From: muffy%remarque.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.berkeley.EDU (Muffy Barkocy)
Subject: bias against good-looking people (was Re: Lipstick)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
Date: 5 Oct 92 22:26:58 GMT
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	<191a89INN3cc@agate.berkeley.edu>

In article <191a89INN3cc@agate.berkeley.edu> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
> Robert Coleman's comment about having a bias against model-perfect
> women makes me look again at this prejudice.  Why am I disgusted by
> model-perfect men?  It's not really that I think they're less intelli-
> gent, or necessarily self-centered.  So what is it?  I think I assume,
> perhaps irrationally, that in order for a person--male or female--to
> be model-perfect, they have to work at it.  And anyone who would put
> that much effort into conforming to that narrow window of societal
> standards for beauty, strikes me as someone who has their values in
> the wrong place.

Do you put *any* effort into how you look?  I would imagine (although I
may be incorrect) that you make *some* effort: perhaps you have your
hair cut in a nice style, perhaps you wear colors that look particularly
good on you, perhaps you select clothes that project the image you wish
to project.  It does seem irrational to assume that everyone who is
"conventionally good-looking" puts any more effort into it than you, or
anyone else, does.  Someone who starts out very far from "conventionally
good-looking" might even make much more effort than someone else and end
up looking less "good-looking."  If it is incorrect to judge someone who
is not good-looking on their looks, then it seems to me equally
incorrect to judge someone who is good-looking on their looks.  If they
really *are* obsessed by looking good, it'd probably only take a few
minutes of conversation to notice that.  If they're not, then you've
rejected them with no basis.

> Another possibility is this: when I imagine a hypothetical man who
> has stunningly handsome facial features, and a body to match--and
> yet is also intelligent and interesting--I think, "But he would
> do something to foil his beauty, if he were *really* interesting."

Why?  Why shouldn't he enjoy it?  I went for 16 years without being at
all attractive, so when I finally felt a little bit attractive, I wanted
to enjoy it.  I am by no means "conventionally good-looking," so maybe
that doesn't count, but I don't see why people shouldn't enjoy they way
they look, rather than being ashamed of it.  I'm imagine you don't think
that people who are not good looking should be ashamed of it.

> And this, in fact, is true of several very handsome men I've had
> as friends: they purposely wear their hair or whiskers in a weird,
> off-putting manner, or dress in a dull or slovenly style, to mask
> their attractiveness.  A *savvy* model-perfect person, in other
> words, would be hip to the fact that looking model-perfect is a
> turn-off to the kind of people they're interested in--because of
> the very "he must be a bimbo" bias we're talking about.

Perhaps the people this person would be *most* interested in would be
those who would not judge *either way* on their looks?  Note also that,
if someone is naturally "conventionally good-looking," they will have to
take additional effort with their looks to look "different."  Why do you
deplore this effort when it is exerted to look "good" but reward it when
it is exerted to look "different?"  In both cases, it would seem that
the person is simply trying to be attractive.

I think a goal of feminism should be to eliminate *all* bias about
looks, allowing people to look as they wish or be attracted to what they
wish, not just to turn the bias against people who are considered
good-looking by society.  If we agree that a bias on the basis of looks
is wrong, should it not *always* be wrong?

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy                               muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn

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