F*** the Beholder, You Are Beautiful

All of the recent press around Fifty Shades of Grey has been reminding me of one (of many) of the reasons I hate both that book and the whole Twilight series. Beyond the crappy writing and lack of personality for the main character, both books share this really annoying habit where the female lead has men falling at her feet but continually thinks herself unattractive. This drives me more insane than even the “Inner Goddess” crap (I mean really, your response to something is that your Inner Goddess gets in a lotus position? If such a thing existed, my Inner Goddess would be more along the lines of Inner Sakura. She’d alternatively want to beat the crap out of people and jump their bones. Maybe eat some chocolate too).

To me, this comes across as a really horrible manifestation of the pervading habit of girls to say/think they’re not as pretty as they are.

Let’s start with a common example. Go back quite a few years in your memory, and think of the movie Mean Girls.  Sure, it seems funny when Regina traps Cady into admitting she’s pretty and acting like it’s a horrible thing. I’m not going to lie, I laughed. The problem is that behind that funny scene is a truth. Women are judged for admitting they are attractive. Even if a woman is stunningly beautiful, she is immediately condemned in our minds. Saying you’re “hot” or “beautiful” is tantamount to having a huge ego. Thus women have learned to downplay how they talk about their attractiveness.

I was playing around on imdb.com the other day, and I found this quote from one of my favorite actresses, Gemma Arterton: “In comparison to many actresses I think I’m really average – when I got the Bond film Quantum of Solace there was this big hoo-ha about me not being hot enough, I have to say I agree – I don’t think I’m in that realm.”

BEAUTIFUL, DAMNIT

Personally, I find Gemma stunningly beautiful, but even she feels the need to negatively compare herself to others. This is a common response from women – maybe I’m hot/pretty/beautiful, but not as hot/pretty/beautiful as someone else.

There are two issues at work here. One, again, is the culture that women shouldn’t admit they’re crazy attractive. If you don’t believe me yet that this is a thing, I have more examples for you. We laud the girl that “doesn’t know she’s beautiful.” Not only are there songs about it (here’s looking at you, One Direction), there are movies, cartoons, and of course books. The whole idea of a book like Fifty Shades of Grey making the main character not know her own beauty worth is that then, as readers, we can “relate.” Because of course if you’re a girl, you don’t know you’re attractive, and that makes you hotter.

WTF WORLD!?

The bigger problem is the second issue in play – insecurity. A lot of times the reason women won’t celebrate their attractiveness is because they genuinely don’t believe it. They are falling into the trap of comparing themselves to others, and they don’t like the comparison. You’ll find people are much more willing to own up to being “pretty” than “beautiful,” because pretty is less threatening. And if you have even a hint of insecurity (which you probably do), saying you’re “beautiful” opens up the floodgates for criticism. Which WILL happen. We have tons of articles about all our beautiful celebrities, and then minutes later we’ll condemn them for bad makeup, poor clothing choice, or messed up hair. So for girls that don’t think they measure up to that level, how are they supposed to feel confident enough to declare their beauty?

I’m not saying that everyone falls into the traditional “beauty” standards. I’m also not saying they should. The whole issue with beauty is that it’s a question of perception. What I find attractive is not the same thing you find attractive, EVEN WHEN COMPARING TRADITIONALLY ATTRACTIVE EXAMPLES. Get past the idea that you should be thin, blond, big-eyed, and pouty-lipped.

What I am saying, is that women shouldn’t be afraid to celebrate their own beauty. I know it’s hard. Trust me, I know. Some people suggest things like picking favorite features and feeling confident in those. That’s not a bad idea, depending on how you go about it.

When I was younger I decided I really liked my lips because everyone told me that plump lips are good, and if nothing else you can absolutely say my lips are plump. In a world where beauty is subjective, that seemed like the easiest, concrete reason to like a feature. Then one day I was hanging out with a then ex-boyfriend in the middle of the night, and we randomly got on the topic of my good features, and to my shock my lips were not one of them, because, as he told me, “they’re not that great.” That was a huge blow to the confidence scale for awhile. Since I had picked this feature because of other people’s opinion, suddenly having a bad opinion threw me for a loop. If people didn’t like the features I thought they should like, how could I be confident about any of them?

So trust me when I say I know the struggle. It feels like it should be better to underestimate your beauty than to overestimate it, and have people disagree.

But that’s stupid. You need to remember first of all that your beauty does NOT determine your worth as a person. And second, since beauty is subjective STOP trying to live up to someone’s standards. Figure out what you like about how you look, and for the love of all that’s holy, BE CONFIDENT IN IT.

