Some more musings on beauty, desirability, and friendship

Kirsty wrote below the post on friendship:

I used to be one of the girls whose closest friends were all boys, and remained so until a few years ago. I think I was very much in the "not a girl" category for a while and yep, it can sting.

Then I lost some weight. Actually, rather a lot of weight - about 40 pounds. Suddenly I found myself in "very definitely a girl" territory, and all my male acquaintances started hitting on me. This is particularly weird because I'm married, and most of these guys have met my husband. All the new guys I was meeting seemed to be incapable of even thinking of me as a possible friend - the usual pattern in meet and discover you have things in common, become kind of friendly, hang out a bit, at some point guy gets drunk and makes some kind of pass, I remind him that I'm married and not available, and then he gets upset and refuses to talk to me any more. Either that or coworkers, people I meet at gigs etc simply stop talking to me as soon as they realise I'm married. The "honorary guy" option no longer seems to be available to me, which sucks because I LIKE men and enjoy their company. And honestly, I never had this problem when I was overweight.

Has anyone else encountered this? It honestly never even occurred to me beforehand that losing weight would mean losing my guy friends. I miss them, but I'm also kind of annoyed with them for being such idiots. Calling them on it does NOT go well.

I'm reminded of the story of a woman I know very well.  "Ethel" went to graduate school in the 1960s, and was the only female in her particular doctoral program.  She was young and slender and considered quite attractive.  She was, she says, quite frustrated with the way she was treated so differently by both her fellow graduate students and her academic mentors.   Men held chairs out for her in seminars; Ethel was called "Miss ____" by her first adviser, who called his male students by their first names.   She wasn't overtly harassed, but she was often the subject of "penetrating gazes" and attention that was unwanted.

Then Ethel gained weight.  Eventually, she gained lots of weight.  It wasn't a conscious strategy, she says; it was more a function of the lifestyle she was leading (lots of studying, little exercise, poor eating habits).  As the pounds came on, she noticed that the men in her program began to relax around her.  The more her sexuality was hidden by her weight, the more her colleagues and mentors were able to see her as a real person.  She began to be invited to join "the guys" for coffee in groups, rather than being asked out on dates.  Ethel's advisers seemed more comfortable with her, and she began to hear just her first name rather than "Miss".  It was a hard trade-off, but her commitment to the life of the mind was greater than her commitment to her body project.   She has never lost the weight, and to this day has dear friends and colleagues of both sexes.

I wish I could say her experience was unique.  I saw the same thing happen to a woman in my grad program at UCLA in the early '90s.  Deanna didn't look like the rest of her fellow medievalists (oh, what a nerdy bunch we were); she bore a notable resemblance to the actress Phoebe Cates.   Deanna was very talented, with a real interest in medieval book production.  She was a bit shy, but given that most of her fellow grad students were introverts, that didn't make her unusual.  But I remember her telling me one day how upset she was that one of the other guys in her chosen sub-field (paleography), had suddenly stopped talking to her about half-way through the year.  She and "Dan" had studied together regularly for months, but now, he wasn't available.   Deanna didn't know what she had done, so I, being the busy-body that I am, went and asked Dan.  He told me that his wife (he was a newlywed) had met Deanna at a medieval colloquium and asked him never to be alone with her again. 

According to Dan, his wife had no problem with two other female paleographers who were considered "less attractive".  "She's scared I'll be attracted to Deanna", he said.  "Are you?"  "Yes, of course", he said.  "But I'm not going to be unfaithful to my wife just because I think Deanna's beautiful."  I don't think I had much in the way of good advice for Dan, his wife, or Deanna.  Dan wasn't at fault for being attracted to Deanna (an attraction I am assured he never even vocalized, much less acted on), and Deanna was not at fault for being a 5'11" brunette who looked more like a Hollywood starlet than the better-than-average medievalist she was.    I'm not at all sure Dan's wife was "at fault" either.  Though I didn't respect it at the time, I have more sympathy for his wife's position now.  She didn't fear her husband having an affair with Deanna as much as she feared being compared to her -- something that she thought would be inevitable if Dan and Deanna continued to work closely together.

