« Rockin' In the Free World | Main | They stab it with their steely knives... »

July 11, 2005

Boys are smarter than girls, especially the pretty girls

As seen at livejournal/feminist via Amanda

Pretty girls can't do math...haven't you heard?

If you're pretty you can skate by on your looks...the newspapers make sure to reinforce that notion:

The newest Miss South Carolina says she had an idea two weeks ago that she might win her pageant. The clue? It came from a fortune cookie.

Erika Grace Powell was in an Atlanta restaurant when she broke open the fate-filled cookie with the message, "You will receive a title of high honor."

Powell won the pageant Saturday night at Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium. The 20-year-old Easley native now embarks on a year of speeches and appearances. She'll also take part in the 2006 Miss America competition.

Powell represented Oconee County as "Miss Golden Corner."

Powell said the week was "thrilling."

Yes..I know these girls get scholarships for participating. But a fortune cookie? Was there a requirement to make this girl look ridiculous? Or is she actually ridiculous because she's spent her life getting by on her good looks instead of her brains?

When I was a very young girl, I was a bit of a wall flower. I went through a fairly long gawky stage with glasses, scraggly hair, too skinny, crooked teeth..the works. I was generally ignored by males when I was in middle school and my first two years in high school. Unless they needed help in English or History. Then they beat a path to my door.

By the time Junior Year rolled around I'd shed the glasses and filled out a bra. Voila! I was no longer the girl that boys just sought out to get an 'A' on their Spanish American War final. It turns out that under all that gawkiness..a butterfly.

Because I had a reputation in school for being brainy...it never occured to those kids to connect my attractiveness to being stupid. That all changed when I went to college.

Freshman year, first semester I took an Introduction to Philosphy class. It was a killer. My trip to the bookstore to purchase the required class reading almost made my parents yell at the bookstore clerk. Eight books..all expensive. All heavy and thick. None of it light reading, obviously.

The first study group session I found out that I was one of only three freshmen in the class. Philosophy was not recommended for underclassmen. My counselor neglected to mention that to me (the bastard). It was apparent from the start that I was considered a liability to the study group. They were "stuck" with me.

It wasn't because I was a freshman, either. I wasn't the only freshman in the study group. But because I was a blonde haired, blue eyed pretty girl with boobs...I wasn't smart enough to study philosphy. They treated me like I was an idiot at first.

Imagine their surprise when Professor Nelson handed back the Blue Books and I had the second highest grade in our study group.

This was my first (and sadly not last) stereotyping for being physically attractive.

I'm a feminist not because I think there's some sort of need to elevate women. I'm a feminist because I want gender equity. I want to be treated as an equal..not some pretty Barbie doll that's too stupid to diagram a sentence. It pisses me off that some women are willing to skate by on a pretty face and a nice body. And that society reinforces it.

Posted by Carla at July 11, 2005 08:58 AM