I think books like Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight teach us to not believe in our own beauty. They tell girls to base their confidence solely on what some guy (Edward, Christian) says about it, when they should be teaching them to celebrate their beauty no matter what.  I’d rather teach girls to be confident in who they are, and yes, their physical appearance is part of that. You should know you’re beautiful in some way, but you should also know it’s only one part of what makes you, you. Beauty should never be your everything, but you also shouldn’t downplay what you like about yourself just because of other people’s opinions.  

For the record, I like my lips again. Not because I think I should like them, but because they’re soft, expressive, and I love that I can wear almost any lip color and still work it. I’d like them more if they wouldn’t turn blue so easily, but that’s another matter. And maybe there are people that think “they’re not that great,” but I don’t see how that changes the things I like about them. Maybe they’ll never be as plump as Angelina Jolie’s lips, but I don’t see why I should care about her. In fact, I don’t see why I need to even give you reasons for why I like them or anything else about myself. I don’t justify liking my car, or my excessive love of Taco Bell, so why need to justify what I like about my appearance?

 

I want you to know what things about yourself you find beautiful and rock it with the same confidence and faith as anything else you truly believe. It might not feel easy, but the more you can declare to yourself “I’m hot/pretty/drop dead gorgeous/beautiful” (feel free to use your preferred descriptive) the more confident you’ll feel saying it, and that is its own kind of beauty.

Clumsy is the New Sexy

So for those of us watching New Girl, who else was super excited when Dr. Rick showed back up? Of course technically on the show he’s known as Sam, but every time I see him I just think happily of Fired Up!

However, this also reminded me of a certain trend in portraying women that has been driving me insane for years. That is the Clumsy Girl bit.

I adore Jess on New Girl, but she also happens to be clumsy as all get out. During this episode where Dr. Rick reappears she manages to run into about 10 different walls. In one of the first episodes with him, they flash back to her issues with standing.

You have to understand I am actually not arguing that this is an unfair portrayal of girls. There are clumsy boys out there too.  Nor am I saying this is completely unrealistic.

The truth it, I am a clumsy girl. Accident prone. A walking disaster, if you will. Just this Friday, I was sitting at my desk having a phone meeting. Well midway through the meeting my left leg cramped up. Since I was all twisted up in some weird position, when I jumped at the unexpected pain, this also caused me to fall out of my chair (this friends is why you always keep your phone on mute during meetings until you’re actually saying something).

I’d like to pretend this is an isolated incident, but really it’s one of many. Back in college there was a guy that we always referred to as “The One That’s Afraid Of Me” (I said me, my friends would say you). He was in my freshman seminar along with several of my friends. Now typically I sat over with my friends, but I believe I was running late that day for whatever reason, so I ended up sitting in between him and Scott Cameron Cameron Scott Scott (we had a lot of strange names for people in college). The nice thing about this room was that we weren’t in desks. The bad thing was this meant I could tip my chair back. So there I was tipping my chair back and somewhat paying attention to the professor, when all of I sudden I look down and think “why am I holding on to the table?” I couldn’t think of a good reason offhand, thus I let go.

Why was I holding on to the table? For balance, of course, since my chair was so far tipped back. Meaning when I let go of the table, both me and the chair went tumbling backwards.

One minute I’m innocently sitting there, the next The One That’s Afraid Of Me looks over and just sees my legs in the air.  For the rest of my college experience he made sure to NEVER sit next to me again, and anytime he saw me he looked quite disturbed and afraid.

The really sad thing is this is actually a reoccurring experience. I totally did the same thing back in middle school during Earth Space Science. Even worse, I feel like I was wearing a dress that day.

So I am not arguing the logistics of clumsiness. What offends me is this new trend portraying it as something desirable. Not that New Girl is falling into this category, but let’s look at two popular book series: Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey.

Disclaimer, I hate both series so I am a bit biased. I also have only read the first Fifty Shades book.

But both books have this main female character who thinks of herself as completely average, boring, unattractive, and ungodly clumsy. Yet everyone else in the world spends their time trying to jump her bones. It is heavily implied that both characters are actually extremely sexy women just with confidence issues (and trust me, that’s a whole ‘nother rant right there). Their clumsiness is also implied to be part of their appeal.

I see this all the time in fanfiction too. There are characters called Mary Sues. They are original characters added to a story. They are super awesome and can do everything right, yet they have to be flawed in some way, so normally they’re also clumsy.