Deanna got her M.A., dropped out of the PH.D. program, and went to law school.  I haven't seen her in thirteen years.  But I remember that when she told us she was leaving for McGeorge or Hastings or wherever it was, several of the guys in the program were noticeably disappointed and more than one woman medievalist expressed open relief.   Deanna was never seductive; she tended to wear sweatshirts and peasant skirts (back when the latter weren't much in style).  She never wore make-up.  But though she wasn't (to my knowledge) harrassed, she had a very hard time making good friends.  The married men had to think of their wives, the single men were enchanted by her, and her female colleagues tended to resent her. None of the women were overtly rude (again, as far as I know), but no one was as welcoming as they would have been to a plainer gal with Deanna's same intelligence and engaging personality.

As a man, I have to ask: how do I play into this?  What can men do?  It's not right to dismiss all of this as a "woman's issue", and make some cheap remark about female jealousy and cattiness.   We have to find ways to deal with women we find attractive without either "hitting on them" or withdrawing from them.  It's hardly impossible! Sexual attraction is normal and natural and universal -- but it's not a mandate for action.  We need to see how our own actions often exacerbate women's competitiveness with other women.  Women have been trained to be good students of male behavior, after all; when they see men responding in fairly obvious ways to attractive women, they draw understandable conclusions.   Men can help by understanding that sexual attraction is not incompatible with platonic friendship, as long as excellent boundaries are in place and firmly maintained.   

Surrendering one's sexuality and one's femininity is too high an admission price to pay for strong friendships with either other women or with men. 

Comments

[Kirsty]

Or, to put it another way - if you're a sexist man who wants a woman to stop saying something that you don't want to hear, and you don't actually have a good argument to counter what she's saying, tell her she's ugly. Hell, tell her that ALL uppity women are ugly. That'll shut 'em up.
It didn't work when they first tried it on the suffragettes, and it's not working now.

[Mr. Bad]

Man (or should that be woman, or 'womon?'), you folks are a piece of work! "Mr. Bad implied 'this' or 'that.'" Bull. I didn't imply anything - you all are living in a fantasy land.

What I meant is what I said - no more, no less. There was no "implied" anything. Whatever you feel I "implied" is in your heads.

The fact is, much of the time when you think we're hitting on you, we're not. You are not as hot as you think you are, and we're not attracted to you, let alone obssessing over you.

Get used to it.

And while you're at it, stop treating us like we're unthinking animals who are driven only by base sexual cues. Unless of course you want us to treat you similarly.

[mythago]

Mr. Bad, in all your thinly-disguised anger at women, you keep forgetting that it's not feminists who paint men as Only Wanting One Thing, or think that men are after them all the time. You can lay that blame at the feet of two other unfortunately large groups:

1) Those men who use 'testosterone poisoning' as an explanation for their choice to be assholes, and argue that it's biology that makes them harass teenage girls or try to fuck their secretaries;

2) "I'm-not-a-feminist-but" women, who don't think much of men, talk shit about you the second you're off watching football with the guys, and see their sexual desirability to men as their most important asset (not to mention the means to control all those guys described in #1).

I mean, c'mon. We feminists are all fat, ugly man-hating dykes. Why on earth would we care if you hit on us, much less notice?

A woman can be flat-chested and still steal somebody's husband or boyfriend.

It's true that any woman with a large enough weapon can kidnap your husband or boyfriend, in which case you should call the police. But aside from that, talking about "stealing" a husband or boyfriend treats him like a mindless object, and pretends that what's really going on is some kind of competition between the women only.

[Kirsty]

Mr Bad stated
"The fact is, much of the time when you think we're hitting on you, we're not. You are not as hot as you think you are, and we're not attracted to you, let alone obssessing over you.

Get used to it. "

You do realise that this statement is factually absurd and basically meaningless, don't you? Who is this "we" of which you speak? And who is "you"? Even if it wasn't completely childish and petty (which it is) to attempt to discredit someone's opinions by calling them ugly, the reality is that you don't actually know any of the women commenting on this blog. You have no idea what we look like. You are projecting your ideas about "feminists" onto a group of women you know nothing about. You're also gravely mistaken if you imagine that we care what you think of us. Your childish name-calling does nothing except make it clear that you have nothing intelligent to add to the conversation.

[Mr. Bad]

Kirsty,

So, you are absolutely certain that you are correct 100% of the time that whenever you think we're "hitting on you" or otherwise lusting after you, then we indeed are and there can'pt possibly be any other explanation for the way we're looking at you? In other words, you and other women are never wrong.

Right. I get it now.

[yami]

Women (with the exception of lesbians...) like to look attractive

Crikey, Mindy, is there a reason you had to nonchalantly toss out a tired old stereotype like that?

