I’ve mentioned before that, as a teen, I dreamed of being a bodiless brain in a jar. A smart, artistically inclined, physically awkward young woman, I shied away from anything that made me think about myself in terms of body. I hid in my loose, formless clothes, refused makeup, and let my hair remain unruly. I looked a little like a hobo, albeit one with excellent oral hygiene.
And yet, to say that I was oblivious to my looks or that I didn’t care what people thought of me is a total lie. I was acutely aware of my frumpy, fashionless personage and it pained me. I was just afraid to change.
I had decided that the thin, pretty, wealthy, popular girls – who despised me, and who I despised right back – were my polar opposites. As bizarrely cut-and-dried as it sounds to my present-day self, my teen self had also decided that if I let go of my comfortable shell of rumpled invisibility, my only other choice was to become them. Well-dressed and stylish, but mean, insipid, and DUMB.
They represented anti-smarts to me. Even though some of them got the same academic awards, and did well in our AP classes, and made it into the honor societies. At a very young age, I had succumbed to the social construct that pretty meant stupid. That anyone who cared about fashion and beauty and being girly was, by definition, a shallow ditz.
Jennifer over at Cocktail Party Physics posted recently on the perception that physical beauty and intelligence are mutually exclusive. She, too, felt afraid to delve into girlyness early in her life for fear of changing into a person she couldn’t recognize. And she brought up this additional point, that rang through me in clear, personal recognition:
“I grew up hearing I was smart quite a bit, and while I’m grateful for that, it didn’t save me from struggling with self-image and self-worth. That’s just part of growing up. Since hardly anyone (other than my mom, and who can believe their mom?) ever bothered to tell me I was pretty as well, I concluded I was ugly. Ergo, I just didn’t bother with anything involving my physical appearance, figuring it was hopeless.”
Oh yeah. I SO did that.
Because it’s so much easier to just be pretty OR smart. People’s heads seem to explode when you try to do both. And frankly, I don’t think that brainy young girls – who have enough on their plates just trying to survive adolescence – should be asked to maintain both gorgeous and genius unless it is their natural inclination to do so. I realize that younger girls may be relatively unpolluted by the lunacy of modern gender role nonsense, and it might seem wise to swoop in before their brains get bent. But seriously. They’ve got enough to worry about without setting themselves up to battle the perception that pretty girls are dumb and smart girls are plain. That, friends, is a bloody uphill battle that WE should be fighting.
This is not to say that, if you have a daughter or niece or neighbor who is both a blossoming braniac and budding beauty that you should discourage her from cultivating both traits. By all means, do! But if you have a shy, bookish, mousy honors student on your hands, don’t push her to squeeze into skirts and explore eyeliner. Not unless she wants to.
As for us – intellectual fashion plates that we are – we need to show the world that brains are beautiful, geek is chic, and smart is sexy … not either/or. We can do this by supporting the smart, fashionable women that surround us. We can react with neither surprise nor hostility when confronted by people who can’t believe that we are both brilliant and hot; Since normalcy is 90% mutual agreement, we can help make the brainy/sexy combo normal through our reactions to the unbelievers. And we can just be ourselves. We can present the world with that mind-blowing combination of gorgeous and intelligent. Our articulate, curious, well-read, analytical AND feminine, fashionable, sexy, stylish selves can become the ambassadors of chic smarts.
I’ll go make us some badges.
(Images courtesy Nerd Girls, an organization with a fabulous mission.)
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
I rock a pencil skirt with heels and those stockings that have lines up the back. But then i have to put up with all the ‘naughty librarian’ comments.
Maybe I should just bother to put makeup on in the mornings. And wear a badge
This is a great complement to the discussion we were having the other day on my blawg about what a professor wears in class.
I try to smash stereotypes about academic dressing; I think that the classroom can be a very stylish venue and I like to offer my female students a model of the fashionable academic that they can borrow, tweak, or ignore.
And I think it helps young men students to experience that combination of style and intelligence too. We want them to be good partners, spouses, and fathers one day (should they choose to take on those roles, of course)!
I want a badge too.
A badge with a badger, all dressed up! I think something in pin-stripes.
Got the brains, still workin’ on the style.
great post.
as much as i want people to think i’m attractive, i would still rather be thought of as smart than hot. IF i had to pick one trait. although judging by the grammar in this comment, i’m not sure i will accomplish that… lol.
p.s. part of naming my own blog “The Budget Babe” was an exercise in paradoxical intention…the thought of being a babe seemed so foreign and absurb at first, yet after a while I began to believe it
Fabulous post! Blossoming braniac and budding beauty – how gorgeously phrased… I was always told that I was smart. My sister was the pretty one. Now I have a fashion blog and she’s getting her Masters in Education after going through a brutal divorce last year – so that she can feed her 2 kids and be satisfied in a career (after not having worked for almost a decade). She’s the smartest thing you’ve ever seen. Strange how things go.
