Don’t Tell Me I Look Pretty

7 min readMay 10, 2017

It Seems So Harmless

I was on Facebook, in a women’s forum, and a woman brought up the issue of a male colleague who made a light-hearted joke/pun which centered on the idea of women being attractive.

She said that this joke made her sad and frustrated because she has noticed that our culture (both men and women) tend to focus on how women look all the time.

Her point was that we don’t realize that this pattern is part of a toxic habit of conflating the value of women with how we look above everything else.

For example, when a woman posts a picture of herself on Facebook — most responses will be how she looks good in the picture. Not how interesting or creative or powerful she is. The focus is how she looks pretty.

The discussion got really interesting after that. Several women chimed in to say that they also feel uncomfortable and diminished when we consistently comment on women’s looks.

And many women chimed in to say that they did not mind this at all and consider it a compliment and think that those who said they did not like it were being too sensitive.

One woman said that she prides herself in looking good and she goes to a lot of trouble to dress pretty and put on makeup. She wants those compliments.

Some pointed out that the man who made the joke was probably well-intentioned, therefore we should not react. In other words, good intentions = no harm done.

The Issue

If we don’t know something is hurtful — then we don’t know to stop.

If ignorance is integral to the problem, then we who see something different need to be willing to get uncomfortable enough to speak up and say “Please don’t do this. And here’s why.”

This pattern — of focusing on women’s looks — is everywhere and needs to be examined without defensiveness. Which is incredibly hard.

Hopefully, we can change the pattern by being willing to compassionately explain (and understand) why and how it hurts women.

Story Time

I know a girl who recently developed severe anxiety. Her anxiety became depression, cutting, withdrawal and eventually hospitalization. Her friends and family were confused and deeply concerned. How does an active and outgoing girl spiral into the darkness so quickly and with no observable signs of a problem? Is it a chemical imbalance? How does this happen?

The girl eventually told her truth.

Her ex-boyfriend had repeatedly sexually assaulted her. This assault was a constant pattern of pushing insistently for increased sexual activity, regardless of her interest.

First he asked over and over for a kiss, until she finally agreed. Then he insisted on touching her body over her clothes. Then he was touching her anywhere he wanted to. Then he insisted she touch him.

All along this journey she always said “no” several times and then eventually she acquiesced.

Why would she do that? Why would she continue to date this guy who did not let her say no. Why did she think she loved him and that he loved her?

He told her she was beautiful. He told her she was sexy. He told her she was desirable. He told her he would die without her. He told her he would kill himself if she broke up with him.

Her mother taught her about consent. Her mother taught her that women are powerful. Her mother taught her that she was in control of her life. Her mother taught her to be bold.

And her mother also taught her to be pretty. To pick “cute” clothes. To put on makeup. To think about how she looked.

Her culture taught her, time and time again, that attractive people get more. Culture taught her that she would have a better life if she was optimizing her physical appeal. It was fun. She was good at it.

She fell into the trap — hook, line and sinker. His approach perfectly fit her programming. She was being rewarded for her hard work in maximizing being the perfect girl; attractive, accomplished, desirable.

She was rewarded with rape. She was rewarded with thinking it was all her fault. She was rewarded with hiding what was happening from her mother, her sister, her best friend.

She became so lonely. She was unable to stop herself from going to him for another approval fix. She just wanted to be desired and powerful, so she gave up her true power for the false reward of his “love”.

It was a year after they broke up before she could admit to herself how wounded she was. For over a year — she compartmentalized her shame, her fear, her rejection of herself as a girl who couldn’t stop what was happening. She told no one. She wanted to forget it even happened.

And then she spiraled into anxiety, pain, depression and utter loneliness. She no longer trusted people. She no longer trusted herself. She didn’t know what was true anymore. She cried alone in her bed every night.

She was 13 years old.

This is a true story. I know this girl.

She is 14 now and she is working hard to reprogram the pattern of using attractiveness and sex appeal to build her self worth. She is doing incredibly tough and bold work. She is confronting the pattern and her place in it.

But she should never have had to confront this monster of a pattern. On her own. At age 13.

And I know another girl, who at 12 was in a sexually destructive and coercive relationship based on shame, and a desperate need for love and belonging.

This girl wanted to be good enough. She let herself believe that being attractive and desired proved that she was good enough.

But it didn’t work. She was never good enough. She was never able to feel pretty enough. Or accomplished enough. Or strong enough.

She carried the wound and baggage of that damaging relationship into adulthood, through a marriage and a painful divorce.

She had therapy and help along the way and the burden became lighter, but it is still there.

Her 12 year-old self is still with her, frozen in the time of a deep wound, still ashamed and alone and never loved enough.

The second girl is me.

The Pattern

This story repeats again and again and again. Hundreds of women have told me their own story. This story is horrifyingly common.

A woman does not have to be forcibly raped to become wounded.

Girls are sexualized early and told that attractiveness is the most important attribute they can use. As women, we carry on that convention without questioning its truth deeply.

What happens if we cannot be attractive enough? Are we worth less than a more attractive woman? What if our beauty is not conventional? Are we less then?

We change our faces with makeup and our hair with color and hot irons. We starve ourselves to be thin enough. We work out to meet a standard of visible fitness rather than health. We carefully select clothing that maximizes our best assets and hides our “undesirable” parts.

Women work so hard be pretty — so that we can be accepted and loved.

We compliment each other on how well we are optimizing our looks. We do it because we think we are being nice. We think we are helping someone feel better about themselves.

But what we are really saying is: Yes, how you look IS valuable and you are playing the game well. Bravo for equating your value with attractiveness! I support you in this belief system.

We affirm a culture that teaches us how to love and accept each other based on how we look.

We are buying into the pattern.

We are keeping the pattern alive.

We are the pattern.

What Happens Next

We can choose to interrupt the old toxic pattern.

When you see that pattern — say something.

We can make a new pattern. Go beneath the surface. Find the truth about someone’s greatness. Notice it and draw attention to it.

Help every woman find her enoughness — far past the superficial elements and external validation.

Wear what YOU want. Look like YOU want. Do it for you and only you.

And after you choose how YOU want to look, look again — far past the external trappings of a superficial world— look until you find your own enoughness and celebrate that.

That 14 year-old girl is enough.

I am enough.

You are enough.

We are all enough, regardless of how we look.

Together, we will be the new pattern.