She went on,

Saying that women always simply appreciate another woman's looks without jealousy is a big lie. A HUGE one. Women can be extremely rude, mean, and cutting if they sense another woman may threaten their place in the attractiveness department. This applies especially if that woman is younger. Talk to women who have lost weight amongst a group of friends, and what the reaction was. Talk to women who had childhood friends where someone was a "late bloomer", and ask what the reaction was, and how the group dynamic changed. Talk to women who were called "sluts" in high school, just for being considered beautiful. Talk to women who really are just naturally stunning, and how many other women treat them. Or, go to some rough neighborhoods and talk to young ladies (middle school, high school), who have been physically ATTACKED for being "too cute".

Now, I'd argue that in the case of Fox, my own irritation is as much the public version of that guys'-girl-with-no-girl-friends-because-girls-are-jealous-of-her attitude, that guys always take at face value, as with the actress specifically. After all, I think we all know plenty of stunning women who have no trouble keeping, and maintaining, the friendship of other women. And others, whatever their physical appearance, who've used this line. But she's definitely touched on something we should discuss. Are we, as women, harder on those we perceive as more attractive? And are we dishonest about it? The reader went on,

With all of the discussion on weight, unrealistic standards of beauty, Photoshopping, etc. that are regularly covered, is it REALLY honest at all to pretend that a lot of the "hateration" towards Megan Fox is not attributed to how reader's boyfriends and husbands, male acquaintances would/do react to her? What she represents? Implying that women aren't that insecure, is a fallacy. Otherwise, why the aging creams, Botox, and plastic surgery? The diet threads, the magazine influence on reader's personal perceptions? There are regular commenters on the site who have written about the "shank eye" other women have given them in public spaces.

Are we all hating on Fox because she's beautiful? No. At least, I'm not — for one thing, she's a level of conventional physical perfection that I for one don't even think to compete with. But the reader's larger point is one I really want to hear your takes on. Frankly, I think she's overestimating our collective pettiness, but that doesn't mean there isn't some there. Thoughts?

Earlier: Megan Fox's Minders Are Worried Women Don't Like Her

Mehmet, 38, spends the majority of the piece discussing her own beauty; how her mother, a beautician, pushed her to focus on her appearance, how she began using makeup at 12, and how these efforts eventually led to a career as a part-time model. It's evident from the get-go that Mehmet's self-worth is directly tied to her appearance, which casts a sad shadow over the rest of the piece, which reads, quite honestly, as someone having a slightly tortured conversation with herself.

Mehmet admits that she's jealous of her 17-year-old daughter, who is now "blossoming into womanhood." Yasmin is young and pretty and, according to her mother, a dead ringer for Mehmet herself in her younger days, which complicates her jealousy and resentment even further: "And although she was oblivious of all this, I couldn't help resenting her for it," Mehmet writes of her daughter's coming-of-age, "I began to make comparisons all the time, and a terror of getting old and losing my looks enveloped me."

The first time I read this piece, I was so irritated (it is the Daily Mail, after all) that my first instinct was to write a headline like "Mom Realizes She Is Not 18 Anymore, Calls Dina Lohan For Advice On How To Fix Situation," but after reading it a few more times, I realized the piece is just sad, really, in that Mehmet really doesn't seem to be able to let go of the idea that she is worth more than her looks, and that true beauty and happiness are not, despite what the magazines and the media might tell you, about trying to look 18 when you're 38.

I do feel a certain sympathy for her, as obnoxious as the article reads at times, in that I think it's normal for people to feel pangs of envy or jealousy when they realize certain points in their lives are behind them. The entire article is a sad commentary on the increasingly obnoxious values we place on youth and beauty, and the most disturbing aspect is that Mehmet doesn't seem to understand that she's just setting up her daughter to feel the same pangs of worthlessness and jealousy by constantly placing such a value on her child's looks.