It’s like the world had a meeting I wasn’t invited to and decided if you want to keep a character from being too perfect, you make them clumsy. That “normalizes” them, but it’s also not as much a flaw as say giving them a gimp leg or OCD. It’s used as a plot device to give them vulnerable moments so the male lead can “save them” without being too obvious that the female needs saving.

I hate it. Seriously, this makes me practically foam at the mouth.

Being clumsy IS NOT SEXY. It IS NOT ROMANTIC to fall over all the time so people are trying to catch you. It IS NOT ADORABLE when people feel like they can’t even let you walk off on your own without you getting injured in some way. Oh and those bruises that inevitably show up everywhere? ANNOYING!

As a clumsy girl I’m not condemning people that are clumsy. It happens. Whatev, it’s just a part of life. Some people are super coordinated. Some people are not. I just think this should stop being the default flaw given to one-dimensional characters to try and give them a bit more dimension. It doesn’t work.

New Girl is actually a good example of clumsy done right. Jess is just all over awkward. Her clumsiness is one part of the whole. It’s not overplayed, it’s not something people are trying to fix, it’s just one tiny aspect of a very interesting character.

TVD: Vamps & Tramps, Not Apples & Oranges

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

When comparing vampire myths I have mentioned True Blood a few times, and with good reason. The Vampire Diaries and True Blood are actually remarkably similar. In fact, it’s a common question in the world (yes, the whole world, of course not just neeky people chatting online) which series is the better one to watch. This is up for some debate.

Now I have watched True Blood up to this past season, which I haven’t watched yet. I have watched The Vampire Diaries up to the very last episode in season 3. Thus I feel qualified to make some suggestions.

As I said, the series are super similar. Knowing how everyone loves a good list, here are several areas in which the shows overlap:

·      Both are based on a book series.

·      Both shows develop a way for vampires to be in the sunlight.

·      Both draw in other supernatural elements… vampires, witches, and werewolves – oh my!

·      Both introduce werewolves in the second season.

·      Both have main (hot) female characters who are non-vampire.

·      Both main female characters have only one sibling, a brother.

·      Both main female characters (mfcs) have dead parents.

·      Both mfcs initially still live with their female guardian.

·      Both mfcs fall in love with a “good” vampire.

·      Both mfcs then get some hard core lust going on for a “bad” vampire.

·      Both mfcs are summarily torn between the two.

·      Both mfcs have “special” blood.

See? Practically the same show.

The big differences between the two are sex & violence. Since True Blood is the adult show, you would expect it to be the more sexual & violent of the two. Well, you’re half right.

True Blood definitely has more sex, and it’s definitely more graphic. This is not a show to watch with your grandma (your grandma’s already secretly watching it at night when she’s done reading Fifty Shade of Grey). I have actually heard people say before that a large part of why they watch True Blood is for the sex.

Yes, please.

Now TVD on the other hand is a little more subdued with the rampant lovemaking. Oh it happens here and there. Vampire hormones apparently are constantly stuck in horny teenager mode. But it’s certainly not every episode and there’s certainly far less body exposure. Not that I have anything against Eric Northman strutting around in the buff. Faaaaaaaaaaaar from it.

But when it comes to violence, I actually think the shows are pretty evenly tied. True Blood is a bit more visual and gross. TVD is a little more realistic with its violence and torture. However, where TVD totally has True Blood beat is the body count.

As I’m said before, in The Vampire Diaries people die ALL THE FREAKING TIME. That wasn’t an exaggeration.

Not only do people die, the ones that die are RELEVANT. They’re not just killing off random characters you met for a second and figured would probably die. Sure, True Blood has had some very shocking character deaths, but TVD totally has them topped, even if you only count characters that appear in the first two episodes and then die.

This is one of the things I really like about TVD. When a character I like gets into some sort of undesirable situation, I legitimately do not know if they’ll survive. But this is FANTASTIC. I mean sure, it makes me quite cross at times, but it also keeps me on the edge of my seat. I have no false sense of security. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they kill off one of the three main characters. I am invested in some of these characters. Not knowing what might happen to them keeps me watching, keeps me tense, and keeps me screaming at the screen.

If Life Gives You Melons

My absolute favorite t-shirt (thanks Kevin!!)

I am convinced I am dyslexic. Because I also happen to be a Taurus, you can’t talk me out of thinking I’m dyslexic, but it annoys me when people (my father) doubt my dyslexia. It’s not like I wanted to be dyslexic. I certainly didn’t choose to be this way. And it’s hardly my fault that just because I have autocorrect and happen to be a super awesome speed reader that my dyslexia is not immediately apparent.

