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

[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.