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Oct 6, 2022·edited Oct 6, 2022Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant

What a fantastic conversation Leah! I think pregnancy can reshape a woman's view of her body - sometimes in negative ways, but also sometimes in positive ways. I have talked to other mothers who found being pregnant made it easier to shift the focus from how one's body *appears* to the amazing things it *does.* I imagine female athletes might have similar experiences. The internet, by contrast, dis-embodies us, so that a TikTok user loses her own connection to the "doing" of her body, and is just focused on the "appearing" of others.

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Growing up, my parents did not comment on how they or any of us children looked very often. They dressed well for Church and my mom did wear makeup for events, but their behavior did not change noticeably based on how they presented. All I remember is the repeated statement whenever I came home with a face-full of makeup at 13 from a friend’s house: “You don’t need that.” I’ll use the same strategy with my kids because all four of us emerged reasonably confident and yet nonchalant about our images. From our home base, we didn’t develop an idea of how we were supposed to look. We just were and it was enough.

As far as the internet goes, I use social media sparsely. I don’t have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or tik tok. There is too much to do and see to be watching others doing it. To keep me in the loop, family and friends will personally send me a snapshot of an Instagram post via text occasionally. Overall, I realized that personally reaching out to fewer people enriched my life more than keeping tabs on many people.

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I don’t know how this happened, but I’ve always liked the way I look. I’m not particularly pretty, thin, gorgeous, or anything. But since I was a young girl people would compliment me on my smile and laugh. I internalized it. Maybe that is why I feel self confident as I’ve gone through life and to this day (I’m 37) as I age and go through weight fluctuations. Do I wish some things about me were different? Sometimes. Do I compare myself to others I pass in the street? Sure. But my foundation is that I have a nice smile and that brings me a long way. I’m grateful for this natural self confidence. That’s the baseline.

I always give compliments generously because I think me being complimented has helped me. I have heard that we aren’t supposed to compliment our daughters on their looks anymore...(?) But I don’t see it that way. I view the process of being naturally self-confident as beginning in childhood. Yes, maybe the way they are praised should be centered on their deeds - but is there something wrong with saying “you have a beautiful smile! You are a cutie pie! I love your eyes! I like the way your hair looks today.”

Because I sometimes wonder if girls/women who suffer terribly from low self confidence have never been paid a genuine compliment in their life. So I compliment strangers. I compliment my husband (on his looks) and other family members. I compliment my daughters. I hope it makes a difference.

P.S. Was it mark Twain who said, “I can live for several months on a good compliment” ...?

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In other words, I would say we can break away from an objectifying gaze by building one another up. Like you said, we are beloved by God. Therefore we are all beautiful! Visually beautiful; and I really believe that. If you notice something good about another person - say so! I practice it often and you would be delighted at how people light up when you say something nice to them.

The internet is not necessarily the place to do that. I don’t agree with contributing to the strong pull for likes and comments. I’m talking about going out and lifting one another up irl :)

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I recently (begrudgingly) reactivated my Hinge profile, and not going to lie, was feeling pretty glum about it. Marketing yourself as this sort of pretty, appealing package feels bad, and worse as I progress through my thirties. I’m over it. I’m so, so over trying to appeal to anyone’s gaze.

Anyway, when it came to the question prompts I decided I’d be my full, weird self, not really trying to market to dudes, and responded to one by saying that I was excited to create my “Sexy Weird Al” costume for Halloween.

Reader: my profile POPPED OFF and it’s the response that people always write to me about. Also boosted the quality of guys messaging me by a lot. It actually restored a bit of my faith in humanity? Like I’m not going to pretend that dating apps are appearance neutral, but it’s also been nice to get a reminder that what people really hunger for is someone who you can laugh with and share highly specific commonalities with.

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Oct 6, 2022·edited Oct 6, 2022

"I’m sure Marie would like to hear about your own strategies from breaking away from an objectifying gaze (and so would I!)."

I've noticed that attaching more importance to other qualities (like competence, honesty, and faith) than to beauty standards is no guarantee of refuge from objectification. The sheer awareness that others evaluate us, and that their evaluation, true or not, stands to practically affect our lives more than whatever is really true, encourages us to see ourselves with an objectifying gaze.

Any claim, "I am adequate," "I deserve the benefit of the doubt," in any dimension can be, and often is, greeted with withering skepticism from... somebody. And one of the internet's greatest strengths, connection with so many somebodies we could not meet in the flesh, amplifies this objectification.

"To be a mind today is to constantly find yourself rubbing against other minds. For many people, it is impossible to think without simultaneously thinking about what other people would think about what you're thinking. And this is exhausting and deeply unsatisfying. As long as your self-conception is tied up in your perception of other people's conception of you, you will never be free to occupy a personality with confidence; you're always at the mercy of the next person's dim opinion of you and your whole deal. (This, specifically, is what Sartre meant when he said hell is other people, not just that other people suck but that being forced to live with the weight of other people's perceptions of yourself sucks.) We are what the Unabomber calls 'oversocialized;' we are too aware of other people and their opinions, which results in an implicit set of personal ethics that is impossible for any actual person to live up to."

https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-cant-choose-to-be-trad

Avoiding beauty standards is not enough. Some kind of radical-not-caring is necessary. I find that in the desperation of love, for my loved ones or for God, though I must admit the desperation often doesn't seem like enough.