 Most people would assume if you read well, you’re not dyslexic. The thing with my reading, is that I speed read. The thing with speed reading, is that you don’t actually read the full word. You really just take in the beginning and end of the word. The thing with just reading the beginning and end of the word, is that generally it doesn’t matter if you are reordering the middle letters the wrong way (so if you’re reading it as cheif instead of chief it doesn’t matter). The really nice thing about speed reading, is that you are filling in the word based on context. Which is why when I read a word wrong it becomes pretty obvious.

For example, today I was reading an email that had a word that I thought was “entangled.” However once I finished the sentence (they were very entangled and responsive) I realized it sounded pretty weird. They were responsive to being entangled? Is this some kind of Fifty Shades of Grey thing? So I looked at the word again, studied it a moment or two, and realized it was “engaged.” Here right above “engaged” it said “attend,” so I did my usual letter shifting… and ended up with “entangled.”

This kind of thing happens all the time, and I just ignore it. I actually never thought of it as a problem, I assumed it’s normal. I mean doesn’t everyone have that problem of words and letters constantly moving around?

Apparently not.

Really, I first suspected my dyslexia back in school. I HATED math with a passion. I found it almost impossible to memorize all the stupid formulas, and I was always frustrated because no matter how much time I spent looking over quizzes or tests, inevitably there would be a least one question I missed because at some point my 203 turned into a 230. I’d get some credit, because my work was right. I understood the process. Just those stupid numbers kept getting switched.

You’d really think this would have flagged me for my teachers to mention dyslexia, but to be fair it wasn’t every single problem. It was more like 1 or 2 questions every other quiz/test/homework. I guess they thought I was just sloppy. Or couldn’t read my own handwriting, which is a fair possibility considering how crappy my handwriting is.

Nonetheless, since no one ever mentioned anything I assumed it was all in my head, and carried on.

It wasn’t until I was working with my current company that I really became convinced I was dyslexic. I was frequently making calls, and I hate calling people because half the time I end up dialing the wrong number. I was complaining a bit to a coworker, and he mentioned some similar issues, and then said the magic words “I’m dyslexic.” Which got me thinking. If he was dyslexic, couldn’t I be too?

That weekend I happened to be back home with my parents, and during some down time, I decided to look up some common symptoms for dyslexia. I found this questionnaire of 20 common dyslexic symptoms. It then gave some general results (such as most people have no more than 4 “yes” responses) and also said if you have more than 9 “yes” responses it’s a strong indicator of dyslexia. Guess what? I had ***14***!!!

I raced around my house telling my father (who didn’t believe me), my mother (who just kind of listened and nodded), and my grandmother (who was visiting). Now wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I tell my grandmother about the results, she casually said, “Well you know, Jerry was dyslexic.”

Jerry being my grandfather. Dyslexia being genetic. This clearly being something I should have known.

I suspect my father doubts my dyslexia because of how eager I was to accept it. But why not? Do you realize, being dyslexic would explain so many of what I thought were just random quirks? Things I always thought made me stupid (like my severe issues with left/right, and my inability to tell time unless I have a digital watch) are actually common symptoms of dyslexia.

I’ll conclude this post with a list of common dyslexia symptoms THAT I HAVE, because it’s pretty good proof in my court. Not because of how long the list is, just the sheer randomness of things I’ve always been teased about (like how I pronounce words, or the way I hold my pencil) which are apparently somehow linked with dyslexia. Also, I just like lists (as does my friend Erin).

1.     Spells phonetically and inconsistently.

2.     Confusion over left and right.

3.     Seems to "Zone out" or daydream often; gets lost easily or loses track of time.

4.     Leaves sentences incomplete; stutters under stress; mispronounces long words, or transposes phrases, words, and syllables when speaking.

5.     Shows dependence on finger counting, tricks, and gimmicks.

6.     Can do arithmetic, but fails word problems.

7.     Hears things not said or apparent to others; easily distracted by sounds.

8.     Feeling or seeing non-existent movement while reading or writing.

9.     May lack depth perception and peripheral vision.

10. Clumsy, uncoordinated, poor at ball or team sports.

11. Handwriting varies or is illegible.

12. Trouble with writing or copying; pencil grip may be unusual.

13. Prone to motion-sickness.

14. Has difficulty telling time.

15. Can be an extra deep or light sleeper.

16. Strong sense of justice; emotionally sensitive; strives for perfection.

17. Poor memory for sequences.