Comments on: Conversation with the Comments http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=191 Body Image, Photography, Feminism, Social Change Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:22:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Patsy Nevins http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=191&cpage=1#comment-2116 Patsy Nevins Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:07:31 +0000 http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=191#comment-2116 I love this post, I have to say. One comment on the boyfriend who thought I was "homely"; we met once about two years after we had dated, & he commented on how pretty I was looking. The only changes which had occurred in that time was that I had somehow, through the generosity of an aunt & a friend of my mother's, acquired some "cute" clothes, &, oh, yes, I had gone through one of my periodic "I am not thin enough" periods, & lost about 20 pounds. I guess beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder, & a lot of it does have to do with how we present ourselves. Even today, I get more positive attention, more smiles, more comments, more second & third looks from men, when my hair is permed & curly, as it is now, when I decide to put on a bit of lipstick (I am not much of a makeup person), & when I am wearing snug stretch jeans with a stretch cotton shirt tucked in. Of course, in order to be fair to those who meet me & react in various ways, I also get a lot of positive feedback when I am positive, upbeat, feeling more confident, & greeting people with a smile. It's all the same woman, different presentations. And I agree that we need to broaden the criteria & appreciate how every one of us is unique, special, irreplaceable, & how, whether or not we meet someone's definition of "beauty", we look the way we are supposed to look & fill a niche in the world which cannot be filled by anyone else. We need to celebrate diversity in every sense & to own our own & be proud of who we are rather than being envious of what someone else has that we do not. I love this post, I have to say. One comment on the boyfriend who thought I was “homely”; we met once about two years after we had dated, & he commented on how pretty I was looking. The only changes which had occurred in that time was that I had somehow, through the generosity of an aunt & a friend of my mother’s, acquired some “cute” clothes, &, oh, yes, I had gone through one of my periodic “I am not thin enough” periods, & lost about 20 pounds. I guess beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder, & a lot of it does have to do with how we present ourselves. Even today, I get more positive attention, more smiles, more comments, more second & third looks from men, when my hair is permed & curly, as it is now, when I decide to put on a bit of lipstick (I am not much of a makeup person), & when I am wearing snug stretch jeans with a stretch cotton shirt tucked in. Of course, in order to be fair to those who meet me & react in various ways, I also get a lot of positive feedback when I am positive, upbeat, feeling more confident, & greeting people with a smile. It’s all the same woman, different presentations.

And I agree that we need to broaden the criteria & appreciate how every one of us is unique, special, irreplaceable, & how, whether or not we meet someone’s definition of “beauty”, we look the way we are supposed to look & fill a niche in the world which cannot be filled by anyone else. We need to celebrate diversity in every sense & to own our own & be proud of who we are rather than being envious of what someone else has that we do not.

]]> By: Lynne Murray http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=191&cpage=1#comment-2113 Lynne Murray Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:51:24 +0000 http://laurietobyedison.com/discuss/?p=191#comment-2113 I ran across a quote in an article that I've since discarded (my friend gives me stacks of New Yorkers and I try to go through them as quickly as possible so I don't end up keeping them forever), from what I think was a remembrance of SF socialite Pat Montandon--a woman who used her looks as a tool. The quote is, "Beauty is money from God." One aspect of what we call human beauty is a sort of harmonious regularity of features and an unnatural focus point--the impossibly tiny lotus shoes on Chinese women with bound feet, or the completely unnatural breast-enhanced lean female figure that is now the impossible ideal. I'm just guessing that it's the unnatural focus point that makes you look and look again, might be what the jolie laide (pretty ugly) Frenchwomen are cultivating. The geisha heroine in Memoirs of a Geisha has it pointed out to her early on that she has unusual gray eyes that set her apart, and her mentors capitalize on that. Just a guess, because I'm not visual enough to be sure this is correct--just an intuition. I was very inspired by a co-worker who was a big woman, with very little money to spend, who wore little if any makeup, and her hair in a perpetual gray crew cut--in no way was she a conventional beauty. But she had a brilliant eye for putting together found items into stylish outfits--e.g., she wore a couple of sets of earrings all at once--no one of which ever matched, and she always looked fantastic. I ran across a quote in an article that I’ve since discarded (my friend gives me stacks of New Yorkers and I try to go through them as quickly as possible so I don’t end up keeping them forever), from what I think was a remembrance of SF socialite Pat Montandon–a woman who used her looks as a tool. The quote is, “Beauty is money from God.” One aspect of what we call human beauty is a sort of harmonious regularity of features and an unnatural focus point–the impossibly tiny lotus shoes on Chinese women with bound feet, or the completely unnatural breast-enhanced lean female figure that is now the impossible ideal. I’m just guessing that it’s the unnatural focus point that makes you look and look again, might be what the jolie laide (pretty ugly) Frenchwomen are cultivating. The geisha heroine in Memoirs of a Geisha has it pointed out to her early on that she has unusual gray eyes that set her apart, and her mentors capitalize on that. Just a guess, because I’m not visual enough to be sure this is correct–just an intuition. I was very inspired by a co-worker who was a big woman, with very little money to spend, who wore little if any makeup, and her hair in a perpetual gray crew cut–in no way was she a conventional beauty. But she had a brilliant eye for putting together found items into stylish outfits–e.g., she wore a couple of sets of earrings all at once–no one of which ever matched, and she always looked fantastic.

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