A message from an ‘ugly’ woman

[Over40Overdating]

I am, by all conventional standards, an ‘ugly’ woman.

I am not, and never have been, beautiful. Never pretty or attractive. On a good day with some good light, I could possibly pass for striking.

This awareness has crippled my self esteem for years, to the point of developing a phobia of mirrors and pictures. I have no pictures of me from 14 until recently.

Tonight, on my way home from work, 2 young women got on the trains opposite me and started discussing and laughing loudly about how deformed and ugly my face I was.

I didn’t challenge them because I am middle aged and knackered and didn’t fancy my chances with two very loud, much younger women, but I realised I don’t actually care.

For so long, someone calling me ugly or unattractive to my face would have been my worst nightmare but it happened and instead of the world ending, I’ve realised I no longer care about my face or how it’s viewed.

I don’t know if it’s age, peri menopause, life experience or being too tired to care, but for the first time in my life I feel like I am more than the sum of my facial features and very much like who I am regardless of what I look like.

I feel free. Like a giant weight I have been dragging around my whole life has suddenly dropped off. I wish I’d had this realisation decades ago! I wish I could tell younger me my wonky face doesn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things. I have a life I am proud to have created and many things to celebrate and not a single one of them relied on me having a conventional looking face.

So fellow ‘ugly’ women, please come join me on a ‘DGAF’ thread.

Reassurance about your face ‘not being that bad really’ is banned.

Celebration of all the many other things you are than your physical appearance encouraged!

Here come the clever, helpful men to mansplain explain to us what it's like being an ugly woman.🙄

You’re forgetting having common idioms explained to us, and a heavy-handed and largely incomprehensible disquisition on French vulgarity.

Mansplaining — so informative!

Camembert was a joke: In French, saying "Camembert" is a childish and non-offensive way to say "shut up!" or "whatever", as a way to express that you're in the wrong if you think that and you don't know what you're talking about:

At the same time, Camembert being a very smelly cheese (well, when it's a proper one), I was making an innuendo, contradicting with it in two different ways the British's misperception of the French culture as being anything refined, classy, or glamourous:

I then continued to explain why French people have a redneck culture despite high levels of education (we all have to study philosophy before leaving secondary school) and a luxury industry which can give the wrong impression that French people are sophisticated:
If France is as urbanised a country as the UK, farming has kept impacting the French culture: This is because France's industrial revolution happened later and France has maintained a large farming industry (second cereal producer behind the USA, first in wine exportation etc):

What I mean by that is that there isn't a culture of respectability and politeness in the same way in France as there is in the UK: We are very formal, so we use daily politeness in greetings and dress well and such efforts in society, but we're also loud/vulgar/offensive for English social norms:

I hope this clarifies what I was trying to say:

Look, I accept you did not mean to offend, but several of us have told you your post was offensive.

Can you not just accept that your thoughts have not translated well and stop?

The examples you have given, as a way of convincing us you’re right simply don’t work (I teach English and I know the English language is confusing.) It’s too late to explain why, but please can you just accept it and stop insisting you’re right.

"Don't judge a book by its cover" is a gender-neutral proverb - indeed, a completely neutral proverb because it could legitimately be applied to objects or animals as well as people - so this is in no way a valid analogy.

"Women are like books" would be a nearer equivalent, and yes, that would objectify women in the same way that "women are like tractors" does.

Has Borat left the building yet?

So you believe that my explanation of cultural norms was insensitive rather than informative? What about your inaccurate and offensive assumptions?

1: You misgendered me: I am a woman:

2: You made a demeaning comment about my ability to express myself in English "largely incomprehensible disquisition": As you may have noticed, English isn't my native language, but it isn't either my second one: My dear, I am looking forward to you disserting in French or any other foreign language:

3: You similarly made demeaning comments about my "disquisition on French vulgarity" which I intended as a clarification on how English cultural norms can greatly vary from southern European countries: Being French I perfectly understood what OneGuy meant to say through his politically incorrect comment, but also understanding how it was received by other members who are of English culture, I was hoping to bring in some perspective to restore his intent : I am sorry to say that as your biased and judgmental assumptions towards me have proved us, you are lacking cultural awareness and inclusivity: As a neurodivergent individual, if I see communication difficulties I address them by trying to explain the differences that caused one individual to misinterpret another individual's words: Nothing more: I am sorry that you had to put vile intent behind it, or be a harsher critic than Cambridge on my English level:

Former good-looking now ugly. And I'm totally free! Presumptions about me flirting when actually I'm just talking are now non-existent, young men can talk to me without hitting on me, women aren't paranoid I'm after their fat balding husbands, I don't give a shit that I'm fat in my swimsuit, I'm just another middle aged mum. My skin sucks. I like food more than dieting. Who cares?! Sex is not the number one thing guiding my life decisions. I'm just me!

He cannot be more right than you are when it is all a cultural difference 😞

1: He expressed himself in a way that is acceptable in his culture:
2: He has been told that it is not acceptable in the English culture:
3: He apologised as it was not his intent and tried to explain what his expression meant and what was the message to retain behind:
4: Lacking cultural awareness, some posters made derogatory comments about his perception of women as objects:
5: He tried to clarify that if the expression he used was objectifying it was not his intention, and justified it by making the argument that it is not unusual in common expressions in English for which, - being from your own culture -, you might not object to:
6: Hypocritically, now you're saying that there is no such occurrence in the English language? Really? What about a trophy wife, bit on the side, sloppy seconds etc.: I am sure that as an English teacher you can fill this list far better than I ever could but you sure could use some diversity and inclusion training:

Hope you haven’t left your plough unattended.

That's because the people you're talking with at the Pub are not from the same social class as the women of this forum: 🤐

English people are great, apart from the judgmental self-righteous middle class 😞

It can even be dangerous to crack jokes with them! I read a post the other day about a brand new dad who made a stupid joke about being so hyped about being a dad that he was changing his baby's nappies all the time as if he was having some kind of fetish: What clearly came off to me as his way to express how excited he is to do things as a dad because it's new and a big deal you know, well most of them took that as a confession and advised the poster to inform the police or social services: Completely mental!🙃

I may have had some wine, but I now have 'I've got a brand new combine harvester' as an ear worm.

Are you that grubby MP Neil Parrish who had to resign after looking at tractor porn when he was in parliament?

(Note the extremely sleek John Deere at the start of this video!)

I hope that other posters will have an issue with this racist xenophobic aspersion:

A man comparing a woman to a tractor is shocking, but any immigrant you disagree with being called "Borat" is not?

Well not just ANY old immigrant I disagree with, just those that compare women to farm equipment.

He never would because he knows that real women are hot for teacher tractor 😍

And I'm not joking, I live countryside and one day, on the market place when a guy drove a massive shiny new tractor around it, a young woman hailed "I want a man with a tractor like that!" 🙆

Teacher?

😁

I always felt ugly at school and at 16 I had a passport control officer even laugh at my picture, it didn't bother me too much then my late husband said he chose me because I was ugly so I wouldn't get looked at ( on one of his outbursts) nice to know. Have since remarried a nicer man But I still don't care what people think, I don't wear make up ( can't be bothered with all the hassle of taking it off don't bother with face creams or anything life's too,short to worry about what people think of you , I have features I do like about myself and I have people in my life who like me for what I am not what I look like. I'm joining your sisterhood let's embrace ugliness