As the mother of a daughter who is both a genius and delicious to look at (no bias, of course), I struggle with how to help her grow and develop into herself. I’m erring on the side of telling her she’s fantastic in all ways – even if the experts feel you should be neutral so as to avoid creating artificial pressure. What can I say, it’s my style.
A fantastic post Sal!! I so adore this last sentence of yours-an ambassador of chic smarts, ooh yes please!!
“And we can just be ourselves. We can present the world with that mind-blowing combination of gorgeous and intelligent. Our articulate, curious, well-read, analytical AND feminine, fashionable, sexy, stylish selves can become the ambassadors of chic smarts.”
-How simple of a task to just be ourselves. Yet it makes a world of difference. This was an empowering post…thank you, you made my day!
skgillespie: Keep rockin’ it, girl. I’ll send your badge along.
Miss C: This is super timely in light of your interview with Anisha! I love you for making your classroom a stylish zone. A dear friend and fellow blogger told me once that moving from corporate to academia afforded her the opportunity to just let go of style. And dude, I can totally dig … but I like your take, too. Train the youngins that brains and beauty are a natural pair.
Fresca! HA! I can see him now, maybe seersucker?
M.A.W. We’re all works in progress, lady. Both my brains AND style are nowhere near done changing and growing.
BB: Yeah, me too. It’s fun getting compliments on your looks, but I’ll admit to putting smarts above. I was just thinking about that the other day … in terms of race issues, actually. I really don’t give a flying rat’s ankle what you look like so long as you are smart and kind. Thanks for sharing that tidbit about your blog’s name!
K.Line: Wow, do they really push parents to be super neutral? That must be really difficult when all you want to do is lavish your kid with praise! I know zippo about parenting, but it seems like doling out equal helpings of beauty and brain praise to your gorgeous girl would be … beneficial.
Sharon Rose: You big sweetie. Perhaps I’ll make you head ambassador.
Oddburd: Hurrah! I love day-making. And I really do believe that showing the disbelieving world that smart, sexy women AREN’T mythical creatures can help change minds. Here’s hoping, anyway.
Sorry, Can I add to K-line: Keep telling your daughter she is stunning! She will be way ahead of all the girls whose mothers were too unhappy and jealous of their daughters to do the same. And if your daughter looks anything like you in that Ballet photo, she is gorgeous.
Sal, I was a girly swot. I also wore my gingham uniform short and smoked at the back of the junior school. My english teacher threatened to give me a B+ instead of an A (fail in my world) if I kept getting caught with the “wrong crowd”. For once my Mum stood up for me and the A came through.
Who says you cannot use your smarts for lookin’ good? Surely the ability to put a good sentence together, supports the ability to accessorise?
I don’t think of anyone as more “worthy” because they wear pilly sweaters and bad frames with synthetic shoes. Instead I wonder about their self-esteem. Look Good, feel good, win Mastermind.
Why not?
xx
This is a great post! I can totally relate to being that way in high school. I was smart and thought that if I made myself look pretty I would be taken as a dumb girl. My sister is 6 years older than me and all through jr. high and high school she played the pretty dumb girl, on purpose because she thought that’s how you’re supposed to act. She’s actually quite intelligent and is now running a jewelry business with her husband. Me, on the other hand, was never really told that I was pretty but I was smart so I went the way of being smart and dowdy looking. Having a fashionable sister did rub off on me though and I developed a passion for makeup and clothes (mostly makeup). My best friend in high school, one of the biggest geeks you will ever find with no fashion sense whatsoever, used to tease me about my love of makeup. I had thought about going to cosmetology school, which always put her in hysterics (the laughing kind) every time I talked about it. She thought it was a complete waste of a life. So I didn’t pursue it. I am slowly incorporating the idea that I can be smart AND pretty, and I know my sister is too. It’s almost like we feel we have to really go out of our way to prove we are pretty (for me, anyway) or smart (for my sister). It’s too bad that my sister’s smarts were discouraged as she was a budding fashion designer in high school, she designed and made her prom dress as well as lots of other clothes and won awards for them. She probably would have continued had my mother not discouraged her from pursuing this after high school (oh and my sister designed and helped hand sew her wedding dress).