Instead of trying to keep up with her daughter, or comparing herself with her daughter, Mehmet should find her own path and attempt to show her kid that life doesn't end at 18 (unless you're a member of Menudo, and then you are so out of there) and that true beauty has no age limit and that living in the past is a surefire way to miss the really great things happening in the present and waiting in the future. Yasmin claims that "we all get old, and to my mind there's so much more to life than looks. In 20 or 30 years, if I have a daughter, I'm sure I'll be confident enough to be glad that she's more gorgeous than me. I'll have had my time, and I'll definitely be ready to grow old gracefully. If only Mum could see it that way." If only both of them could see that there's so much more to "their time" than being the most gorgeous one in the house.

I Used To Be The One Who Turned Men's Heads, But Now It's My Teenage Daughter [DailyMail]

Okay, that's a trick question. It's hard to make an adequate representation of anything, and have it appeal to a mass market. Interestingly, creator Stacy McBride-Irby came up with the doll redesign out of a desire to have a doll that reflected what her daughter looks like

"They mean so much to me because they did come from a positive place," McBride-Irby said. "My daughter loves the dolls. I've had dads thank me for creating this line of dolls that represent their little girls. These dolls are for girls all over the world."

Over at Racialicious, I had two separate submissions, begging to disagree.

Seattle Slim wrote:

Mattel, you disappoint me. What was wrong with giving these dolls from your S.I.S line natural hair, dark brown eyes, and features that fit with most of the particular demographic, black girls, that you are looking to cater to?

If you guys think that these dolls don't mean shit, might I kindly ask you to check out the Doll test?

You should not be lauded for this, Mattel. I appreciate you thinking of us and all, but you dropped the ball on this.

Even if you wanted to keep these dolls, that's fine. I've already described my grandfather and family history here. Where is MY doll? Where is the doll with the Afro? Where is the doll with twists? Where's the doll with the lowboy? Where's the doll with the dark brown eyes, and the flatter nose, and the voluptuous lips? Where's the doll that has all of those things, not just some? Where's the doll for little girls that look like me?

Let me be more clear, these dolls (except for Kara's crazy lace front) are not terrible. I think they are actually perfect for little girls who have a mixed background. These pretty much cover a broad aesthetic and look like plausibly like someone with mixed heritage. In that respect, these dolls are perfect!

However, for the little black girls that look just like ME with unmistakably Afrocentric features, these dolls appeal to the tried and totally untrue, but respected, hip-hop beauty ideal that has become an "exotic girls only" industrial complex. So not only are young girls bombarded with those images on television, if their parents aren't careful, they are basically kicked while they're down walking through the toy store.

Tami, the editor of Love Isn't Enough, opened by explaining what she likes about the dolls. However, she still had heavy reservations:

Like a lot of women, I am uncomfortable with Barbie and her role in the development of young girls. It's not all Barbie's fault. It is the space she occupies in the universe of things that influence how girls grow up to be women: what goals they ultimately have, how they see themselves, how they judge their self worth and how they define womanhood.

I also have a beef with the word "authentic" to describe the three acceptably "blackified" dolls. Let's face it, these dolls don't represent any sort of break-through in representation of black faces. The skin tones and facial features fall within a narrow range that is acceptable within Eurocentric beauty standards. And to say that their hair is "curly" like that of most black women (as McBride-Irby does in this video on the consumer page for the new dolls) is being a wee bit disingenuous. Most black women have hair that is more kinky than curly in its natural state. (These dolls ain't no nappy heads.) Of course, most black women chemically straighten or weave up, which makes the dolls an accurate representation. Fine, but don't try to market them as some representation of "authentic" black physicality.

I also note, in the linked Mattel page above, the use of vaguely "urban" music, a gold, blingy necklace and a backstory that involves Barbie's friend Grace moving from California to Chicago, where she hooks up with Kara and Trishelle. The story and associated imagery is relatable for many black girls, but not all. What about the many, little black girls who live in the burbs? Of course, these dolls can't be everything to every child. But again, the use of "authentic" is a marketing fail. The urban experience is no more "authentic" to black folks than the rural experience.

