I'm not beautiful...is that ok?

[TheHodgeHeg]

I'm having a dilemma about how to feel about my appearance and would love your opinions, as feminists, on this issue.

Like many women I struggle with low self esteem. When I look at myself in the mirror on a low day I see a spotty face, crooked teeth, big nose etc. etc.

I recognise that my pre-occupation with my appearance is, at least in part, a product of our patriarchal society which values beauty above every other characteristic in a woman. Heroines in books, films, TV shows etc are generally beautiful and sure maybe they're also funny and intelligent but beauty matters above everything. I'm sure this has skewed my perspective of myself.

My usual tactic when I'm feeling down is to tell myself that, no, I am beautiful, and think back to times when someone has complimented me. I'm not sure that this is productive though and I worry that it just perpetuates the cycle that beauty is absolutely paramount and a non-negotiable quality that a woman must have.

It would surely be better for me to accept that I'm not beautiful and that's ok. I accept other failings in my character and such failings don't rule my head as much as this one does (e.g. not being as funny as a comedian, as rich or driven as a CEO etc.)

I do find this attitude difficult to reconcile with how I'd parent any future daughter though. It really messed me up that my parents told me I wasn't pretty whilst praising the looks of my sister and other kids. But surely the philosophy that they were applying was what I'm trying to come to terms with now.

God, society (and my self esteem) are fucked up. I would want to tell any future daughter that she's beautiful but at the same time I want to break the cycle that beauty matters so much. I'm not sure the actions of one person in the face of overwhelming resistance from society is productive though. My parents actions were the opposite of productive for me and I think they've left me very confused.

OP I 100% agree. It’s like I have one person on each shoulder: the feminist 😇 telling me to eschew all that beauty stuff because it’s a pile of superficial capitalist crap and the patriarchy 😈 on the other telling me that I’m an ugly minger and I need to sort myself out.

Somehow quite a few women I know seem to have brought the line that being beautiful = empowerment and confidence.

It’s all depressing and I’m not sure there is an answer. The indoctrination is so deep you’d need surgery to remove it.

I look like the back end of a bus mostly. I’m married with three dcs including two Dds. I call the girls ‘gorgeous girl’ and I call ds ‘gorgeous boy’. Dd1 has spent a LOT of time as a dancer and on stage. I hear a lot of whiners going on about how dreadful dance is, how bad for girls in terms of body awareness/ make up/ sexuality etc. In reality, dancers are mingers. They sweat, they smell funny, they leave bloody lambs wool from their pointe shoes on the floor, and they are rick hard. They also have a bone deep understanding of the strength they have, and the artifice involved in performance. They paint their faces on and create the illusion of weightlessness. It’s a perfect intro to gender stereotyping 101. As a result, dd1 is under no illusions - she knows that make up and leg shaving are social rules that she can eschew, but she understands that it is a choice to confirm and perform, or not.
Dd2 completely eschews femininity. It makes me a little sad, but I suspect she will mellow slightly as she matures. Right now she is militantly anti the trappings of gender conformity.
I don’t think that being raised by a hairy legged bare-faced witch of unfortunate 80s hair has done them much harm - even if I constantly tell them how gorgeous they are.
Recognizing that society values beauty (and questioning these tropes) isn’t a bad thing.

I look like the back end of a bus mostly. I’m married with three dcs including two Dds. I call the girls ‘gorgeous girl’ and I call ds ‘gorgeous boy’. Dd1 has spent a LOT of time as a dancer and on stage. I hear a lot of whiners going on about how dreadful dance is, how bad for girls in terms of body awareness/ make up/ sexuality etc. In reality, dancers are mingers. They sweat, they smell funny, they leave bloody lambs wool from their pointe shoes on the floor, and they are rick hard. They also have a bone deep understanding of the strength they have, and the artifice involved in performance. They paint their faces on and create the illusion of weightlessness. It’s a perfect intro to gender stereotyping 101. As a result, dd1 is under no illusions - she knows that make up and leg shaving are social rules that she can eschew, but she understands that it is a choice to confirm and perform, or not.
Dd2 completely eschews femininity. It makes me a little sad, but I suspect she will mellow slightly as she matures. Right now she is militantly anti the trappings of gender conformity.
I don’t think that being raised by a hairy legged bare-faced witch of unfortunate 80s hair has done them much harm - even if I constantly tell them how gorgeous they are.
Recognizing that society values beauty (and questioning these tropes) isn’t a bad thing.

