Joanna Schroeder understands the cruel machinations of the beauty industry, but she doesn’t think that minimizes the authenticity of Tom Matlack’s admiration of his wife.
Tom Matlack said that when he wakes up in the morning, he loves the sight of his wife’s face. To him, she is the most gorgeous woman in the world, and her eyes pierce his soul, particularly when she’s wearing no make-up.
Someone on Twitter called these sentiments “shmoopy” and they are. They’re totally shmoopy. And if you hate shmoop, you’re going to find it annoying at best, and disingenuous at worst. But I believe him. Not because I think that his wife, Elena, is objectively the most beautiful woman in the world. She’s lovely, of course, but the reason I believe him is because my husband feels the same way about me. He looks at me in the morning and, even after 9 years, gets a little giddy. He looks at me when I’m wearing no make-up and have my hair up in a ponytail that I’ve slept in and crust in the corners of my mouth and creases on my face and he tells me he loves me… and I believe him.
I don’t need to lie to myself about beauty. I have been both beautiful and decidedly unpretty in my life. I’ve been so thin I’ve been emaciated, and I’ve been a healthy size 10. On top of that, I’ve been in the middle with my weight, right where the fashion industry tells me I should be. I’ve had bad skin and awesome skin, horrible hair and great hair. I’ve had high-end fashionable clothing and I’ve spent years in ill-fitting jeans and American Apparel tee shirts.
I know what it is to have one pulled over on you by a guy who is just out to bullshit you. And I know what it is to be loved.
♦◊♦
Beauty is used as a weapon against women in our society, much as success is used against men. If you weren’t born beautiful, you better be doing everything you can to get there. If you have acne, you better subscribe to ProActiv and hope you can follow all the steps. If you have grey hair you should make sure you schedule your hair color appointments no longer than 6 weeks apart so your roots don’t show. Don’t forget the white strips for your teeth, the exfoliator for your décolleté, UV-hardened gel for your manicure, a wedge-shaped brush for smudging your eyeliner and if you live in LA you really should get going with Botox in your forehead before those lines get too deep and while you’re there, just a little collagen in your top lip won’t hurt. And who does your eyebrows? I go to the place across the street, but they make them too thin. If they’re too thin, you look old. Did you know that? Oh, and I know a girl who does IPL so you can zap those freckles. It’s really no big deal, they peel off after a few days and then just stay out of the sun. Go to J. Crew, they’ve got great hats with a really wide brim, only $68.00 and everyone’s got one.
We’re told as tiny girls that we are to be pretty. Strangers reward us when we do with coos and winks and “Oh, aren’t you adorable?” in a way that is pretty hard to replicate from anything we could earn, like good grades or even mastery in a sport. In the eyes of a child, pretty girls have everything—men that adore them, lots of friends, and great jobs like actresses and models and ballerinas.
As we get older and start to feel the machine around us pushing us through its works, beauty becomes a touchy subject. We probably all enjoy being told we’re pretty, but it’s complicated. Who can we trust to tell us the truth? What do they want from us? Does the guy giving me the goo-goo eyes right now really like me, or is he telling me I’m pretty so he can see what kind of panties I’m wearing? And ultimately, why do you care if I’m pretty? What does it matter to you? Isn’t the objective to “win” a pretty girl so you can wear her around town like an expensive watch?
Beauty isn’t like any other conversation women may have, except perhaps sexuality. It’s something we’ve carried with us our whole lives and it’s deeply attached to shame and rejection. Pretty girls are often given advantages that less attractive women are not, that’s been well documented. But pretty girls carry a particular burden, too. First, we’re not supposed to admit that we’re pretty. And our beauty is supposed to be effortless, natural and tasteful. It’s supposed to be contained in the right package and marketed for mainstream use. Anything outside the type of beauty that is currently prescribed is rejected, or at least not fully accepted, and is considered either “exotic” (tokenized) or simply just wrong.
So the mainstream marketing of beauty is also a touchy subject for many women, particularly feminists. My mother’s generation of feminists proved their street cred by going bare-faced, ditching girdles and sporting luscious armpit hair. I was one of those. I may not have burned my bra but I certainly embarrassed my parents by refusing to wear one for a few years. After about a year of no shaving, my stepfather finally noticed and said, “Joey. You have hair under your arms!” and I said, “Yes! It grows there!” and he said, “Should you shave it?” and I said, “No, don’t oppress me!”