This idea of authenticity permeates the whole line - each of the dolls has an optional hair styling kit, which includes a curl spray, clip in extensions, and a curling iron.

(Pause here for a second. The dolls come with activator and a weave. Both! Even Régine on Living Single didn't go this deep and she was checking for a Chocolate Ken!)

The reactions to both the pieces raged back and forth - some people thought we should appreciate the effort, the steps taken, and the fact that a black designer created and conceived the S.I.S. project. Others thought that anything that reinforces eurocentric beauty standards is still damaging, even if it is created by another women of color.

But the strength of the reactions - both for and against the dolls - showed what's really at stake here. While some people might say that all of this attention toward Barbie is silly and misplaced, the fact is Barbie still occupies a certain, exalted place in the cultural consciousness. Even as the Barbie brand is falling out of favor, she remains a symbol of (white) femininity and desirably, and unreachable ideal that far too many girls still find imprinted on their psyches.

The truth is, we don't want to change Barbie, or Trichelle, Kara, and Grace. We want to change the culture that says we must look a certain way in order to be beautiful.

But changing a culture is difficult. And even as we grow up, and leave our Barbies behind (or decided we never liked them in the first place), the painful truth remains: we all want our beauty to be validated.

And in our own, individual way, we're trying to influence the world to do just that.

New Black Barbies Get Mixed Reviews [CNN]
Mattel Falls Short With S.I.S (So In Style) Line Black Barbies [Happy Nappy Head]
I'm Saving My Cheers For New, "Authentic" Black Barbie [Love Isn't Enough]
Barbie So In Style Stylin Hair Grace Doll [Amazon]

But first: Have you ever been convinced that technology from Europe will make you more beautiful? I haven't. But for some reason beauty companies think women will fall for that shit.

The instant facelift ones are the worst, because they really prey on the aging, as if there's anything you can do about aging. And Sarah's right: If you had money, you'd get surgery, but you don't! So you waste it on stuff that will never work. Sigh.

By the by: I saw this Rejuvenique commercial one night AND COULD NOT SLEEP FOR THREE YEARS AFTERWARD.

Kidding. Sort of. Anyway, Sarah Haskins was asked about all the crazy crap that's marketed toward women. She says:

A lot of people ask me like, how can marketing to women be better? And my default answer is, I don't want it to better, this is my job.

But seriously folks!
She also explains:

I think the big problem, though, stemmed from the fact that everything is - the products are very clearly divided into genders, either because of something with our gender roles, like laundry, or maybe, you know, they find the angle being weight loss, and that's a lady thing, so that goes to yogurt. I mean, that's what the yogurt ads are about, weight loss and, like, regularity.

And:

I was an American studies major in college and we learned about the cult of true womanhood, which was sort of what women were told in the media in like the turn of the century in the Victorian era at that time, which emphasized this piety and purity and submission and domesticity, and how the women sort of control the hearth. And from that, you know, they control the home. And I think the legacy of that has not changed. It's still with us in the media and we've just added to it. Certainly a lot of women's products are still like, do it for your man.

And now I think what's been added to it in a modern mix is this all sense of like, fem-powerment - like you go, girl. You are jogging, you know? And that shouldn't be our prime goal: jogging and going to yoga class without having cramps.

She also admits she likes the Geico commercial where a cash stack with little eyeballs sings to you. It's a gender-neutral idea! But, she says: "I don't think anything — when it's going after women particularly, in trying to frame them in a certain way to make you buy the product — is really going to not be ridiculous in some way." And the proof is in the Target: Women pudding.

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Beauty Contraptions [Current]
Why Marketers Are Wooing Women All Wrong [NPR]

Earlier: All Sarah Haskins posts
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins

Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation and an incredibly depressing essay about getting older, basically plays the bad cop to Nerve editor-at-large Jack Harrison's good cop in this particular debate, titled "The Brazilian Wax: Bare vs. Hair." Speaking almost like a cliche of The Kind of Guy You'd Want To Have Sex With, Harrison says he likes all of a woman's natural smells, secretions, and adornments, including pubic hair. Wurtzel (perhaps unsurprisingly, given her much-publicized reliance on various beauty treatments) disagrees.

