"No Ugly Women, Only Lazy Ones".... Self-Improvement and Attractiveness

[reboundstudent]

Do you guys agree with the idea that you taker any woman, and teach her how to dress, do her hair, do her makeup, etc., she'll automatically stop being unattractive?

I ask because I've spent, oh God, years trying to be attractive. I spend a lot of money on beauty products; trying to make my hair thicker, trying to make my hair so it'll freaking do anything except by the lank, birds-nest mess it is, buying more/new makeup, trying to find clothes to fit my body. I kept desperately hoping that if I could just "crack the code" of beauty, I would be cured of my ugliness.

It especially got to me whenever I'd post my picture on a forum, and people would pipe up with "If you'd just do X, you'd be like a 7!" (So if I worked really, really hard, I'll be marginally attractive. Goody.) But 'X' was inevitably something I was already doing or, more likely, was incapable of doing. Like "You'd be fine if you lost weight!" Well, tried, can't, now what? "You'd be fine if you wore makeup!".... I'm wearing makeup in that picture. "You'd be fine if you grew your hair longer!" Okay, it's longer now, and now it looks freaking horrible because my hair is thin, limp and loses any kind of style after half an hour out in the world.

I got my hair cut a few weeks ago, and while there, I asked my routine question: "What face shape do I have? What hair cut would look good on me?" I've asked this question literally every time I've gotten a hair cut (so 6-7 times a year for the last 10 years) and every time, every time, even though it's always a different hair stylist, they say "I don't know. Your face shape isn't round.... but it's not square... but it's not wide or long.... I don't know." This last time, I actually started crying right in the middle of the salon.

I'm so tired of being ugly. But I'm also so tired of trying. Am I just too lazy to ever be good-looking? Too stupid to figure out how to not be lazy?

[eselle28]

I've never heard that statement before. It seems untrue to me. I mean, I do think that conventional attractiveness has an effort component and a knowledge component to it, and I think a lot of people can improve their looks if they want to acquire that knowledge and invest that effort.

But not everyone's starting with the same raw material, conventional attractiveness also has cultural and trend components, and not everyone has the time and money to invest in improving their appearance. Not everyone's going to get the same sort of social approval as the result of investing more effort, and some people aren't even in a position to even try. I also question the labeling of people who choose not to try as "lazy."

[reboot]

No. I do not agree. No amount of effort will stop me from being unattractive. Or let's say no effort short of massive, likely dangerous facial reconstruction surgery.

[Caffeinated]

I think the whole point of the idea that with enough effort any woman can be attractive is to sell more products and services to women. The carrot is the hope of being attractive, and the stick is the fear of being seen as lazy if you don't do all of the things to try to be more attractive. It's a horrid, expensive, time-consuming (time-wasting) mess of a mindfuck.

[reboot]

I think the whole point of the idea that with enough effort any woman can be attractive is to sell more products and services to women. The carrot is the hope of being attractive, and the stick is the fear of being seen as lazy if you don't do all of the things to try to be more attractive. It's a horrid, expensive, time-consuming (time-wasting) mess of a mindfuck.

^ We have a winner

[reboundstudent]

I think the whole point of the idea that with enough effort any woman can be attractive is to sell more products and services to women. The carrot is the hope of being attractive, and the stick is the fear of being seen as lazy if you don't do all of the things to try to be more attractive. It's a horrid, expensive, time-consuming (time-wasting) mess of a mindfuck.

That is a fantastic way to put it.

So.... how do you combat the idea that if you're unattractive, it's just because you're lazy? And thus you deserve no sympathy/understanding for being unattractive, because hey, you could change it, you're just too lazy to do so?

[Werel]

I think the whole point of the idea that with enough effort any woman can be attractive is to sell more products and services to women. The carrot is the hope of being attractive, and the stick is the fear of being seen as lazy if you don't do all of the things to try to be more attractive. It's a horrid, expensive, time-consuming (time-wasting) mess of a mindfuck.

Yuuuup, it's an ingenious marketing move and probably one of the oldest. Invent problem which you happen to have a purported solution for, terrify everyone about problem, sell solution by the assload.

So.... how do you combat the idea that if you're unattractive, it's just because you're lazy? And thus you deserve no sympathy/understanding for being unattractive, because hey, you could change it, you're just too lazy to do so?

Combat internally, or externally?

[Conreezy]

Do you guys agree with the idea that you taker any woman, and teach her how to dress, do her hair, do her makeup, etc., she'll automatically stop being unattractive?

The only time I've ever heard of this idea was in She's All That.

[waxingjaney]

Do you guys agree with the idea that you taker any woman, and teach her how to dress, do her hair, do her makeup, etc., she'll automatically stop being unattractive?

No, you're not Eliza Doolittle. You should ask "to whom?" Attraction is inherently referential.

[reboundstudent]

Attraction is inherently referential.

My immediate data set suggests otherwise.

[eselle28]

Attraction is inherently referential.

My immediate data set suggests otherwise.

To be fair, though, your immediate data set is nerdy dudes in your city who were born in the 80s. They share the same references, so there's unlikely to be a lot of variance there. There would probably be a bit more if you looked at people from other regions, countries, or age groups - which isn't to say that variance is helpful to anyone on an individual level, because for the most part it's just frustrating.

