Re-visiting Sontag and the mental burden on women
“Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately. Breasts, feet, hips, waistline, neck, eyes, nose, complexion, hair, and so on – each in turn is submitted to anxious, fretful, often despairing scrutiny.” - Sontag, A Woman’s Beauty (1975)
One of the amazing things about being an aging academic is that during difficult times the memory presents options for re-visiting the bodies of work of studied intellectuals and thinkers. For me, even though much of her work can still fly over my head, Susan Sontag is always a welcome mental refuge. Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter what the topics are, her approach, her writing, her personality, are all welcome in addition to her unique perspectives and arguments.
Recently, I re-visited her essay A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source, first published in Vogue in 1975. In this essay, Sontag observes,
“Women are taught to see their bodies in parts, and to evaluate each part separately. Breasts, feet, hips, waistline, neck, eyes, nose, complexion, hair, and so on – each in turn is submitted to anxious, fretful, often despairing scrutiny.”
By contrast, she writes, “In men, good looks is a whole, something taken in at a glance,” and she goes on to state that even small imperfections or blemishes can add to a man’s beauty.
Even today, with an honest attempt at disparaging absolutes and rebutting binary approaches to understanding sex differences, these observations are still apt. The reasons behind these approaches to assessing beauty in oneself and in others could be debated length, but the question that grabbed my attention was what must this do to a woman’s psychology?
When we think about ourselves and we think about being accepted by others, a core part of those thoughts is seeing ourselves as a whole. Having a strong sense of self is important for our confidence and a key part of personal acceptance. If we feel that we’re being analyzed piecemeal, especially for things that are outside of our control, how can we ever develop a strong, trusting relationship with others, either for intimacy or to be part of a community?
This internalized fragmentation is really pernicious, especially turning it into an assessment and making the person in question perform it on a daily basis. Granted, assessing beauty is only one aspect of life, but it’s one that women cannot escape.
But perhaps the biggest issue here, is that if we go out of our way to increase the mental burden on women and making them feel that acceptance is contingent upon completing a daily obstacle course, we will never get to know any of them on their own terms, and that’s a tragedy for all involved.