From: slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu (susan larsen)
Subject: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:47:42 GMT

In article <By11K4.4C4@javelin.sim.es.com> biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel) writes:
>muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>
>>...[]... The way I see it,
>>it is much easier for a person to develop and change their personality
>>than it is for them to change their looks (which they are basically born
>>with).  
>
>Ah! This, I think, gets to the heart of the matter. Personality is under
>our immediate control, and looks aren't, or at least so Muffy believes.
>
>---deletia---
>
>Looks, by contrast, require merely an investment in cosmetics and plastic 
>surgery, something that would appear, to me at least, to require much less
>time and willpower than to change one's personality significantly.

I've been thinking about why women get so riled about supermodel or 
super-woman type images and came up with this thought:

It isn't so much an issue of looks over personality as much as an 
issue of looks versus actions.

If you think of society as having just so many slots "at the top", just 
so much fame, fortune and reward to go around.  Now, think of the 
existence of quotas for those slots, women being allocated so many slots 
and men being allocated their share.  Now, look at who fills those slots 
and why......

Many women are "at the top" because of who they are, not what they've done.
Women who are supermodels, for instance, must be a certain height, weight, 
have a certain fat distribution, a particular look, cooperative hair, etc. 
Although some of these attributes are subject to limited personal control, 
the bulk of these qualifications are genetic, a happenstance of birth.

Few of the top slots occupied by men are filled because of who they are.  
These slots are filled mostly by men who have done something, succeeded 
at business or sports, fame in their field of endeavor.  Some of these 
guys may have an edge because of birth, a Kennedy for instance, and 
a few may have parlayed good looks into success, like Tom Selleck.  
But the impression here at the bottom is that a top niche can be 
owned by a man who does something and does it well.

Back to the top women...  How many got a leg up because of marriage 
or connections with a top guy?  Marla Maples, Princess Diana, the 
grande dames of both coasts.  Again, looks can play a very large part 
in this traditional feminine road to the top.

The top men....  Marriage or associations?  I can't think of any examples.
Are Cher's boyfriends respected men?  Not hardly.

The frustrating thing about this, for women, is that if there is only so 
much room at the top and if so many slots are given over to women who 
simply are, where does it leave the women who are trying to get to the top
through actions?  We see a world of reward going to men who achieve, 
regardless of who they are and then feel gypped when that same road to 
the top is so crowded with women who are succeeding because of good 
genes or lucky associations.

Now, I'm not saying that there actually are only so many fame slots or 
the cookies comes automatically to good looking women.  What I am saying, 
though, is that women can come to feel that female success, whether it 
be monetary, dating, social whatever, comes in disproportionate volume 
to looker-women over doer-women.  While a man can comfort himself in 
knowing that fame came to an Al Unser because Al tried harder, a woman 
finds small comfort in reconciling fame and goodies going to an 
Elle MacPherson because Elle was born a "better" woman.

Of course, these are generalizations; your mileage may vary.  


Sue Larsen
slarsen@berlin.helios.nd.edu
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.abortion.inequity,talk.abortion,alt.feminism,soc.men