Revenge of the Nerdette
Jul. 7th, 2008 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThis 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-07 12:59 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 02:09 am (UTC)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.