I don't know what the heck is wrong with these people. (On the flip side, nobody seems to mind if you compliment an adorable little boy for being adorable.) More rambly personal thoughts (not quite a rant) after the fold.
I'll tell you somethin': when I sashay out with a nice outfit or cute shoes or a new manicure or a particularly good hair day, I love getting a compliment or two. Sure, I am more than the sum of my looks and I like being acknowledged for my work too, but I see no reason to trash my appearance in order to make a howling mob of humorless "feminists" accept me as a serious person or -- though I don't like the word -- "intellectual." As much as I don't like girls who think only about frivolity and overvalue appearance, I don't like girls who glumly cannot appreciate a bit of fashion fun.
The undervaluation of beauty can be as personally harmful as its overvaluation. Why not just appreciate beauty when it occurs? I'm tired of vicious harridans telling me what to do and believe, and there seems to be an undercurrent of old-fashioned envy and self-absorbed power dynamics involved as well. Haven't I told you that some of the people who are most harmful to women are other women? Especially feminists who hate women who are not like them? I am dead serious here. I've met some of these people. Let's just say that I do not care to repeat these experiences if I can possibly help it. Do harridans by definition try to denigrate/belittle/snub/ruin ladies who aren't harridans who are just like them? Aw, screw these bitter, shriveled people of no imagination. The rest of us have way better things to do, like enjoy life.
As for the workplace and classroom and beyond ... Beauty and brains, people. It's not an either-or situation. Go for both! And I'm talking to/about both genders here. Oh, and one quibble with the blog post I linked to: Of course men can be beautiful. I hear my girl buddies say the following in admiration often: "Oh, he's so beautiful." And there's nothing wrong with that. The epithet has been applied to everyone from David Tennant to James Purefoy to Hugh Jackman to every incarnation of Mr. Darcy you can think of. Also, to spell it out: "Oh, he's so beautiful" translates as "I'd love to date him." Film critic MaryAnn Johanson actually has been going on and on about the female gaze and looking at the beautiful -- though of course beauty is subjective and I won't agree with all her examples of masculine beauty.
Anyway, back to my sort-of earlier point: if you look good, you feel good, and if you feel good, you tend to work better. SO THERE. Don't worry about the over-thinking of beauty. Take a little pride in your own appearance. And now, in the interest of better academic research and teaching, I'm going to give myself a manicure. I'm thinking maybe a nice sparkly lilac color -- nothing too dark, see, because it's summer!
RELATED POST: Dressing well at Nerdmoots. Also, this is not unrelated in concept.
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