She argues that men prefer a naked snatch, and that this is "just the way things are and will ever be." After speaking for all men and predicting the future, she moves on to generalizing about the preferences of her own gender:

I think we women don't feel entirely female unless we're slaves to beauty.

And:

[A]t one time, when you got pubic hair, it meant that you were an adult. Now, you get it removed to show that... you're an adult. There's something childish about being hairy, now that Brazilians have achieved vaginal hegemony.

And:

I guess there is a philosophical sickness that drives us to do things like go to salons for hair removal: it's an insane drive toward achieving a state that we'll never get to, that we'll always be approaching, stuck at some horrible asymptote. But I guess it makes me feel better to try.

In her post on Wurtzel's aging essay, Sadie wrote that Wurtzel "has always ascribed a universality to her own experiences" — and really, the best response to her thoughts on pubic hair is, "speak for your fucking self." The truth is, I do know women who get Brazilians because men like it (or, as Wurtzel says, "the audience response had been very, very good"). But I also know women who do it because they like the way it feels, or looks — and I know women who keep a full bush for those same reason. Yes, institutionalized standards of beauty are fucked up, and yes, the ideal of female hairlessness is one such standard of beauty. But getting a Brazilian doesn't necessarily mean you don't feel "fully female" without one.

It's a little weird that I started out this post defending waxing, since my personal sympathies lie with Harrison and his let-it-all-hang-out philosophy. But Wurtzel makes all female grooming sound like such depressing drudgery that I feel like stepping in on its behalf. Feminism has long had a fraught relationship with the modification and decoration of the female body, but one of the few nice things about the current post-feminist morass is the widespread recognition that dressing up, wearing lipstick, and, yes, even getting a Brazilian, can be kind of fun.

Yeah, so waxing hurts a lot more than lipstick. So it produces a look that some people think is infantile. That doesn't mean everyone who does it wants to look like an infant, or that every hair removed is an act of willing enslavement. Wurtzel's "insane drive toward achieving a state that we'll never get to" does sound like a pretty good description of the attitude toward beauty that women's magazines and advertisers want us to have. But just because Wurtzel drank that Kool-Aid doesn't mean we have to.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic — maybe it's impossible to make choices favored by the beauty-industrial complex without in some way enslaving oneself to this complex and all its evil familiars. But Wurtzel's idea of womanhood is so heartbreakingly constrained — by men, by porn, by standards of beauty that are totally entrenched and unchangeable — that it seems to leave no room for taking actual joy in our bodies. And I have to believe we're freer than that.

The Nerve Debate, The Brazilian Wax: Bare vs. Hair [Nerve]

Interestingly enough, the study results were targeted to plastic surgeons, to help them understand cultural differences in beauty ideals:

Surgeons that perform nose surgery "must be aware of the different concepts of beauty, especially when working with people of non-Caucasian origin," Gomes said.

Most of the recent studies of the issue were "produced in North America, where the beauty concepts seem to have subtle differences when compared to concepts of other cultures," he noted. "Attention to this aspect may help the surgeon to tailor a more adequate technique and meet their patients' expectations better."

Exactly - beauty is a highly objective thing to quantify. We develop our own individual standards of beauty, taking cues from our families, society, our peer group, and pop culture. In addition, we take into account the shifting standards of beauty over time. For example, the hourglass figure, once coveted, has fallen to the wayside in favor of an overall leaner figure. (See also the changing cast of 90210, which demonstrates that beauty standards can change remarkably within a ten-year period.)

So it is possible to determine something as "objectively beautiful" when the values of beauty are constantly shifting?

Researchers have also honed in on the idea of symmetry as being part of a universal standard of beauty, pointing out how other animals prefer symmetry in mate selection and how some of these traits held cross-culturally:

According to a University of Louisville study, when shown pictures of different individuals, Asians, Latinos, and whites from 13 different countries all had the same general preferences when rating others as attractive — that is those that are the most symmetric.

