wired for beauty

June 19, 2018

Bella Hadid

Wired For Beauty

“Why do women hate their bodies so much?” This question appeared in my twitter feed yesterday, another discussion about women and our attitudes towards beauty and our bodies. A topic of discussion that’s been around forever and it’s never going away. We don’t hate our bodies, we’re “wired” for beauty.

Aristotle noted that “personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference.”

The typical “women and their bodies” discussion usually covers things like: the influence of media on the development of beauty standards, unrealistic expectations, and double standards. But there’s another key component to the discussion that many of us do not want to dwell on.

We are wired this way, we can’t help it. Babies react to beautiful faces more positively than they do to the less attractive, and

“mothers tend to give more attention to their most attractive children, who then exhibit better traits and more socialized behavior than their less attractive siblings.”

As we all know, women with big eyes and breasts, and an hour-glass figure are considered the most attractive. (Read some more interesting and quirky things about human attraction here.)

It’s seems cruel, doesn’t it, being born with the predisposition to discriminate so early and so deeply? But there it is. Because this is true though, I’ve come to believe that most of us don’t really hate our bodies the way we are lead to believe.

We don’t hate our bodies so much as we love what the people with beautiful bodies have.

I’ve talked about how fashion is aspirational before, but when we look at Bella Hadid does anyone really wish they could look exactly like her? What we want, what we ever wanted was the life we imagine her having. Not only is fashion aspirational but life in general is.

helter skelter

June 7, 2018

Helter Skelter Give Me Shelter

I’m very helter skelter today. I’m foggy around the edges, it’s after 10:00 and I haven’t even read my email yet. I’m pushing myself to finish this post by noon for God’s sake! I had a job interview yesterday, and I’m not at all sure it went well.

How do you present yourself when you’re 61 and feeling a bit like a jaded, would be intellectual, citizen of the world who is hard to “get” at best?

How do you continue to pursue dreams that really are just privileged white girl goals and not the simple needs of most other people, everywhere? Give me shelter…

Kate

Kate Spade committed suicide Tuesday, at the age of 55, and I feel surprisingly sad about it. I say surprisingly because I didn’t know her, I didn’t really know that much about her, and I didn’t even particularly like her bags.

But she was a pioneer in the fashion business, and she always looked awfully kind to me.

I’m sad because she suffered from an illness that has plagued me and many members of my family and my extended family, my friends, for as long as I can remember.

Then I read that her sister said Kate’s suicide was, “not unexpected.” While I would never fault anyone

living in glass houses

May 29, 2018

Arturs Virtmanis

Living in Glass Houses

Has it all blown over? Is it alright for me to come out and tell you what I thought about Michelle Wolf and the disingenuous reaction to her appearance at the White House Correspondence Dinner?

Have we already moved on to this week’s “pearl clutching” incident? You see, it took me this long to stop seething. But now I’m here to say, you failed me America.

WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 28: Comedian Michelle Wolf attends the Celebration After the White House Correspondents’ Dinner hosted by Netflix’s The Break with Michelle Wolf on April 28, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Netflix)

The Wolf

“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones,” unless of course, their name is Michelle Wolf.

We are all living in glass houses these days, it’s the modern modus operandi. Whether you’re Chrissy Teigen on Twitter or Look For The Woman on Instagram, most of us, to some extent or another, are living within the confines of a glass box of our own making.

So when Michelle Wolf showed up to throw stones at the house that is the White House Correspondence Dinner, no one, I mean no one should have been surprised. Like so many, I’m asking “What did you expect?”

Soft pedaling from a woman whose HBO Special publicity shot was a picture of her walking away from an inferno of her own making?

Did you think she was one of you, and that she was going to spare you? And if you did, why? The Right Wing’s disgust with the Washington Elite does not mean

forces of nature, women are juicy

May 22, 2018

Force of Nature

Women are indeed a “force of nature.” Whether it’s Serena Williams on court, Michelle Wolf at the podium, or Meghan Markle walking down the aisle alone, there’s a power in each that exists independent of the woman. We all have it. Yes, you too. It’s that all bets are off, “times up,” force.

What’s the female equivalent of “balls to the wall?”

But did you ever wish you were a little less powerful, a little less forceful, less natural? I have at times. Why do I have to get quite that angry about this injustice? Do I really have to cry that hard when I’m mourning? And, “Hard work is fine, but am I crossing over into martyrdom here?”

I do believe that it’s mother nature that makes us the powerful creatures we are. We are tied to something bigger than us, and it’s a good thing because if the “future is female,” we’re going to need all the help we can get.

Continuum

There’s a continuum, an ongoing theme, a “bloody” reality to womanhood. It starts with actual blood, proceeds to the “sneeze pee,” and in between there are all the other fluids that can make being a woman both wonderfully “astonishing” and just plain unpleasant. There’s no denying it, we women are a juicy lot.