[kleenestar]

My script for pushing back against this is something like, "Yes, I could make conventional attractiveness my full-time job - but I already have one, thanks." Depending on who is talking there are nicer and rather nastier versions of this. Either way, I find it's often useful to remind people that the endless pursuit of marginal improvements in conventional attractiveness has a cost. I would not be a leader in my field if I'd spent double or triple (or as some people seem to think is appropriate, ten times as much) time on my looks, instead of reading, thinking, talking to people, working, or even relaxing.

[Caffeinated]

I think the whole point of the idea that with enough effort any woman can be attractive is to sell more products and services to women. The carrot is the hope of being attractive, and the stick is the fear of being seen as lazy if you don't do all of the things to try to be more attractive. It's a horrid, expensive, time-consuming (time-wasting) mess of a mindfuck.

That is a fantastic way to put it.

So.... how do you combat the idea that if you're unattractive, it's just because you're lazy? And thus you deserve no sympathy/understanding for being unattractive, because hey, you could change it, you're just too lazy to do so?

Read The Beauty Myth and get really, really angry.

[reboot]

My script for pushing back against this is something like, "Yes, I could make conventional attractiveness my full-time job - but I already have one, thanks." Depending on who is talking there are nicer and rather nastier versions of this. Either way, I find it's often useful to remind people that the endless pursuit of marginal improvements in conventional attractiveness has a cost. I would not be a leader in my field if I'd spent double or triple (or as some people seem to think is appropriate, ten times as much) time on my looks, instead of reading, thinking, talking to people, working, or even relaxing.

I love this response

[OtherRoooToo]

I've never heard that statement before.

I'm not sure if it was Helena Rubinstein who said it, or Coco Chanel, or what's-her-face Roberts (not Julia).  Some great beauty who also had a beauty empire (and thus, some cynics could argue, a vested interest).

I also question the labeling of people who choose not to try as "lazy."

That's a "consider the source" kind of thing, I think ... as well as --

I have to find the thread that talks about it - it's not on the main site, it's on another site I frequent - but there can be a political element to it in a world that penalizes women for "not trying" and who doesn't say "boo" to a man who rolls out of his house looking like an unmade bed (sometimes even if that man is an i-banker or of equivalent status).

It had something to say about how white women of size and nearly all women of color, but particularly also WOC who are also of size, had to "try harder" in order not to be unduly penalized for their (perceived lack of) grooming ... when someone the size & relative age of a Mary Kate or an Ashley Olsen can not only show up looking like an unmade bed, but also be rewarded for it in a "She's so unstudied, and not pretentious" kind of way.   Only if you are a white, skinny Kate Moss clone can you get away with something like that.

I'll see if I can find it.

All to say ... some folks -- some women, let's call it -- might see it as less of a choice if they don't want to be repeatedly mistaken for shoplifters, or worse criminals, if they're just trying to get to work like everyone else.

[fakely mctest]

Read The Beauty Myth and get really, really angry.

Second this. Naomi Klein suffers from many of your typical 3rd wave white feminist issues, but The Beauty Myth is on point.

Also recommend Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo: "Unbearable Weight is brilliant. From an immensely knowledgeable feminist perspective, in engaging, jargonless (!) prose, Bordo analyzes a whole range of issues connected to the body—weight and weight loss, exercise, media images, movies, advertising, anorexia and bulimia, and much more—in a way that makes sense of our current social landscape—finally! This is a great book for anyone who wonders why women's magazines are always describing delicious food as 'sinful' and why there is a cake called Death by Chocolate. Loved it!"—Katha Pollitt, Nation columnist and author of Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture

[Robjection]

With regards to the statement "no ugly women, only lazy ones", I agree with the first half and disagree with the second.

Despite what the media is determined to shove in our faces at every opportunity and despite what society at large seems to say about the matter, the range of what people find beautiful in a woman is quite wide once you start looking at individual preferences rather than general trends. It's unfortunate - scratch that, it's sickening - that any standard of beauty other than the One Right Way™️ of society is ignored if not mocked and shunned.

So what if a woman wants to go out without any make-up on? So what if a woman's tummy isn't as flat as a pancake (or concave - I've heard rumours and those rumours disturb me)? So what if her hair isn't perfectly straight or curled in exactly the right spots and exactly the right ways? Who are any of us human beings to decide that this makes the woman in question a hideous ugly beast? We can maybe say that they don't meet some beauty standards, but given that some of those beauty standards are practically (if not literally) impossible to meet, I would've thought we should be very hesitant to judge people's appearances by those standards.

At some point I am going to have to translate these thoughts and feelings into actual actions.

[InkAndComb]

I feel like this is a bit relevant; have any of you seen the recent youtube video going around of a highschooler telling other highschoolers that they're beautiful, and recording their reaction?

The first few are fine, but I actually started tearing up and silently crying a little; that gut-instinct first smile followed by "oh..." disbelief, so deeply held that they are NOT beautiful. There are a few guys you see it on too, but it was the women's reactions that really hit me hard.

Highschool was a rough time for me physically; even now I have a hard time with "beauty is in the eye of the beholder!" because, yes, that's true to a certain extent, but...

it's also not true? If that makes sense? The whole "beauty/appearence" doesn't matter never rang true to me, because it does?

And there are some resources and skills regarding makeup and styling that I just lack; things that I'm expected to study each day to acquire. Like, hair, proper foundation, countouring, etc..

The amount of time I'd have to sink in, and the lack of ability I currently have...it really would be a full-time job, as mentioned above.

But to be on par with other women my age (not even exceeding, just to level the playing field) that's what I'd have to do. It's what I'm currently trying to do, at least to be perceived as professional

So rough.

[Sponsored content]