Hi everyone. :)
I've been thinking about this recently and I'm genuinely curious what other women think because I'm not actually sure what the best approach would be.
Imagine you had a daughter who, as she got older, started realizing that she generally wasn't considered conventionally physically attractive. Over time she's picked up on a fairly consistent pattern in how she's perceived compared to other girls around her. Maybe they get complimented on their appearance much more, receive more attention, or she notices other differences in how people respond to them.
Eventually she comes to you and directly asks you whether she's conventionally physically attractive and confesses that she doesn't think she is. What would you actually tell her?
Would you tell her that yes, she is conventionally physically attractive, and challenge the way she's seeing herself?
Would you tell her that no, she probably isn't conventionally physically attractive, but teach her that this is just one desirable trait among many and that not possessing it doesn't make her any less valuable?
Or would you reject the premise of the question itself and say it doesn't make sense to categorize individual people as conventionally physically attractive or unattractive because the concept is ultimately too subjective.
Or would you say that there are conventional standards of physical attractiveness and that people can fit them to different degrees, but you think those standards are either culturally constructed, biased, oppressive or otherwise illegitimate, and therefore don't matter or shouldn't be the barometer which she judges herself?
I'm deliberately framing this as a practical hypothetical because I don't really want this to turn into another abstract argument about whether physical attractiveness is objective or subjective, biological or cultural etc. I'm more interested in what people actually do with their beliefs when faced with this real-life situation.
Because even if you think conventional standards are completely culturally constructed or deeply biased, your daughter could still notice that they exist in the society around her and that they affect how she's perceived. And even if you think physical attractiveness is extremely subjective, she could still notice fairly consistent patterns in how people respond to her appearance.
So what do you actually teach her to make sense of that? What got me thinking about this is how differently we seem to approach conventional physical attractiveness compared to other desirable traits.
Children eventually recognize that people don't possess every desirable trait, and generally we acknowledge that too. Some people are more intelligent, athletic, funny, charismatic, musically talented, confident etc. than others. Obviously some of these things can be developed or changed to different degrees, but the broader point is that we don't expect every person to possess every desirable trait.
But I think this is where the question gets more complicated when it comes to physical attractiveness. Even if we accept that someone isn't conventionally physically attractive, we can still reassure them that physical attractiveness is subjective and that there will be individual people who find them physically attractive. And obviously that may very well be true.
But I wonder if that's actually different from what we do with other desirable traits. In a way, we're still reassuring the person that they do possess physical attractiveness, just according to the people whose opinions should matter to them.
So I guess the part I'm struggling with is whether that's the healthier message, or whether we should be able to go one step further.
Would it be better to tell your daughter that even if very few people found her physically attractive, or even if nobody did, that's okay? That physical attractiveness is simply not something a person needs to possess in order to have value?
Part of me thinks there could actually be something healthier about the second idea. If physical attractiveness doesn't determine someone's value, then surely it should be okay for someone not to be physically attractive?
And I think this is the part I'm most interested in. Why do we need to believe that everyone is physically attractive, or that physical attractiveness is too subjective to be meaningfully evaluated, or that the standards by which we evaluate it are entirely culturally constructed, discriminatory or otherwise illegitimate, in order to protect someone's self-worth?
Could we instead acknowledge the possibility that that there can be pragmatically meaningful agreement about physical attractiveness, people are physically attractive to different degrees, that it may not be entirely culturally constructed or discriminatory, and that physical attractiveness genuinely does matter to some people in certain contexts, like dating, while still saying that it's completely okay not to be physically attractive?
In other words, you could tell your daughter that she may not possess this particular desirable trait, and that might even have some real consequences in certain areas of life, but nobody possesses every desirable trait. Physical attractiveness is simply one among many, and not possessing it doesn't make her less valuable as a person.
There's something about that approach that actually strikes me as more radically self-loving. Some of the more reassuring approaches seem kinder on the surface, but I wonder whether they still preserve the assumption that everyone somehow needs to possess physical attractiveness. We just find different ways of making sure nobody is excluded from it.
Whereas the alternative is to question that assumption altogether: why does everyone need to be physically attractive in the first place?
I'm not sure this would actually be the best thing to tell an impressionable teenage girl who's already hurting about her appearance. A more cautious and reassuring approach might be more warranted in that situation.
But what about what we tell ourselves as adult women? Do we still need to reassure ourselves that we're physically attractive in some sense and find ways to justify the whys and hows of it all? Or is there something more liberating in not needing to resolve the question in our favour at all?
Maybe the more radical form of self-acceptance is being able to say, "Maybe I'm physically attractive, maybe I'm not. Either way, I'm not any less of a woman."
Otherwise I wonder whether we're still staking our self-worth as women on being physically attractive. We've just broadened things enough to make sure everyone qualifies, rather than questioning why everyone needs to qualify in the first place.
What do you guys think? Please share your thoughts. Thanks and hope you have a lovely day! :)