Plain Girl Summer

Engraving of Zenaide Fleuriot

A couple weeks ago, a quantifiable genius, who, among other accomplishments, mathematically disproved the theory of evolution by natural selection and codified the most useful tool for understanding male behavior, one Vox Day, declared that I had "swiftly and comprehensively defeated" him in the following discussion:

Clockworkpaperdoll: I don’t think I understand the minds of men (tho I do better since I learned SSH), but as plain woman, I think I understand the minds of pretty women even less. Yet I endeavor to write fiction about both. Oh well! I am yet confident that by consciously eschewing Feminism, my portrayal of the sexes will be better than that in much current Western fiction.

VD: Why not write about plain women? Don’t they deserve attention too? The danger inherent about being a plain woman writing about pretty women is that it’s going to be Mary Sue wish-fulfillment.

Clockworkpaperdoll: Because I’m writing comics, so my readers have to look at them.

A salient point indeed. It’s not often that I am so swiftly and comprehensively defeated. In any visual art form, the people have to be pretty, because people like to look at pretty people. That’s just reality.

That's quite the victory! Especially since he seemed to be laying a clever trap with that "don't they deserve attention too?" bit. And he framed this gracious concession with a post that called me "a talented woman" and featured Paper Doll Veronika alongside a classic French novel, Sans Beauty by Zenaide Fleuriot, second in a series that his publishing company has newly translated, putting me in very good company indeed!

The funny thing is that all this praise was in the context of my self-declared position as plain, and so it would be considered insulting by many.

Calling any woman not pretty is pretty much forbidden in our society. There is an unwritten law against even acknowledging that any woman exists who is not pretty. But it's manifestly true. Another reason I was so chuffed with Mr. Day's post is that he allowed me to state that I was not pretty without arguing that point. The impulse most people have to contradict any woman who says she's not pretty is so reliable that none could be blamed for the assumption that any woman who does say this is really fishing for compliments. But Mr. Day is not most people, and that's great as far as I'm concerned. I've always found it infuriating when I acknowledge I'm not pretty and people emphatically insist that I mustn't think that.

Lest you argue

 

And that's a key point. At the heart of it, it's not that we're not allowed to believe in the existence of plain women. It's that's women are not supposed to be allowed to believe themselves plain. Even the Feminists don't say, "We eschew beauty as part of the oppressive structure of patriarchy. We're not beautiful and that's okay." No, they say, "We're redefining beauty. And thus we are beautiful."

Again, this always infuriated me. At the stage of life where I was most unconsciously feministic, I protested, "Why do we insist every woman has to believe she's beautiful? Does every man have to believe he's handsome? No!" I was here making a false equivalence, because in matters of attraction, women's appearance is more significant to men than men's is to women. And that's just a fact of nature. A more accurate analogy would have been, "Does every man have to believe he's strong?" 

That leads to a greater point however. Maybe not every man should believe that he's strong, but every man should strive to be strong. And there are different forms of strength. A grand step in my journey away from feministic thinking was acceptance that though not every woman is beautiful, every woman should strive to be as beautiful as she can be, or at least pleasant in appearance. Because while only objectively, physically pretty women are beautiful in isolation, every woman can be beautiful in context. A plain little girl is beautiful in a puff-sleeved dress, picking wildflowers. A plain fat woman is beautiful in a dress and apron, setting a homemade pie on a Thanksgiving table for her family. A plain wrinkled old woman is beautiful in a blouse and sweater dress, in a rocking chair reading a bedtime story to her toddler grandsons. A plain nun is beautiful in full habit singing Matins in choir in a traditionally-appointed chapel. The beauty of a beautiful whole will crystallize upon the woman within it. Of course if the women in these contexts are also beautiful in isolation, the whole is even more beautiful.

What is truly ugly is willful distortion. A little girl is ugly dressed in Celine Dion's kids clothing line, playing with a L.O.L. Surprise doll. A fat woman is ugly in leggings and a crop top, riding a scooter at Walmart. A wrinkled old woman is ugly in a minidress, drinking on a cruise ship. A nun is ugly in a pants suit and a perm, lecturing people. And thing get really twisted when women who are beautiful in isolation place themselves in and/or create contexts of ugliness. Then we get a unique aspect of corruption.

As a final note, there was someone in the comments on Day's post who thought my reason given for making Veronika pretty was the only reason I had, and that it showed a lack of faith in my readers. That's not it at all. It's not a matter of marketing, that only pretty gets views, but of wanting the experience of reading the comic to be highly pleasant and enjoyable in multiple ways. There are reasons within the story for Veronika to be pretty, as well. But I admit, I am an artist first, writer second, so beauty in lots of forms is high priority.