I feel pressure to downplay my appearance in order to be taken seriously, like Hilary Clinton when she backed out of a Vogue cover shoot from fear of looking too feminine to the public. For a long time since, I’ve considered buying black contact lenses to see how people would receive me if I looked like everyone else. I once had a boyfriend who said the only reason I get so much attention is because of my eyes. Tell me that you can sense how much I know, and think, and feel. I’d like to be treated like an equal, a face you hear on the radio. Even better: they won’t overvalue me because they’re unaccustomed to the pairing of sharp features and sharp opinions. Will someone tell me I have an intelligent face, please? Or that my eyes are not just amazing, but that they betray something amazing beyond their colour? An individual being with thought, depth, experience and feeling? Perhaps one day people won’t look so surprised when I say something clever. Or perhaps they, or someone else, will notice something else about me for once. Slightly embarrassed for them, I secretly hope this will prod them to proffer more thoughtful compliments in the future. People’s compliments make me especially uncomfortable, especially when they say, “has anyone ever told you… (insert overused compliment here)” and I have to respond, why, yes, I have been told that. I’m sure some of them like me for “me,” right? That is, if they get that far. Of course, these things aren’t true of me, but the fact that they’re happy to be seen with me makes me wonder. I could be a terrible person on the inside, spewing venomous rhetoric, a ball of negative energy, and they are still happy to be seen with me. Really, it makes me feel like they’re proud of the fact that they could land a girl that looks like me. They say “thank you,” smiling as if they had a role in producing my curls and the shape of my face or were present at my conception. But there’s always a side of them that is proud when someone tells them their new girlfriend is gorgeous. He means well - they all do - and I choose carefully. I never truly know if a boyfriend cares about me or is just happy to be seen with me. “How could I say no to a face like that?” I’ve heard that one a few times. I’m riddled by insecurity, never certain if people are agreeing with what I say and my opinions because they actually see truth in what I say or because I have a likeable face. I’ve been trying to shrug off my looks for years. I’m more comfortable admitting aloud that I’m pretty, but being beautiful is what I’ve come to terms with.
I’ll tell you something I wouldn’t say out loud but which I’ve heard enough times that I’ve come to believe it is true. Of course, there is always the brand of beauty that is smug and sluggish, the sort that is the only asset the possessor can parade. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.” Meir was the fourth prime minister of Israel.
Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. Golda Meir was famously quoted as saying, “Not being beautiful was the true blessing. In the back of their heads, however, there is always one lingering thought, an oft-spoken phrase: you’re nothing but a pretty face. Those who are beautiful try in vain to compensate for the connotations attached to their appearance. People look at a beautiful person and have a wealth of stereotypes at their fingertips.
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