Tatiana, thanks for pointing out the bind that women making themselves attractive fall into. I usually do make the effort (I’m not a SAHM, and I love fashion), but I’m glad I don’t have to negotiate these issues in a high-powered work field.

I agree with you about the “neverending labor” people put into looking beautiful. Not that I’ve ever worked very hard at it (in high school the only make-up I owned was some I bought for a play I was in), but I have to say it’s one of the few really great things about being a SAHM. My two little boys could care less if my hair is dry, or if I stay in my pajamas all day (which I generally do).

That is why dressing modestly is important. If one wants to be objectified in the most perverse way imaginable, a woman (or a man for that matter) should just dress any way he or she feels like. If he or she want to be respected, he or she should show a measure of decorum. And I certainly do not mean middle of the roadism, either, but the highest appropriate standards of contemporary decorum available.

Starfoxy,

One should not use beauty or appearance as the primary agent to accomplish anything. But the appearance of attention to a proper, civilized standard of it certainly helps one to be taken seriously, where the appearance of attention to a improper, degrading standard of it helps one get ignored, down-played, and neglected.

Lucy,

I think you are projecting a one dimensional conception of beauty here, where I can guarantee that any real man has at least a two dimensional conception – physical attractiveness and spiritual attractiveness being the primary axis of concern. If a woman wants to get a real man (other than perhaps her husband) to do anything of good report, she should emphasize the latter and down play the former. I confess to regularly and purposely ignoring seriously immodestly dressed women out of sheer embarassment. And I certainly am likely to think less of any man dressed without any perceptible sense of common decency as well.

Since my late teens I’ve occasionally had an overpowering fantasy of living alone in the woods where my appearance would effectively not exist, since I would see no one. It sounds immensely liberating. My mother once told me what a relief she found it to turn forty and not have to try to be beautiful anymore.

Mark, forgive my cynicism on this point, but I really doubt that when men look at beautiful women–even beautiful women trying to influence them for good–that the voice of God is what’s running through their heads.

Not all men have the same perception of beauty, and I think the biggest difference is the relative weight given to physical and spiritual factors. To a well adjusted man, beauty without character is the cruelest of jokes, where beauty in its proper form is the purest of emblems for divine attributes of the highest magnitude.

Men are by degrees both fascinated and intimidated by that kind of beauty. The proper response is one of honor. The improper response is one of artificial discrimination.

So if a woman leverages her physical attractiveness in a way not coherent with divinity, it strikes a good man as the purest of perversions. Where if she uses it in favor of all that is right and good, it is almost as the voice of God himself.

Add also add to that the fact that attractive people receive false signals about the true regard in which they are held. I’ve seen a whole office full of men fawn on a beautiful girl to her face, while at the same time dragging her mercilessly through the mud behind her back. I felt so badly for her, since she probably thought they liked her as a person and coworker, and had no idea of the viciousness of the things they said about her when she wasn’t around.

I can be attractive or not, depending on how much effort I put into it. Most of the time I don’t bother, because it seems to have so many negatives to it. But I suppose I should. I’m really not sure.

Regarding “Ahrnold” while he gets flack for his acting ability the fact is he was skillful in being charismatic and interesting. Plus, at least up until True Lies, he tended to be careful about the roles he took (with a few exceptions he learned from) More significantly he was a very skillful and intelligent businessman. Everyone assumes he made all his money in Hollywood but he actually does a lot of business stuff outside of that. And he was being skillful in career and business long before he became so successful in Hollywood.

So to me he illustrates one problem. When “attractive” (or at least physically imposing) people are successful there is always that tendency by many to assume they got where they did purely by their looks. It’s not always the case and I think many attractive people end up with inferiority complexes because of that. (i.e. when they are successful they aren’t taken seriously) Of course the really wise people use that to their advantage.

And that is the problem, sexy women look like flakes, while sexy men rarely do.

I’m not sure that’s true, although that’s partially due to the changing views of sexiness. It used to be that many of the “sexiest man” winners were typically stereotypical views of powerful men. They were usually in their 40′s if not older. They exuded confidence, power and so forth. (Come on Sean Conner was considered this multiple times through his late 60′s – and Harrison Ford well into his 50′s) The exceptions tended to be later when attractiveness rather than power counted. Think Brad Pitt (who I think is the rule that is the exception to your statement – does anyone think of Brad Pitt or Keneau Reeves as anything but flakes?)