OP I personally dislike the way we treat some people above others in society, including because of looks. I don't think it's ok that someone is considered more beautiful or more desirable or acceptable than others. It's sad that our society is built on that. I am much more interested in what people are like in terms of what they do, what they enjoy, and what makes them happy. To like someone and treasure them is to really know them. I always want to look past the face/hair whatever and see the real person. And I think there is nothing more beautiful than someone who is comfortable and happy to be themselves - with flaws and all. Life is too short to overly analyze our noses (or whatever). Let go of that and just enjoy whatever you like in life. It will take you a lot further and you will be happier. I believe this to be true.
Ps: I'm sorry about how your parents treated you. I honestly think if they knew the truth in all of this, they wouldn't have treated you in this way. I guess they were raised within the same craziness. It's a cycle. Break the cycle girl! You can do it.

And yes the actions of one person do change a lot. You get to change it for your daughter (or son) and her (his) kids. This is a huge cycle broken. You can only imagine what places they will go and what they will be able to do with this wrong belief (cycle) broken. In answer to you yes one person making the change counts!!

For me, pretty and beautiful are not the same. Nor is handsome.

I think of pretty as magazine covers, a way women are judged by patriarchy. To me it is a neutral trait, like eye colour.

Beautiful is to do with personality. The way a loving smile makes someone’s eyes look all deep and beautiful. Beautiful is when someone’s face is providing a window to their soul and the beauty that lies within.

I have met plenty of pretty people that aren’t beautiful and vice versa.

Handsome to me means well put together. A well fitted cordinating outfit - not just coordinating with itself but with your body. Eye colour, skin colour etc.

I think it’s fair enough to reject prettiness but for me I’m not keen on entirely rejecting consideration of my looks.

The strong societal focus on female beauty has suppressed women in 2 ways - firstly by placing us as objects there to be admired and secondly by keeping us distracted with the pursuit of beauty rather than the pursuit of power.

Yes! It's so hard to try and shake off a lifetime of indoctrination. Even in children's books like "the princess diaries" and "Harry Potter" the female lead is not complete until she makes the transformation from ugly duckling to beautiful swan.

I recognise in myself and others that beauty is so much more than just your features but I'm finding it incredibly difficult to shake off the longing to be seen by nameless, faceless society as "pretty".

I suppose our daughters should be raised with just the right amount of praise to feel confident and happy with their appearance but also awareness of how society unfairly values beauty above other important characteristics. I don't think my parents meant me any ill will with their comments and we have a good relationship. Perhaps I'll discuss it with them someday and find out if it was intentional.

I make no comment on my DCs appearance, because I don’t want them to think it’s important or that that’s how I value them. And it’s not! Their physical attractiveness is not important to me. I couple this with trying to be a role model - not looking in mirrors all the time, not wearing make up, making no comments on my own body in front of them, and not discussing other people’s appearance.

This is a massive thing for girls and at home I want to counteract the messages that kids are bombarded with from outside.

Some things that really helped me were:

To realise that I didn't notice it too much in other people - eg. I looked around my work colleagues, who were all normal people (relatively, it was IT ) and tried to critically assess their beauty - and it was really hard, once I knew someone, I just saw them, and didn't really know if they were good looking or not.

Noticing that expression seemed to count for much more - eg. the way my first boyfriend's eyes crinkled up when he cracked a joke - they positively twinkled, but that there was another person, who was probably classically good looking, but had a way of ignoring the people he was talking to (hard to explain, but you could see it) that just made him completely unattractive.

