On the treatment of ugly women

[nancylebov]

The other day, I did a post which which touched on the subject. More came up in the comments.

I don't understand why there are some men (I think they're a smallish minority but haven't heard of any research) who feel a very strong drive to insult women who don't meet their visual standards. I don't just mean I don't personally get that desire for cruelty, I mean that I don't understand what purpose it could possibly serve. If we're going to get all evolutionary about it (a likely source of sloppiness, but tempting if you've got a mind on the hamster wheel), why aren't those men focusing the women they want rather than the women they don't want?

Maybe it's a very low-cost means of status-seeking, with the status-seeking divorced from any practical goal.

By the way, I think women can obsess about the unattractiveness of unattractive men, but those men have to make a pass first rather than just being visible.

NonObligatorySF: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, which is the only novel I can think of which makes that point that ugly women are treated like shit for no particular reason.

Comments

[enegim.livejournal.com]

Till We Have Faces is one of my favorite books. (Your link isn't working, though.)

I think it is about status-seeking, and (like most forms of putting others down) also about projecting one's own shame to eliminate it.

Unfortunately, I've heard women obsess about unattractive men, too. Mostly younger women, I think--late teens and twenties--so maybe they grow out of it? For that matter, I think it's mostly younger men who do this about women. I can't remember any older guys harassing me about being ugly, but lots of younger ones, with the worst example being the whole population of my boyfriend's dorm-floor when I was a freshman in college.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I think you're right that it's worse among the young.

Not only have I heard men obsess about unattractive women and women obsess about unattractive men, I've heard women obsess about unattractive women--in fact, that may be the one I've heard the most, though it's usually (but not always!) talking behind the woman's back rather than insulting her to her face. Men obsessing about unattractive men, not so much, though I've certainly heard insults based on appearance among high school boys.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Link cleaned up. Thanks for letting me know.

I'd be interested in anything else you have to say about Till We Have Faces.

Part of what interests me about the compulsion to insult is that it doesn't seem to just be about the relief of pain-- there's quite a lot of pleasure mixed in.

[enegim.livejournal.com]

Hm. I haven't read TWHF in a few years, but if I think of anything I'll post.

It's been even longer, but doesn't the Darkover book Two to Conquer have some good stuff about the way men treat ugly women? Actually, I can't remember now whether the character is described as ugly, or just very heavy. But it's clear that the main character finds her unattractive and is awful to her just on that basis, IIRC.

Oh, and while it's not quite the same issue: what did you think of Ted Chiang's story "Liking What You See"?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Bradley was mostly a read-once author for me, so I can't help out there.

There was a Tanith Lee novel about a woman who'd been told she was very ugly, and who went veiled or masked.

On the other side, I'm fond of Richard Adams' Maia which was about an extraordinarily beautiful woman. What was good was that her beauty wasn't so much eye (imagination?) candy for the reader as that people went nuts around her, and it bent the plot in interesting ways.

I thought "Liking What You See" was the result of having a cool idea but no plot, so Chiang wrote it as a documentary. Other than that, quite an interesting story, and it would be cool if it could be tried in the real world. Did you know Westerfeld's Uglies was inspired by it? I recommend that one highly. The sequels are less interesting.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love Till We Have Faces, for so many reasons, but this is one.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

why aren't those men focusing the women they want rather than the women they don't want?

Because that would put him on the receiving end of the insults.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I think you're assuming that men only insult women they find attractive. This is conceivable, maybe even plausible, but I'd hardly call it proven.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

No, I'm assuming that attractive women don't want anything to do with men who insult unattractive women.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

Pretty much; the men I've seen do this sort of thing are always ones that make me think 'hello, pot? kettle calling'. They're not able to attract the women they find attractive (and that can be because of looks, money, position, personality or any combination of the four - usually #1 and #4, but not always) and rather than dwell on the concept of their failings, they distract themselves by being mean to women they're not interested in, and who probably won't fight back. Like any bully (and that's what they boil down to), the tears make them feel like they have worth.

The part I always found amazing was that most of the women they were being insulting to were far from ugly, frequently better looking than me, and yet I never got attacked by these guys - most likely because I'd knock them on their ass for being an ass; how this kind of scum can sense the vulnerable is beyond me.