Anyway, love the idea that we can be both, that being smart and pretty aren’t contradictory but part of the whole wonderful feminine package!
Girl power! And girl geek is totally chic. I am completely in touch with my inner tech geek, but can someone explain Stargate Atlantis to me? I don’t see the allure.
what an insightful post. I can’t say that I’ve never been judgmental, but growing up in a city where everyone either looks completely different, or completely the same, I’ve learned to be less prejudiced.
Count me in on the badge, too!!
loved this post! =)
please check out my blog, http://la-couturier.blogspot.com
Hammie: Thanks for the vote of confidence (and Sal – thanks for letting us chat on your post!) It’s crazy how everything you do is maligned by some expert. Even complimenting your kid.
Hear hear! Also a misunderstood dork who wore gigantic clothes much of the time and considered herself a hideous beast! I’d like a badge if you make one!
Also, Nerd Girls is a great organization, but why is it that science and engineering are the fields for which girls get lauded for entering? I mean, I get that there is a dearth of women in those fields, but writing, music and history aren’t important for girls to be nerdy about either? Celebrate all smart girls, no matter their subject of specialty!
i think style and smart can go hand in hand for sure. but it is ture, if a gal is pretty, then people assume she has jello for brain.
Spandexpony: I wondered about that, too. As someone who was told in the third grade that I was “bad at math” and totally believed it, I am inclined to believe the reports that smart girls have it harder in math and the sciences than they do in art and the liberal arts. But you are right: Smart girls in ALL fields should be respected and celebrated. I think the Nerd Girls just didn’t want to bite off more than they can chew, ya know?
Badges, aw yeah.
I’d love to see people be exactly what/who they are, and not have to contend with pigeonholing and labels.
I think it is because those are the topics percieved as right brained and therefore male dominated. I went to a co-ed school and they ran an experiment after I left, where they seperated Girls from Boys to do maths and science subjects. Result? Girls scores WAY up, Boys scores way down. So the girls felt able to “shine” in the female only setting, whereas the boys felt no need to dominate?
And if and when they put them back together, it would have meant compromising the girls, to give the boys a better chance?
(not sure what happened as I moved O/S)
In ireland elite to middle class education is always single sex, Co-ed is considered a bit “working class”, although the facilities and social development of those schools (and the inclusiveness) is always much better.
Wow, Sal, a whole other issue for you to consider.
Excellent Post once again.
xx
Aahh fantastic post! I’m glad you linked to this one from your “Thin versus Healthy” post. I went through the awkward phase to end all awkward phases in high school and consequently never really considered myself attractive. I’m just learning to see that side of myself now–compliments from guy friends help quite a bit in that respect.
I found your blog a while ago and finally had the time today to do some snooping around and I am loving the posts. This one here rang true with me, so I thought I would post on my thoughts. It is so incredibly true that somewhere in my teenage brain I had come to believe that beauty was a compensation for lack of lights upstairs and vice versa. I relished listening to my mother's cassette tapes of Janis Ian and all the angst and pain she sang about awkward, plain girls.I too shied away from all things girlie and pretty, despised pink and frills and could be got into a dress for a maximum of 4 hours for whatever parties the parents wanted me pretty for before I had swiftly changed into scuffed shoes, baggy dungarees or big tee shirts and shorts. At secondary school I was quiet, hard working and the victim of some minor bullying-but it was never something that phased me. i was smart and hard working and that was it. To this day, I can still defend and describe myself comfortably as smart, hard working, practical but try pretty, sweet, cute or beautiful and I struggle. It has taken a wonderful man to force me to say these words before I have become comfortable and caught myself answering his compliments with, "yes, I know I look good!"
This one is really a great post, I relate to every word.
I was exactly that kind of girl, the bookworm that, after so many compliments from adults and sneering from the classmates, became proud to be badly dressed while surrounded by pretty and popular girls, who dressed in fashion and didn’t care a thing about school – or anything but boys and nail polish.
Growing older, it took a LOT of work to let the stereotypes go and become a girl who can be smart and beautiful and feel proud of both, but I’m sad to say that we’re still far from removing this from popular culture: I’m a physics grad student, and whenever I go to a party, new guys are always saying “Physics? Noo, you’re too pretty, you must be a Humanities student”. Gee, thanks, you too are too handsome to be in Law, you must be in Fashion Merchandising.
Anyway, I really admire that there is a fashion blog who also features how it is to get out of a “non-pretty” adolescence to fully bloom later, just in the way you are, and I hope you will keep on with the good job you’re already done.
(Sorry if I made any mistakes, I’m not English)