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founding

One corner of the internet that I've found does well at presenting images of people's lives which are grounded in reality is Reddit. In particular I spend a lot of time on r/weddingplanning and I think it's been really nice for me to see a huge variety of budgets and styles. It really does range from DIY everything to events that could belong in Vogue weddings but the commentariat is complimentary and supportive either way :)

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Humans are mimetic by nature, and social media has amplified this. Not my original thought: several years ago I discovered René Girard’s work (“I See Satan Fall Like Lightening” was the book I first read) and then Luke Burgas’s work (https://read.lukeburgis.com/). Luke’s book, “Wanting” is fantastic, providing an accessible guide to Girard’s work. And it explains so much about just why the internet is a dysphoria machine.

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Curating the images of women I see? I don't think I answered that question.

How would I do that? How do people do that? It's baffling to me, because I tend to focus on text-based social media, as you described it.

As long as I take good care of myself, exercising, eating well, and grooming myself well, I presume I'm attractive. I don't wear much makeup, ever since the pandemic shut down all of that, although I used to put makeup on for Zoom calls.

Another person said that she was complimented on her smile growing up, and was told she was pretty. That happened to me too, so I suppose I don't dwell on my looks as much for that reason.

I aim for a clean, wholesome look, not the high fashion model look of contouring. I looked at the tutorial. She looks like she's wearing a mask. I can't imagine that look for day-to-day wear. It's so dramatic that it would only look good for some type of high profile evening event.

I'm not on TikTok, Instagram, or whatever the latest image-based social media platforms are. I don't post personal pictures on line, and one my one avatar I have on social media is a cartoon image of me from a picture I took years ago.

I suppose the one place where I curate images is on pinterest, but those images are more than just pictures of people. Of the picture of people I save, they are images of men and women of all ages, children, clothes, food, places.

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For those who miss Google Reader, try Feedly. It does the same thing: aggregates all your favorite blogs into one feed.

I was able to import my Google Reader blogroll directly into Feedly for a seamless transition, though that was years ago so I don't know if that still works.

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It was apparent to me, through my mother’s appellation of my younger sister as “angel face” that I was not the pretty one. Without going into detail about my mother’s narcissistic obsession with blond blue eyed girls (of which she was once), I also grew up without a television or many magazines. (I am 44). I learned to work hard at developing character and intelligence (though my younger sister was also superior in academia, and is now a lawyer). Because I believed that I was not pretty and am not conventionally beautiful by current standards, but am also a artist with the desire to see the beauty in everything, I came to see myself as beautiful. But there is a disjointed reality: when I see myself in a photo or mirror, I find myself curious because it’s not how I “look” on the inside, having spent so much time looking inside rather than out. When I apply a more detached approach, I am surprised to find that I look at myself and find a beautiful person. As such I wear less makeup. I don’t spend time on Social media, rarely take selfies anymore (it was a phase which like artists who paint self portraits, I used to better know myself), and don’t spend too much time in a mirror (and am surprised to see myself in store windows). I do feel keenly interested in seeing how I age.

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Oct 7, 2022·edited Oct 7, 2022

Growing up, I was quite self-conscious. I discounted all compliments on my appearance (especially from my parents) and hated being looked at and evaluated (by either sex) on my physical appearance. The idea of being invisible sounded so liberating (except when I was talking in class, in which case I wanted the people I talked to to look at me). I remember despairing in high school that anyone would ever want to marry me someday, since I wasn't really white and I wasn't really Japanese. Which feels a little laughable now with the larger perspective of years and experience. It wasn't till my 30s that I started to accept that I had some physical features that were above the mean for some appreciable percentage of the population. More than that, I became comfortable in my skin and didn't care that my looks might not appeal to some. Getting married helped immensely because my husband liked how I looked sans makeup and with glasses and I didn't feel the pressure to prep myself to appeal to the unknown tastes of some fuzzily-defined man. When I wear makeup (probably less than once a week, now that I'm out of the paid workforce), I think about why I'm doing it. Usually it's because I want professional polish when I'm meeting with adults, or just feel like looking nicer when I see myself that day.

Now that I'm in my mid-40s, I get much less male attention, and I like that. I'm still the same person, and I don't care if strangers discount me for my looks. I can be just a soul navigating through life and connecting with other people on my own terms. It's kind of like driving my beloved 20-year-old Toyota while we were pulling in two decent salaries that would have qualified for a much fancier car. A reminder that what faces the outside doesn't count nearly as much as what's behind it.

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