♦◊♦
So it doesn’t surprise me that Tom Matlack talking about make-up in the New York Times caused an uproar, even though he said that he had no opinion whether or not women should wear make-up (or get breast implants or tattoos). The fact is, there are a lot of people who believe that the only right way for a man to answer a question about whether women should wear make-up would be to say, “Men should have no opinion about women’s make-up.”
Instead, Tom said, “Women should do what they want.” And maybe there’s a difference there. He’s saying what he feels, rather than prescribing a proper way to talk about something. I’ve been struggling with this distinction since heavy criticism was laid against him last week, including by some people I really like and admire. I have come to the conclusion that Tom Matlack is simply never going to be the guy who says, “Men, you should have no opinion.” And maybe that will make him Enemy Number One to some people, but it’s just who he is. He seems to want to tell his truth and let others do the same. He answered the way you’d hope a man would answer—by saying it’s not up to him what his wife or any other woman does—but not exactly the way he was perhaps supposed to answer, because he was supposed to universalize his personal opinion. Some writers even said things like “Finally, Tom Matlack’s opinion about your face” when really, Tom’s opinion was, I have no opinion about your face.
But he did have an opinion about his wife’s face. He deemed it perfect in the morning, bare. He called her gorgeous. And he used a few words that are pretty triggering for those who have studied the effects of the beauty industry upon women: “natural” and “tasteful”. To the average person, those words are so common they’re almost meaningless. But to some people, the word “tasteful” is a natural juxtapostion against “not tasteful” which basically means slutty. And we all know that word’s not okay.
And the use of the word “natural” bothered some women, too. One such woman is Christina Huffington, who’s Friday blog on HuffPo explained the way “natural” and “effortless” beauty have served to undermine her self-esteem. For Christina, the quest for effortless beauty and perfection was dangerous and she landed in treatment for an eating disorder. In her piece, she looks back on a conversation she had with a doctor and explains:
She was perfect, I said. I would never be that perfect. Her perfection was effortless and every aspect of my life seemed to require enormous effort. To talk to boys was an effort. To get dressed, an effort. I was sitting there shivering in a locked ward because I had put a dangerous amount of effort into my quest for perfection. True perfection, it seemed to me, had to be effortless.
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Obviously effortless perfection is impossible to achieve, it’s a negation in terms. But I profoundly understand where Ms. Huffington is coming from. I also understand disordered eating. I know what it’s like to despise one’s own perfectly capable body, to wish you could take a knife and cut something off—like your thighs or your thick arms. I know how it feels to become so used to being hungry that you no longer even register the sensation. I know what it’s like to workout until you’re sick, and then feel guilty for not working out again that same day.
I know how it feels to feel profoundly ugly. I spent extraordinary amounts of time in tanning beds in my late teens because of my pale, freckled skin. If I could just get tan enough, the freckles might just blend in. And after a while they did. (Consequently, I’ve had 8 moles removed from my skin before 35 years old, 3 pre-cancerous and one so dangerous I had to have part of my toe cut off and reconstructed by a plastic surgeon.)
I’ve tortured my body for beauty, but it wasn’t actually about beauty. It was about perfection and sexuality and acceptance. It was about being better than others, wanting to feel untouchable in just one way. It was about avoiding the risk of people rejecting me for the things that actually matter—like brains, or skill, or soul. It was about trying to get to a place where, when my partner told me, “I love you, you are wonderful, you are beautiful exactly as you are,” I would actually believe him. But the quest for perfection will never lead you there, because you’ll never be perfect. You’ll always have a dimple on your thigh or a pimple on your nose. And with all that effort, you’ll never be effortless. Yes, the quest for beauty is tortured in a way that few men probably truly understand.
♦◊♦
I asked Tom Matlack what he meant when he said that Elena is most beautiful with no make-up on. He told me this, “because of how much I adore her, I find her most attractive first thing in the morning, seeing her with nothing but her natural face and body. I allows me to connect more deeply to the essence of the woman I adore. My comment in the NYT piece was not intended to be generalized to anyone else or make any other women feel pressure or less than. It was simply a reflection on my wife and how make-up works inside our marriage.”
Interestingly, some people didn’t believe Tom that he actually does love Elena’s face more bare than with make-up. I asked Amelia McDonell-Parry of The Frisky why it was impossible to believe him. She explained most men don’t seem to even realize the difference between “no make-up look” and “no make-up”. She said, “I don’t think, like many men, he actually GETS make-up.” I think Amelia is saying that he thinks he likes her better bare-faced, but in truth he likes the “no make-up look” more.
