Your last bit there still feels radical to me, every day. The fact that some non-conventionally attractive people are stunningly gorgeous ought to be obvious, but the fact that people have a right to be ugly and happy in public still always feels transgressive. Some people (including young, abled, thin, gender-conforming folks) are just unattractive sometimes, and so the fuck what?
It feels transgressive, like it’s our job to not force other people to see something hard to look at.
Yeah it is. It’s one of the more radical ideas I got from feminist theory, but it’s also one of the ones that I think is most directly and easily actionable.
Most people want to be beautiful in some way. It’s understandable and I’ve got no issue with it. I exercise for that purpose and I choose to wear makeup sometimes as well in part for that reason. But I do it for me because I want to feel beautiful in the way that makes me happy and comfortable.
If someone genuinely doesn’t care that’s fine. And it’s also fine if nothing they can do will make them beautiful.There’s a lot of feminist discussion on a lot of the finer points I could make around that, but the blunt point is that the people of Walmart have the same right to be in public as the people of Hollywood. Andrea Dworkin (who was mocked on national television for her appearance) deserves for her face to be associated with her work just as much as Gloria Steinem (who was famously conventionally attractive). A kind man who dresses poorly and has a neckbeard and is badly balding is still worthy of being treated as just as much of a person as everyone else.
I also refuse to judge those who sound or smell somewhat unpleasantly. They’re people too. They have any number of reasons why they do as such. I find it strange that certain smells are treated as socially acceptable even if they absolutely reek in my experience, but others aren’t. Hell there are people who I’d much rather smell their bo than their lunch or their smoke. That’s not all something I expect of others, but it’s a related standard I try to hold myself to.
Your last bit there still feels radical to me, every day. The fact that some non-conventionally attractive people are stunningly gorgeous ought to be obvious, but the fact that people have a right to be ugly and happy in public still always feels transgressive. Some people (including young, abled, thin, gender-conforming folks) are just unattractive sometimes, and so the fuck what?
It feels transgressive, like it’s our job to not force other people to see something hard to look at.
Yeah it is. It’s one of the more radical ideas I got from feminist theory, but it’s also one of the ones that I think is most directly and easily actionable.
Most people want to be beautiful in some way. It’s understandable and I’ve got no issue with it. I exercise for that purpose and I choose to wear makeup sometimes as well in part for that reason. But I do it for me because I want to feel beautiful in the way that makes me happy and comfortable.
If someone genuinely doesn’t care that’s fine. And it’s also fine if nothing they can do will make them beautiful.There’s a lot of feminist discussion on a lot of the finer points I could make around that, but the blunt point is that the people of Walmart have the same right to be in public as the people of Hollywood. Andrea Dworkin (who was mocked on national television for her appearance) deserves for her face to be associated with her work just as much as Gloria Steinem (who was famously conventionally attractive). A kind man who dresses poorly and has a neckbeard and is badly balding is still worthy of being treated as just as much of a person as everyone else.
I also refuse to judge those who sound or smell somewhat unpleasantly. They’re people too. They have any number of reasons why they do as such. I find it strange that certain smells are treated as socially acceptable even if they absolutely reek in my experience, but others aren’t. Hell there are people who I’d much rather smell their bo than their lunch or their smoke. That’s not all something I expect of others, but it’s a related standard I try to hold myself to.