[Kirsty]

Mr Bad, you completely missed the point of my post. Why are you so determined to get into a discussion about women's desireability, and their ability to judge whether or not they are being "hit on"?
So far you just seem to be proving my point that when confronted with a woman expressing opinions you don't like your knee-jerk reaction is to call her ugly, regardless of whether you even have any idea what she looks like. Which, as I'll point out again, is petty and entirely besides the point.
If anyone else (who isn't an MRA troll come to harrass Hugo about his "mangina") didn't read Mr Bad's comments the same way I did I'd love to hear it.

[Caitriona]

Didn't even read it, to be quite honest with you. I've been too busy the past couple days to allow myself to be pulled into one of his arguments.

If he wants to argue with me, he'll need to come help me load some stubborn calves into the stock trailer I borrowed so that I can take them off to the sale barn. Yesterday, my 15yo daughter and I loaded 4 sheep and a goat and took them to the butcher. The day before that, I was having a serious enough "allergy" reaction (that the doc thinks may actually be stress-related) that I had to go to the doc's office twice for shots, once abt 9am, the 2nd abt 3pm.

So, if the good professor (or whatever he is at that college where he says he works) would like to come out here and help me work, I'd be more than happy to discuss such issues as men, women, and feminism with him.

[mythago]

So, you are absolutely certain that you are correct 100% of the time

If we were only right 99% of the time, would that be OK?

[BritGirlSF]

Silly mythago. Don't you know that in Mr. Bad's world we are always wrong?

[Twinsmom]

Kirsty,

So, you are absolutely certain that you are correct 100% of the time that whenever you think we're "hitting on you" or otherwise lusting after you, then we indeed are and there can'pt possibly be any other explanation for the way we're looking at you? In other words, you and other women are never wrong.

Right. I get it now.

I have been following this thread, and you know what? Your defensive. Your accusing her of something that came from you. I think, you are in denial of your own feelings while viewing any woman. Regardless if they are attractive or not. The amount of defensivness gives credit to her assertations that your sexist.

Most ALL of these views are sexist.

It boils down to simple facts.

1. Women were blamed for everything.
2. Men were not, and were a follower of woman's sin.
3. Women do not have the ability to over power a man, and make him her bitch, so we had to deal with generations of persecution from men.

That is the root of all the issues between men and women.

The moment you can see past the fact of sexuality. Think of yourself outside of sexuality and what it entails, then you can BEGIN to see the work that feminists have to do to correct 3000+ years of abuse.

No one can make you feel inferior with out your consent.
Elaenor Roosevelt.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

So, you are absolutely certain that you are correct 100% of the time that whenever you think we're "hitting on you" or otherwise lusting after you

Way back in the dark ages when I was in junior high, the boys suddenly developed a new habit. They would lounge around in groups in the halls, and, as I passed from class to class, they would shout at me, in unison, "Will you go steady with me?"

You know, I don't really care if I'm 100% right about when men are lusting after me. I don't care if I'm never right. I care if they're civil, and treat me with respect. The guy that surreptitiously looks at me with lust (hypothetical - of course I'm an ugly feminist and no one feels desire for me, ever, plus I'm a lesbian and have no interest in being attractive to anyone at all anyway) may feel much more desire than the guys who stand in groups and shout. They're probably doing their own social bonding thing with each other, and it doesn't matter whether I'm beautiful or ugly. But it's not about desire; it's about respect.

Complaints about "hitting" on a woman at work aren't about the guy's internal feelings; they're about the guy's disrespectful and unprofessional behavior.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

By the way, I continued to encounter the harrassment in groups thing in certain street situations into my early thirties, but haven't run into it in recent years; either I've finally aged out of it or I now no longer find myself in the neighborhoods where it happens. Harrassment at work hasn't really been a problem for me, but has for other women.

[Kirsty]

Thanks Lynn. Mr. Bad is indeed projecting his own issues onto my comments, but then given that he does the same thing to Hugo I'm not too surprised.
I'm 31 now and I still get the street harrasment. When did it stop for you? I haven't seen any signs of it tailing off at all so far. I'll be delighted when it does (though I'm sure that Mr. Bad will as usual claim that I'm lying about this).

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

I don't remember for sure, but I know the last time I got it was when I was still living in northern California, so not since my late thirties (of course, moving to southern California also meant more situations where I just have to drive places, and usually my husband's with me when I'm walking, so there may just be less opportunity to encounter it).