To me, this is more about intimacy than actual beauty. Tom told me it’s impossible for him to say whether the rest of the world would think Elena was more beautiful first thing in the morning versus done up for a formal event. That’s not what any of it was about. And I get that, because looking across the bed at my own husband, who is 47 years old, is when I love him best. That first-morning face is unique. Only I (and our children sometimes) get that face. He can take his everyday face into work, around town, and other women and men can admire it if they want, but first thing in the morning is just for me. And loving him then, beard all messed up, hair crazy, is special because for those few moments it’s just us.
I think that’s what Tom meant when he talked about the way Elena looks at him first thing in the morning. Intimately. Without reservations or distractions. Straight into his soul. And he loves that feeling so much that her face at that moment—to him—is perfect. Not the kind of perfection that Ms. Huffington (or myself) was seeking to dangerous ends, but the kind of perfection that comes with true intimacy; with trust and years of hard work and pain and joy and loss. And for a moment, when we have that kind of a partnership, we get to step out of society’s rules and misogynistic teachings that say that a 48 year-old woman can’t be gorgeous without make-up.
♦◊♦
I don’t know if one can fully understand that sort of feeling until it’s experienced. Even if someone adores you and tells you everyday, you have to be receptive to believing it. Believing it is terrifying because the moment you believe your partner feels that way, the more vulnerable you are. This is really it. This is really love. If something goes wrong, it wasn’t because they didn’t love me enough. It wasn’t because I was unlovable.
Believing we’re unlovable does a lot for us in that shitty way that shitty things do. It keeps us safe, because it allows us to maintain control over our hearts. If I tell myself (or you) that I’m not lovable, as I used to, then I’m still the one deciding I’m unlovable, so you don’t get the chance to find it out first. It’s a weird dance of self-fulfilling scenarios and grappling for control.
And maybe we can’t imagine that Tom Matlack loves his wife that way, because we cannot imagine that it’s possible. And if we did believe it were possible, then we’d have to face the fact that we may not have that right now. Tom is lucky (or blessed, if that’s your thing) to have a love like that, but if you go back and read his old work you’ll see that it didn’t come to him unearned. I deserve it less than him, probably, but I have it too.
My husband likes my face first thing in the morning best—pillow creases, cracked lips, matted hair and all. And I believe him when he says it. Finally.
Perhaps Tom should’ve definitively said, “Men have no place talking about make-up” instead of his opinion that women should be the ones to decide about make-up. But let’s not let that cloud the fact that in the space of a few hundred words, Tom said something that we very rarely hear: A real woman, one with ambition and drive and heart and soul, one who is a mother and over the age that Hollywood deems “desirable”, is beautiful to her husband just as she is. And that alone is sort of a revolutionary statement in our youth-obsessed society.
Photo of a sleeping woman courtesy of Flickr/Parker Knight
Personally, I know my husband finds me beautiful, makeup or no makeup, I know that in terms of sex, he prefers makeup, which is more than cool with me, because I prefer to wear makeup (for me I feel more myself when I have makeup on, because I wear it as a form of self expression, being the goth chick that I am) He knows that I think he’s stunning regardless, but that I frankly find it very sexy when he has some eyemakeup on/has done his hair (and I go WILD for a man in heels). I also know… Read more »
I look better with make-up. Most people do. I guess my relationship with it is not nearly as complicated as most women’s. I wear it because I like looking different, about once a month. And I usually stay inside when I do. It’s not worth the extra ten minutes in the morning to wear it to work, and attracting men has always been pretty much at the bottom of my priorities in life. I like to think my attitude on it is pretty healthy, which is why I often get mad when people think it’s evil. It’s not evil, if… Read more »
Asking men to speak up about makeup preferences is like asking women to speak up about penis size preferences. Everyone’s personal preferences will be different, and the same persons preferences will change from other person to other person. That is to say, maybe Tom likes Linda with no makeup, but think Kate looks better with make up, and that Sally looks best with just a little make up. Or Joanna liked Sam’s dick because it was big, but also liked Nick’s because it had a nice curve to it, but also liked Dave’s because it was a little smaller and… Read more »
I don’t always wear makeup, sometimes I’m lazy and just can’t be bothered, or hit snooze too many times, or I’m going to the grocery store in my weekend clothes and who am I going to see at Kroger that really gives a crap what I look like? When I do wear it, though, I generally feel better about myself. This morning I put a little more effort than usual into my look, dressed nicely and accessorized (a step I usually forget), used a curling iron on my hair and put on some mascara and eyeliner. As I was walking… Read more »
I don’t agree with the statement beauty being used as a weapon against women. Beauty IS very important to men, that’s not gossip from the beauty industry to get you to buy their products, it’s true. A man, especially your husband, wants you to feel completely comfortable around him and will tell you anything to make that the case (because he loves you). That doesn’t mean it’s the case though. I decided to type the truth because I wasnt sure if you were looking for honest responses or confirmation of the bubble women live in.