However, John Manning of the University of Liverpool in England cautions against over-generalization, especially by Western scientists. "Darwin thought that there were few universals of physical beauty because there was much variance in appearance and preference across human groups," Manning explained in email interview. For example, Chinese men used to prefer women with small feet. In Shakespearean England, ankles were the rage. In some African tribal cultures, men like women who insert large discs in their lips.

Indeed, "we need more cross-cultural studies to show that what is true in Westernized societies is also true in traditional groups," Manning said his 1999 article.

But with even these basic ideas under scrutiny, how do we truly determine what is considered beautiful?

Brazilians Judge Facial Beauty Differently Than North Americans [Eureka Alert]
What's Most Beautiful? Brazilians Say A Low Nose [Reuters]
Looking Good: The Psychology And Biology of Beauty [Journal of Young Investigators]

Earlier: Women Today Are Fat, Unhealthy - And Full Of Themselves
New 90210 Showcases Skinniness, Outrageous Fortune

The opening article discusses how loaded the term actually is:

Always the words "good hair" evoke stories, stories containing memories of childhood, memories of being teased, memories of people from a dominant culture touching your hair, asking questions. Stories of sitting in the kitchen near a hot stove on a Saturday night, while your mother pressed your hair for church the next morning, you flinching as she pulled the comb through.

Stories of the time you cut off all your hair and a boy in the back of the school bus said you looked like a boy. And you turned around and punched him. You remember your hair freshly shampooed and flowing in the summer breeze because that was the way you dried it then, before blow dryers, before relaxers.

In the interviews with everyday women, you see an interesting narrative begin to emerge. Namely, no matter what type of hair crowned your head, there were going to be problems.

Queen Aishah, a comedian, shares a painful memory of a friend deeming her hair unkempt:

One day my girlfriend in the seventh grade, she gave me a comb for a present. It broke my heart. To this day it brings tears to my eyes. I didn't cry then but my heart sank in my stomach. She gave me a comb in front of my seventh grade class.

I really wanted to beat her up. She had wrapped the comb like a present. It was wrapped like in Christmas paper. I said, "Oh, I got a gift." Because we didn't have gift exchange in [our] house. [Then] I was like, "Oh my God! What did she get me?"

And then everybody busted out laughing. It was homeroom. It was an embarrassing thing.

Shenee' Harris remembers the influence of pop culture on her hair choices:

I just remember wanting to wear it straight. I thought it would look good. When you look on television and in the media, even the cartoon characters, the women have long, flowing hair. The Smurfette had long hair. Miss Piggy had long hair. I liked my hair to be bone straight.

Avis Jones-DeWeever remembers the pain of conversion:

My earliest hair memory was sitting in front of the oven and dreading the ritual of getting the hair pressed with the two jar tops over my ears [to protect them]. And my mother takes the hot comb and that sound, sizzzzzzzzzzzz! The heat and the pain of getting burned from time to time. The little torture that black girls go through in terms of the first experience — pre-perm — in an attempt to straighten their hair.

Then we eventually graduated to an actual hairdresser, where you still had the hot-comb experience. Hold your ears back. You were on edge all the time. You could feel the heat as the comb approached your scalp. Not only could you feel it, you could hear your hair literally frying as they are pulling the comb through. The heat of your hair touches your face or neck. It's hot. It's not comfortable. It has to be done quite often to maintain the effect.

Sadly, even black girls with straight hair can't catch a break:

They used to call me "black China girl" because they didn't understand why my hair was straight, why it was slick. They would ask me am I biracial. "No," I would say, "both my parents are black!"

Certain people would only like you because of your hair texture. Some girls would want to fight you because of your hair texture. They would never come out and say it but they would do things like pull your hair. Or just not like you because they think you feel you have something better than them. It made me want to cut my hair at about the third or fourth grade, at the stage when you are sensitive to what people think about you.