And basically realising that I'm a person, just like anyone else, and it just doesn't matter, that if you're engaged in conversations, that if you can find things that make you happy, do things and distract yourself rather than pinning things on one aspect and using that to hold you back, then live is just much, much better, and you'll look back in 6 months and wonder why you ever used to even think about it.

I think telling your kids they’re not attractive is horrible, but going the other way and telling them they are is also not great, because you’re giving the message that you agree with society that appearance is important.

I used to worry about this but have changed as I've got older. I now concentrate on feeling good above looking good. I look after my skin because it feels good and I don't wear anywhere near the amount of make up I used to. I have my hair a way that is low maintenance and feels great, to me. Might not look great but I love it.

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I like the word attractive because it can apply to both sexes and it is broad enough to mean healthy, well groomed, friendly and approachable, well dressed etc. so you can be not beautiful or handsome and also attractive. It’s a word that avoids racial stereotypes too because certainly the western idea of beauty for women mainly revolves around a stereotype of blonde and slender. I think you can also look different and be attractive (thinking about disability here).

boopsy re the comment of age being a leveller do you think you see a level playing field because you are less familiar with the older appearance and what is valued as beautiful for an older person?

Sort of like the way some people say (or think, as it would be very tactless to say) "all Asians look the same". That's not true at all but it gets said by people who are not familiar with Asian faces and are applying white centric facial recognition / differentiation methods to their appearances.

I do find when I look back at old pictures of classmates that, beyond the few exceptionally attractive girls, everyone else (me included) is just a normal looking tween/teenager. I did not feel that way at the time, I thought I was uncommonly unattractive. We're fed a myth that the majority of women are stunningly beautiful but it's just not true, and that's ok.

I like the word attractive wrappedup and the sentiment of feeling good Damn.

I'll always do this though. Reach a point of acceptance and be happy with myself and then a bad photo or hormone surge and boom - back to rock bottom. I guess recognising the problem helps?

Your daughter will be beautiful because she'll be a unique, perfect human with a face that can express all sorts of thoughts and emotions, a voice that can talk and sing and laugh, a body that can do incredible things from the million things that keep her alive and healthy to running and climbing and dancing and hugging and making things by hand, a brain that can think and love and have opinions and make connections.

She'll be amazing. Who cares what her nose looks like?

boopsy life is unfair like that. Some people are smart, some people are beautiful, some people are great singers etc. and most are just normal. It's all a genetic lottery really. But beauty seems to be a trait that it's unacceptable for a woman not to have (or at least be told she has).

Genghis you're right of course, I hope I could make her see that and not care if she ends up with my nose!

The supposed "ideal" model/celeb appearance is not even genetic good luck much of the time. After some combination of cosmetic surgery, Botox, fake tan, eyebrow plucking, hair dye, hair extensions, high heels, advice from a stylist, makeup and airbrushing, women often look nothing like how they would otherwise.

It sounds glib I know but I do think we take ourselves (our bodies) far too much for granted. We need to stop looking at them from the outside as if they are some sort of objet d'art and start living in them from the inside and paying attention to the power they give us. Power to move, touch other people, change things, go wherever we like, say what we mean, get what we need.

(The way we think about our bodies is like being given the most incredible vehicle that lets us go to the moon and under the sea and being upset because we didn't want a red one!)

Somehow, I think the trick is in not caring whether you are beautiful or not beautiful. I don't know how exactly you get to that point but for me it came in my twenties when I had the realisation that I just didn't care about fashion/clothes. I'd been boring myself to death buying and wearing fashionable clothes. So I just stopped bothering. The sky didn't fall in. Nobody pointed and laughed at the scruff bag in the corner. People reacted to me as they always had. And from there, it kind of flowed that appearance honestly doesn't count for much with people that are worth having in your life.

I hope you get to a point where beauty, or lack of it, isn't important to you, OP.

I do get to that point Lang but then the cycle starts again and I feel awful about myself. I don't know if it's hormonal or what but it's a carousel that I desperately want to get off! Genghis your two comments will be ones I'll try to refer to at said low points (this whole thread really).