, with no great mental faculty, but still be kind, genuine, loyal and sweet. That can make them attractive, just not instantly so.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

Yes :)

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean there aren't stereotypes for women as well, just that we shouldn't dismiss male stereotypes as less condemning than those we're objecting to. It's like saying that a woman's appearance *is* more important, simply because the man's apparel has already been accepted and is considered appropriate.

I do agree with what you say about choice.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It's not the male stereotypes aren't bad. In a perfect world, neither men nor women would have to deal with stereotypes about how they look. In the world we have now, both sexes do, but society generally considers women's appearances more important than men's.

Hence the fact that women are much more likely than men to starve themselves or undergo plastic surgery to 'correct' their appearances, because social condemnation of ugly women is so much stronger than it is of ugly men. So, yes, stereotypes against women are more condemning than those against men.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Because, you know, you aren't really successful unless you're smarter than every man and in the room and more beautiful than every woman in the magazines. I'm not saying it's exactly to fault, but the preponderance of stunning geeks in the mainstream media (ie, tv; ie, Tosh is smoking) is indicative of the expectation that it's not smart that's beautiful but that smart and beautiful should by their very nature coincide.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Oh, SUCCESSFULNESS. The modern world has run completely mad with the idea of success. We can be anything we want to be, so we had damn well better be something brilliant, beautiful, and culturally acceptable. ("Anything" is not a nearly as wide a category as it sounds.)

Stunning geeks in the mainstream media are just a no-win situation. If they ARE stunning, they just promulgate this sort of article; if they aren't stunning, then they'll be used as comic relief and promulgate the idea that geeks are automatically unattractive. Although Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds might be a step in the proper not-supermodel direction. She's not conventionally attractive but she gets good character moments all the same.

Tosh, smoking or not, never got the character development she so desperately deserved. MOST UNDERUTILIZED CHARACTER IN TORCHWOOD. PAIN.

Ahem. It would solve a lot of problems if the mainstream media just treated characters who aren't conventional hero types as actual human beings instead of peculiar plot devices.

The tragic lack of a correlation between beauty and pretty much every other desirable characteristic in the universe is practically an article in itself.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for normal women in the media, how about Cracker? Or Morse? I tend to find that the grittier the program, the less attractive the women are made to appear. Programs that try to simulate real life don't use supermodel actresses, because it would make it seem more unreal.

Which is odd in itself, because there *are* beautiful people in gritty situations. They just don't have the benefit of soft lighting and string soundtracks to make them seem more so.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

British programs in general seem to be less gung-ho about supermodel female leads. If Torchwood (which is the British show I know best) were filmed in the U.S., almost certainly either Tosh or Gwen would have been a six-foot tall leggy blonde who always looked like she'd just stepped out of her make-up trailer, even if she's just been battling aliens.

And the one who wasn't the leggy blonde would have fretted about her looks a lot, despite being drop-dead gorgeous.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

Haha! It's one of the things that really annoys me about Doctor Who as well... in particular the little exchanges in Series 1 and 2 between Billie Piper and Eccleson/Tennant about what to wear and how to look fabulous in that particular time. We British *are* actually as shallow as the next country.

Dude... you're in alien worlds, meeting aliens and fighting cybermen and daleks! Who cares what you're wearing! Look out of the window!

At the moment there's a show on the BBC about introducing a disabled (i.e wheelchair bound, amputee, scarred) supermodel onto the star circuit. It's horrible, but they've made it into some kind of freak show. (The catchphrase is "Will the public accept X? Will X last out the week?" Like a kind of X-Factor competition with a gimmick.)

Excuse my language, but what the fuck do the media think they're playing at?

The best program I've ever watched about attractiveness/self-worth is "Fat Friends"- I don't know if it ever aired in the US, but it was a brilliant series of about six episodes. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264246/

It's amazingly sensitive and looks at the pressures put on real people to look good- both men and women, adults and children.

For example, one of the stories follows a woman who wins the Weightwatchers medal for losing the most weight and goes through a photo shoot to be their new poster girl.... only to find they had the posters edited on Photoshop to make her look even thinner. Another story follows a man whose wife leaves him using his weight as an excuse (she's really having an affair), and how much it affects him.

I know it sounds heavy-going but the people in it are so genuine and it's quite light-hearted... you come away with a lovely warm feeling because they *are* showing real people, who stand by one another.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Darn it, and I had such high hopes for British TV. I suppose it's a case of the grass always looking greener on the other side, then.

Programs like the amputee supermodel are cringe-worthy. It's EXACTLY like a freak show, except at least some of the freaks at the old-fashioned freak shows got rich off the whole deal.

Is Doctor Who worth watching? I hear very mixed reviews of the whole thing. Admittedly, quality-wise it can't be worse than Torchwood, but it's also a rather greater time commitment than Torchwood is.

[vivien-sivvus.livejournal.com]

Personally I like Irish television programs more than British, but then I only really tend to watch comedy and satire. I honestly don't think a lot of our programs are all that bad- we get programs like Spaced, Monkey Dust, Father Ted, Black Books... but we don't get the budget of American TV so usually programs only last one or two seasons. So we do tend to get these short, gimmicky pieces of crap.

Doctor Who is worth watching if you watch it in order, from the first season with Christopher Eccleson. You find yourself getting simultaneously frustrated and delighted with it.