I agree with you, actually. As a non beautiful woman, I am very aware that men value beauty in women over everything else. It sucks but it is the way it is.
I’m sorry the men you know are like this, but not all of them are. I dare say very few of my male friends are like this, but that’s just selection bias at work (intentionally so, I might add).
Agreed. I am perfectly capable of discounting, ignoring, patronizing, or insulting beautiful women as much as I am anyone else. To behave otherwise would be unfair…. : – )
I value beauty, amongst other things, but being superhot won’t save someone with a terrible personality. At most they’ll be wanted for casual sex, but for love you need a matching n compatible personality which beauty doesn’t matter as much.
Beauty matters to a varying extent in all people, some more than others, as an overweight male I can assure you women can be just as shallow as men.
Good for you, Sarah, for not discounting the evidence.
I’m sure you’re a very beautiful woman Sarah, inside and out.
There’s not a morning I wake up, look at my wife, and think, “you know, I’d love her just a tad bit more if she were prettier.” Superficiality is not noticing how attractive someone is, it’s thinking that it’s somehow important.
There are two times during the day that are my most favorite. At night when I see my wife cme into the lobby of the swimming pool where we swim each evening and in the morning when I wake her from her sleep. Two distinct visions. Both beautiful. Hard to pinpoint in which she is most beautiful, but if I had to choose,I’d say the morning wake-up makes me more weak in the knees. Something about the beauty of starting another day together that steals my heart and makes me thankful that she is the person with whom I have… Read more »
I find this whole discussion sort of foreign to me because I don’t wear makeup. I was not a pretty girl when I was growing up, and after experimenting with makeup in my teens and early 20’s, I found it did absolutely nothing for me. Men did not pay more attention to me when I wore makeup; they didn’t like me any better; they still ignored me, for the most part. My first boyfriend in college was very critical about my appearance and even told me that he was embarrassed dating me because I wasn’t attractive enough, so I wore… Read more »
Kind of a weird way to arrive at the point where you don’t care about make-up. “I tried and tried and tried, it didn’t give me perks, screw that.” How I arrived at it: “I wasn’t raised to think it looked good on me. I don’t think it looks good on others. Ergo, it doesn’t look particularly good, is time-consuming, is costly -> Conclusion, only do for artistic ventures or for being exotic/special events.” I do think I can be physically appreciated (considered pretty by some). But I don’t really care. I’ve been rejected, not as a romantic partner specifically,… Read more »
To me, this is about acceptance. How we accept women and expect them to perform to be pleasing. And every woman understand that the world expects her to be “pleasing” in all forms. We are suppose to please our kids, we are suppose to please our parents, we are suppose to please our husbands and boyfriends and even men we don’t know because we are suppose to be pretty at all times. We are suppose to do all this while maintaining the illusion of youth and beauty. And if we don’t? Then we aren’t really, “real women”. We aren’t truly… Read more »
” We are suppose to do all this while maintaining the illusion of youth and beauty. And if we don’t? Then we aren’t really, “real women”. We aren’t truly feminine. We aren’t worthy of love. And ultimately, women inherently want to be loved. That spans ages, from 5 to 105″ Screw that. I’ve also rarely heard people say a woman is “not a real woman” because she was barefaced, or not wearing a dress. You can revoke a “man card” for lack of masculinity in any kind of domain (or lack of being suicidal and brainless with the intent to… Read more »
I really have no idea what you are talking about or why you think it applies to what I said. I wrote something that I deeply believe in, it came from somewhere inside me and is nothing but truth. And you wrote it off by saying “screw that” because you don’t really care about the issues women experience. At least, that is how it seems to me by your response. I am sure that you have a lot of issues to contend with in your life. That doesn’t mean you can’t open yourself up to hearing other people out and… Read more »
You said you spoke for everyone, with what I quoted. That all women want to be loved, and they all buy that they won’t be accepted, as female/as woman by people if they don’t look feminine enough (which is WAY WAY past “not butch”). If that’s true, women should grow out of it by the time they’re 20. I mean sure, companies sell insecurity to make a living, but critical thinking exists, and I deem all humans capable of it. I mean, as a trans woman, I should be particularly vulnerable to pressures saying “I don’t do enough to qualify… Read more »
I think everyone woman wants to be loved yes. And wants to be thought of as beautiful. I think a lot of women struggle with their beauty because of messages women receive about their looks. I’m not sure why women should grow out of wanting to be loved and feel beautiful by the time they are 20. I never said women weren’t able to think for themselves. Just because we are able to be “critical thinkers”, doesn’t mean these issues go away. Just like you as a transwoman says “bullshit” to messages, I do the same. Otherwise, I would be… Read more »