And yet, despite all the emotions wrapped up in how we wear our hair, there is still hope that we can instill in others the confidence we lacked growing up. Liz Nolan, a 65-year old salon owner, remembers always thinking her hair was never good enough:

When I was growing up, one side of my family was very fair-skinned. As they said in the olden days down South, where I was born . . . if you had straight hair and light complexion, you were pretty. Nice looking. I was born with kinky hair. So I remember going to the beauty salon trying to get my hair straight as possible. They were using all this grease on my hair. I used to have to come home and take a towel and take it out so I could look like my cousin. I wanted to look like my cousin because they told me my cousin was very pretty because she had good hair and I didn't have good hair.

Nolan goes on to discuss how her perception of her hair changed as she grew older, and how she felt called to become a beautician to reinforce to women that they are beautiful - regardless of how they choose to wear their hair. But the most compelling proof of how we can reverse this ideology comes from Nolan's braided seventeen year old daughter, who says, simply:

I always liked my hair.

You Grow, Girl! [Washington Post]
Getting to the Roots of 'Good Hair' - Queen Aishah[Washington Post]
Getting to the Roots of 'Good Hair' - Shenee' Harris [Washington Post]
Getting to the Roots of 'Good Hair' - Avis Jones-DeWeever
Getting to the Roots of 'Good Hair' - Greer Jones [Washington Post]
Getting to the Roots of 'Good Hair' - Liz Nolan [Washington Post]
Getting to the Roots of 'Good Hair' - Phantasia Nolan [Washington Post]

We've covered this before on Jezebel - the children going to Club Libby Lu for makeovers as young as three years old; the marketing of bikini waxes to eight year olds; the ten year olds getting microdermabraison; and other manifestations of kiddie spas

However, the scene emerging in Beirut has a slightly different twist:

"It's not about spoiling our children," says Maya Hilal, 34, the owner of Spa-Tacular, located in Beirut's trendy Ashrafieh district.

"It's a matter of maintaining their cleanliness. It's hygiene. It's feeling good about yourself."

A graphic designer, Hilal created the brightly-coloured salon with the help of her sister when her oldest daughter, now seven, began to show interest in primping and pruning.

"I started feeling that our salons, adult salons, they're not for kids. The colours they use, the treatment, the whole thing," she told AFP. "So I got the idea: why don't I start a place for them, suited to their age, where they can be relaxed and happy.

"A place that's fun, colourful."

What is most compelling about this piece is how beauty rituals are placed within a cultural context. The author, Natacha Yazbeck, makes a point to note:

The image of the impeccable Lebanese female was perhaps best immortalized in a 2006 photograph that captured perfectly manicured young women driving in a red convertible through the rubble of Beirut's southern suburbs, destroyed by Israeli bombing in a war with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah that summer.

The photograph by Spencer Platt won the World Press Photo award that year for capturing the "complexity and contradiction of real life," according to the jury.

And in a country that functions similarly with or without government, the Lebanese beauty craze is, to some, not a luxury but a routine part of life no matter their circumstances — or age.

The still image illustrating this post is from the Lebanese movie Caramel, which debuted in 2007. The Wikipedia entry explains:

Caramel revolves around the intersecting lives of five Lebanese women. Layale (Nadine Labaki) works in a beauty salon in Beirut along with two other women, Nisrine (Yasmine Al Masri) and Rima (Joanna Moukarzel). Each one has a problem: Layale is stuck in a dead-end relationship with a married man; Nisrine is no longer a virgin but is set to be married and in her conservative family where pre-marital sex is not accepted; Rima is attracted to women; Jamale (Gisèle Aouad), a regular customer and wannabe actress, is worried about getting old; Rose (Sihame Haddad), a tailor with a shop next to the salon, is an old woman who had devoted her life to taking care of her mentally unbalanced older sister Lili (Aziza Semaan), but has found her first love. The film doesn't refer to any of the political problems or recent warfare that has troubled Lebanon. Rather, Labaki's tale paints everyday people with everyday problems.

Yet and still, the production notes explain:

The shooting of Caramel ended just 9 days before the Israel war on Lebanon erupted in July 2006, and was released in Cannes exactly one year after the shooting began.

