Pretty Woman?

Hi Everyone,

About a year ago, I came across an article written by Lisa Bloom that has changed the way I interact with women, particularly young girls.  I recommend reading it if you haven’t already (here's the link).  Her main point was that very often, our first instinct when we talk with girls is to comment on their physical appearance.  She connects this habit to the continued objectification of women, and to the increasing concern about physical appearance among very young girls.  

I don’t consider myself someone who is obsessed with superficial appearances, and one of my favorite things to do is to have intelligent discussions with children.  So I was surprised and embarrassed when I analyzed my own interactions with women and girls.  Very often, I realized with chagrin, I am completely guilty of the trend that Bloom describes.  I frequently start conversations with a comment like, “Hey, Stephanie!  Nice shirt!” or “Hi, Helen!  I like your haircut!”  I think that we begin conversations with women this way partly because the easiest way to start a conversation is by mentioning something visible, and partly because we genuinely want to compliment the people we’re speaking with.  And what’s wrong with that?  

Nothing, except that we tend to do this much more with girls than with boys.  And, as Bloom points out, this trend reemphasizes long held cultural assumptions that girls and women are meant to be objects of beauty in ways that boys and men are not.  Several months ago, a few friends and I got in a discussion about whether men and women have fundamentally different parenting roles apart from the obvious biological differences.  This is part of a larger question that humans have been asking for millennia, but which has had particular weight in our cultural discourse in the last century or so: Are men and women fundamentally different?  (This, of course, doesn’t even begin to acknowledge the question of transgender or transsexual people, and the idea that sex is not as binary as we tend to think of it.)

That’s far too weighty a question for a small person like me to tackle.  But this spring, as I was tutoring the triplets in math, I was reminded of it as we worked with basic equalities like, “5 pennies + 2 dimes = ?”  I’m assuming that most of you passed third grade math, and that you recognize that there are a number of correct answers: “25 pennies,” “1 quarter,” “5 nickels,” etc.  So is “5 pennies + 2 dimes” the same as “1 quarter”?  Of course not!  The coins in each group look different, weigh different amounts, and have different names.  But what the girls understood was that “5 pennies + 2 dimes” have the same value as “1 quarter.”  

I believe that the same is true of people.  It is obvious that men and women are not the same.  We wouldn’t need different words to distinguish them if they were.  But virtually all of the people I respect agree that men and women have the same value.  (I make a few exceptions for brilliant writers or thinkers who I like to pretend would support this notion had they been born a few centuries later.)  So there we go.  Solution!  Women and men are different but equal.

Except that “different but equal” begins to sound frighteningly like “separate but equal.” All analogies fail after a certain point, and in my experience, when they lead you to start thinking like the verdict of Plessy v. Ferguson, it’s time to bail ASAP.  The difference between the equations “5 pennies + 2 dimes = 1 quarter” and “men = women” is that the main function of all coins is to represent monetary value.  Any differences between pennies, dimes and quarters are superficial, merely for the sake of convenience or aesthetics.  

In the second equation, though, even if we agree that men and women have equal value (and sadly, there are still many people who do not), we don’t all agree on how value is measured.  Is it contribution to society?  Do people have value by fulfilling whatever duties they have?  If so, how do we determine and then compare the worth of these duties?  Or is value something which all humans have simply by existing, and we all have equal amounts of it regardless of how we act?  

Even if we could somehow determine that a traditionally masculine task like changing the oil in the car is of equal value to a traditionally feminine task such as doing laundry, there are several major problems.  First, aside from being impossible, this system rules out potential development.  As long as it remains in circulation (and doesn’t get put on a train track or used in a craft project), a penny can only ever be a penny.  The upside and the downside to people is that they are infinitely more complicated than pennies.  Our skills and abilities are not fixed; as we live, we change, we learn, we grow.  I might not know how to change the oil in a car, but I could learn how to.  (And though I do pride myself on being able to do my laundry, I would hope that any independent 27-year-old, regardless of gender, color, or creed, would be able to shove a week’s worth of dirty clothes into the machine, dump a bit of soap in the right compartment, and press “start.”  And for the record, if any of you guys were to tell me you can’t, I can assure you I won’t be overwhelmed with your manliness and ask permission to have your babies.)

But perhaps the biggest problem is that whenever we assign each other roles where money or power is involved (when men are still earning more than their female counterparts, or when most politicians, pastors, college presidents are men), things become complicated.  We value money and power because they give us agency in our society, so when we assign societal roles (which come with money and/or power) to people based on arbitrary traits like race or gender, we invariably grant agency to some, and deny it to others.  As Brown v. Board of Education showed, “separate but equal” is always impossible, even in theory. 

None of this pondering and pontificating solves the question of what I should have been saying to the triplets when I arrived at their house.   Should I have just ignored the fact that they are three bright and beautiful girls?  Should I have mentioned only their academic or athletic abilities?  As an artist, I consider it part of my duty to celebrate visual beauty when I see it, so I resist the idea that we should just not tell girls they are beautiful in order to show them they are more than visual objects.  However, I think Bloom’s argument is valid, that by mentioning primarily their appearance, we associate female identity with physical beauty at the expense of other characteristics.  So, now, in speaking with girls and women, I try to comment on at least one of their other attributes before mentioning their appearance.  I want them to know I am interested in them as whole people, that their visual beauty is part of a larger beauty.  

One thing Bloom does not address is how to talk with boys.  I want them to know I am interested in them as whole people too, and so I have to believe that to neglect their physical appearance is also detrimental.  Men are no less beautiful than women, but our conversations consistently reinforce the contrary.  By allowing beauty to be both masculine and feminine, we crumble one of the divides we have constructed between men and women.  Recognizing beauty in boys does not have to be -- and should not be -- awkward.  After all, boys wear shirts and get hair cuts too.  

But perhaps even more important than recognizing physical qualities in boys is to help boys -- and everyone -- recognize beauty in others.  Because in seeing other people as beautiful, we break down some of the barriers we erect between “us” and “them.”  Today, as we honor the victims of 9/11 and its aftermath, it is especially important to remember that difference -- of nationality, of race, of religion, of gender -- can so easily separate us from each other with horrific consequences.  The most important battles must be fought over and over again, and so while we (our country’s legal system) overturned Plessy v. Ferguson in 1954, we (the people) must continue to overturn it every day in our actions, words and thoughts.  One way we can do this is by training ourselves to see and celebrate beauty in other people, be they men or women.

As always, I welcome your thoughts, particularly if you think differently from me!  

Have a good week!

Sarah/Mouse