Make-up is whatever, I can take it or leave it. Neither my current girlfriend nor my last ex wore any most of the time and I didn’t care, and still don’t. They both have great natural skin though. That said, I am very interested in my girlfriend’s clothing choices. She dress fantastically IMHO: lots of long flouncy dresses and skirts that I adore, always sexy lingerie, and occasionally belts and corsets that pinch in the waist and accentuate her breasts. I’m always happy to pass comment and, ahem, be financially supportive. I am downright prescriptive when it comes to her… Read more »
“Men should have no opinion about women’s make-up.” If you want to catch my eye then you damn well better not silence my opinions on dress n makeup, if someone wants to know what I like then ASK ME. If a girl I like loves me wearing a certain style I may actually wear it for them as long as it doesn’t bother me. Should women wear makeup? Women can do whatever the fuck they want. I do notice good makeup though, and I appreciate the women that wear it for the trouble they go to and how it can… Read more »
“Men should have no opinion about women’s make-up.” and “Perhaps Tom should’ve definitively said, “Men have no place talking about make-up”” I think the message of these statements is more about usefulness than rights of expression. More like: “expressing opinions about make-up is generally a no-win situation for men. It will likely create anger or insecurity in the woman he is talking to, or diminish him in her eyes, or both.” I’m hoping she’s not saying that men have no right to have an opinion on the matter, just that expressing it will generally be counterproductive. There’s just no upside… Read more »
Indeed. Silencing men on opinions of the opposite gender is pretty popular, how dare they speak of what they like women to wear. Why not see both genders as giving a damn about each other’s experience? The article and most of the comments here seem to be of men saying they don’t care that much about makeup on their partners, they see their partners as beautiful with or without makeup. How is that not helpful to women? It pretty much proves makeup isn’t as important as some women tend to think it is, but then I guess you can change… Read more »
Cheers for the article, Joanna, appreciated (and I’m sure Tom does too.) “Interestingly, some people didn’t believe Tom that he actually does love Elena’s face more bare than with make-up. I asked Amelia McDonell-Parry of The Frisky why it was impossible to believe him. She explained most men don’t seem to even realize the difference between “no make-up look” and “no make-up”. She said, “I don’t think, like many men, he actually GETS make-up.” I think Amelia is saying that he thinks he likes her better bare-faced, but in truth he likes the “no make-up look” more.” I think this… Read more »
My favorite makeup is the dirt covering a woman after a long day planting and weeding in the fields, or the grease from servicing a GE CF34 on a regional jet. It’s the bits of thread strewn through her hair when sewing her latest project, or the sweet mixture of sweat and tears after setting a new PR on the clean and jerk. It’s the ink stains on her fingers after completing her latest novel, and the blood from her encounter with the concrete at the skate park. When a woman wear that make-up it’s like ambrosia to me. Otherwise,… Read more »
I’ve had men offer various opinions on my appearance. First I don’t generally wear make up as it makes me break out or get some weird allergic things going on (especially with the mineral make ups for some reason). But sometimes I’ll put some on. And I find the opinion about make up and hair (another perpetually changing thing on me) varies man to man. Some prefer heavy make up. Some prefer no make up (and it wasn’t a “right answer” situation it was a “can’t you wipe that stuff of your face before we go out” statement). Some like… Read more »
@ Kat “I think this is indicative of a bigger issue of why as a society are stripped of our opinions. Why is it wrong for anyone (male or female) to have preferences about people and talk about them? Why do we have to be neutral about absolutely everything?” This is because some people want to ignore the fact that when to comes to physical appearance, There are woman who are attractive to a large number of men and there are woman who are attractive to a small number of men. Also that weather it’s kate upton, kim kardashian or… Read more »
@William… “…..every man is looking for a woman he finds physically attractive.” Yes and No. Initially, what gets my attention is not a woman’s beauty. Rather, it is walk, dress, and rear end. That is what I look for FIRST. Does she walk with confidence? Does she dress in a toned down but classy manner? She does not have to wear Christian Louboutin or Jimmy Choo. Just nice but classy look. I think the rear end needs no explanation. If I get a chance to meet her and talk, then I am listening for smarts, beliefs, looking for warm eyes… Read more »
Your post proved my point. She doesn’t have to be attractive to the next man but she does have to be attractive to YOU.
