Ranking amateurs

[textualdeviance]

It's odd... I'm reasonably good at writing, singing, acting and cooking. I have a bit of skill with graphics, video and web tech. I also have a few other random talents, too--research, general problem-solving, picking up bits of different languages, etc.

Yet I still feel inadequate because I can't play an instrument, dance, draw, sew or do anything athletic.

Oh, and because I'm not pretty.

Because even if I could do all of these things like an expert, it wouldn't matter, because shallow het guys don't consider me fuckworthy.

My culture is so broken.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Are you all that worried about shallow people not considering you fuckworthy? I'd think that was a feature, not a bug.

Also, it just saves you from people who are shallow about instrumentality, dancing, drawing, sewing, sport, and appearances, not about people who are shallow about writing, singing, acting, cooking, or geeky tech stuff. :) (Appearance isn't the only kind of shallow there is.)

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I don't care, actually. I personally like the filter, FWIW.

The problem is that other people--even otherwise reasonable ones--do care, and it changes how they treat me--enough so that it negatively affects me in ways that go well beyond my love life.

The problem isn't the shallow het guys themselves, per se, but the cultural code that elevates them--and by extension, their aesthetic tastes--to such a high position that everyone is expected to conform to what they want. Women who don't are automatically pushed lower in the pecking order regardless of what other qualities they may have.

In other words, it has little to do with whether I'm going to get laid, and everything to do with, say, people taking me less seriously as a professional, or thinking I don't deserve health care or basic courtesy. It's about having to work twice as hard for half the respect of some cute little thing in a miniskirt. It's about being turned down for a job in favor of someone who has less experience but a prettier face. It's about people talking around me, avoiding eye contact, keeping physical distance and otherwise acting as if I'm either not there or some sort of leper whose unattractiveness might be contagious.

I'd love it if I could just blow this off as an issue of a handful of jerks who wouldn't want to get horizontal with me, but it's just not like that.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Also, I may just be seeing this wrong, but I think you're engaging in a bit of false equivalency.

If a woman's creativity or intelligence were so culturally valued that women without them faced serious social ostracism, then I think you could compare shallowness on those things with shallowness about aesthetics. But that's just not the case. It may be true that a rare few subcultures value these things more than they do a woman's looks, but even some of the ones that one might think would do so don't. Even in scientific fields, for instance, "attractive" women are more successful than equally qualified colleagues who don't fit cultural standards for looks.

Attractive women with no other skills whatsoever can make fortunes just by standing around and looking pretty. Unattractive women have to actually be better than average at what they do to get anywhere.

It may be that none of this is your personal experience for one reason or another, but statistically, it's definitely true for American culture, at least.

[grail76.livejournal.com]

One might ask why the shallow het guys were themselves considered fuckworthy by you in the first place ...

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

See above. It's not about the guys themselves, but their being considered so important by everyone else that not conforming to their tastes is a ticket to generally rotten treatment.