Rosie vs. Ugly Betty

Going back to what I said the other day about Rosie O'Donnell....

I was trying to think of other "unattractive" women in popular culture, and was soon astounded that I hadn't thought of the obvious candidate: Ugly Betty.

Hmm. I don't think Ugly Betty counts, and here's why.

We can tolerate "unattractive" women as long as they appear sort of trodden-on by "beautiful" society, sort of goofy, clumsy, hapless. But make that woman 100% outspoken, confident, and upfront, and she's vilified. Heck, such a woman becomes a target for the U-word even when she's a paragon of traditional beauty. People criticized Nigella Lawson when she first went on TV as being "too bosomy and bottomy." Well, that's what she looks like - what's she supposed to do?

I know Ugly Betty is supposed to be about how shallow all the pretty people are. And it's good that way. But wouldn't it be real progress to show us an "ugly" gal without bringing the discussion of looks into the equation?

Or maybe that's not possible?

Pretty Schmetty

The writer behind A Dress A Day defends a woman's right to be pretty, but also her right to not be pretty.

In this discussion at Alternet, the war is between those who think women go overboard in their beauty routines, and those who think a woman's right to be sovereign over her own body extends to liposuction and eyebrow threading (whatever that is).

Personally, I don't have a problem with people looking nice.

What I have a problem with is when the emphasis on a woman's appearance spills over into arenas where it just doesn't belong.

Free to be ugly? I think not. If that last article irritated you, here 's where to tell it:

letters@nytimes.com

Womanly Pursuits

update: just hours after posting this, I find myself embroiled in this argument about maternity leave. Oh, the irony.....

This article about the gender gap in media by-lines (found via Writes Like She Talks) depressed me. As I said here, sometimes I resent being made to feel like I should even have an opinion on abortion, emergency contraception, fertility, the raising of children, because I feel like my limited attention span is better spent thinking about economic development, historic preservation, assorted Clevelandia, and (at the moment) The Dark Tower.

What further depressed me is that, in taking a closer look at Alternet, who published the aforementioned piece, I noticed that 3 of the Ten Most Important Alternet Articles on Iraq were written by women, and of those, 2 were about rape.

Guess how many of the Top Ten Alternet Articles about Sex and Relationships were written by women?

All freaking 10!

Sometimes I also resent feeling like the only woman in this country who could identify Turkmenistan on a map, yet fail to pick Sarah Jessica Parker out of a lineup, rather than the other way around.

Germaine Greer, in The Whole Woman, distinguishes between femininity, the realm of little black dresses and L'Oreal, and femaleness, the realm of wombs and ovaries and workplace inequities. I just can't help but feel that too many women exist solely in the spheres of both femininity and femaleness, and pay little to no attention to, well, other things that have nothing to do with being a woman or even with being a man.