Thank you Joanna for sharing your thoughts on what has become a rather touchy subject over the last week. We have known each other for 20 years now (hard to believe right) and there are subjects such as this that I am extremely interested in knowing what you think. I will go ahead and apologize now, this is kind of a long reply…what can I say, you got me on a roll again Joanna 😉 To start I would like to say that I am happy for both you and Tom’s wife that you both have such wonderful men as… Read more »
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And that is often because they can see things that others can’t see. Not long ago, we were putting a roof on our chicken coop, in the rain. I was wearing baggy old Carharts, Wellingtons, A down vest under an old hoodie, and literally had chicken shit in my hair because it’s impossible to work on a chicken coop in the rain and not have chicken shit in your hair. I was hammering something, and caught my sweetie looking at me. It was one of those looks that pierced my soul and… Read more »
Good makeup and clothing can leave me speechless, but 90% of that feeling or more comes from how I feel about the person. I like people both in and out of makeup, just as I like my partner nude and clothed nicely, ratty tatty clothing doesn’t bother me much if there’s no need to look good like being in the chicken coop. Going out I prefer we both dress up a lil, at least I prefer to dress up nicely. Hell get naked, no makeup, and I doubt you’ll find many partners think “HMMM I wish she was wearing makeup”.… Read more »
First, I have no reason to specifically doubt Tom or your husband when they say they like you best without makeup. I am not about to imply that they are lying. I merely want to ask hypothetical questions: If he thought you were a little more attractive with makeup, or that sometimes he likes the way you look better when you’re made up, would he really have the same chance to express that truth? I suspect in most cases one answer is clearly preferable to the other. It strikes me that Tom and your husband are both saying “The Right… Read more »
Sorry, messed up pronouns. I meant your husband likes you w/o makeup and Tom likes his wife w/o makeup. I have no idea what Tom thinks of you without makeup. : – )
First, just today on a conference call, Tom expressed that he doesn’t care if anyone wears make-up, so I assume I”m included in that group 😉 And yes, I hear you about how it seems like “the right thing” to say. My husband is one of those weirdos who is truly devoted. He lived a very rough 38 years before he met me, and I’m not exactly the first woman he’s laid eyes on. But throughout our years together, he has had to learn to be honest wiht me about the realities of how we’re both changing. I’ve dealt head-on… Read more »
There is “do you look better with make up/does he look better groomed” as a normative social matter. Probably yes, everyone looks a little better with clean hair, nice clothes, etc. Just look at makeover shows for men or women. But there is a moment often, when you see your partner just as they are, warts and all, and the beauty inside them and love you feel for them transforms them. I think those are two very different experiences and both are honest.
Yes Julie, exactly. That’s why I spoke of that first morning beauty as being more about intimacy that objective “Beauty”.
And maybe more affection than desire.
I wish we could hear from writers in Latin countries (chiefly, Spain, France, Italy) on this issue. They don’t seem as strained over the concepts of beauty, appearance, aestheticizing, or rank and inequality of physical characteristics. With their deeply planted ideas of good form, of bella figura, and bon chic bon genre, I can’t imagine them having such a fraught discussion of what is right or what is desirable.
Maybe it’s a matter of language.
Do I look better in well-fitted clothes, styled hair, and makeup? Sure.
Does my husband agree? Probably. (I don’t care enough about the answer to ask him.)
Does he *prefer* me with make-up? Ah, now there’s the rub.
And, back to one of my earlier hypothetical questions, does his status of being a “good man” or not depend at all on his answer to these questions? If so, is it what he says or what he prefers?
Does his status of being a ‘good man’ or not depend at all on his answers to these questions? Personally, I don’t think so, but I know women who would disagree with me. In the end, though, we are not the judge & jury of Good Man status, as much as some women would like to believe we are. Is it what he says or what he prefers? Very good distinction here, and it gets at what others have touched on, the whole ‘saying the Right Thing(TM).’ If I imagine myself as a woman who would be put off by… Read more »
Hi 5 kkz!