While we often critique the rampant spread of beauty ideals targeting a younger and younger set, one of the dynamics of beauty culture that often goes discussed (in the feminist circles I roll in, at least) is the power of bonding and reclamation in ritual. The women featured in Caramel all faced different life circumstances, but all bonded over one common thing - the love of the transformative power of self-improvement. Yazbeck's point that something as basic as grooming can evolve into an act of resistance in the face of soul crushing events is important. I am reminded of an essay by Paula Austin in Colonize This! called "Femme-Inism":

I often watched [my mother] do her makeup in front of the small mirror that sat on a tiny square table across from the bed I had slept on, in the bedroom I shared with my mother and sister. She would dab some foundation from the bottle into her hand and smear it evenly across and around her face. She used concealer around her eyes and covered that with powder. She wore black eyeliner, above and below her lid, which she administered with a pencil. She wore eye shadow and mascara. Lastly, she lined her lips, using some shade of burgundy. When she finished dressing, her shoes and pocketbook always matching, the room smelled like her expensive perfume long after she had gone.

This was her ritual each day, the donning of her costume. This was her feminine armor, her feminist attire. This was the very thing that brought her strength and power. I could tell this by the way she stepped out onto the street in her blue polyester floral dress that hugged her hips and thighs, her strong calves shaping down into her white pumps, her ass and pocketbook both swaying. Her sexy gait was evidence of her prowess, and both she and I were proud. She was unknowingly modeling for me.

When I was eleven or twelve, I was punished for wearing makeup. I would wait until my mother was out of the room at bedtime and I would sneak an eyeliner pencil from the makeup drawer to under the bed. In the morning, I would pretend I was looking for my shoes and slip the eyeliner into my pants pocket, sneaking it out of the house.

Somewhere between the apartment door and the building's front door down five flights of stairs, I would hurriedly apply the makeup, lining my eyes with blue pencil and combing on the black mascara I had stolen from Woolworth's. I was never delicate enough. I was rough, rushed, and heavy handed. Once applied, as hideously as it may have looked, I stepped out from the apartment building. Out onto Ocean Avenue in Flatbush, where I was a poor Black girl, living in someone else's apartment in an all-white neighborhood, where my family was seen as "the help." And at eight in the morning, on that street with all of its white faces staring down at me or not seeing me at all, I walked with my head up high and made it to the bus stop without flinching. It was my armor, too.

While scholars quoted later in the piece cast some doubt as to the effectiveness of teaching the necessity of beauty through purchases and consumption - and the ascension to upper class narratives that paint that perception - I still wondered what exactly was being taught to these girls. Pride in oneself? Was it simple early indoctrination to our culture that prizes the beauty in women above all else? Or are these women, on some level, arming children with the ability to use small gestures (like hair and makeup) to cope with horrific circumstances?

Beauty Bug Bites Beirut's littlest [Sydney Morning Herald]
Caramel [Wikipedia]
Colonize This! Young Women of Color On Today's Feminism [Amazon]

Earlier: Why Let A Girl Play When She Can Be Made Over Like JonBenet?
Bikini Waxing
How Many 8-Year-Olds Have To Get Bikini Waxes Before We All Agree The Terrorists Have Won?
Sugar, Spice, And Oxygen Facials

When Troy Patterson wrote a light-hearted piece about "girl-watching" in DoubleX last month, it provoked a predictable controversy in comments. Some women brought up serious larger issues of objectification, sexualization and the fact that the male gaze is by no means always innocuous and should not be trivialized. Others said they were flattered by respectful glances. Some men wrote in to say that their looks were natural and expressed nothing but admiration of a far wider range of characteristics than women might assume. Objectification, predatory behavior, sexualization - these are all things we've discussed, and bear discussing more, although it's not what I want to talk about now, to the extent they can be separated. My own feeling, frankly, was that anyone worrying about keeping his gaze respectful isn't the one making my walk home from the subway a daily ordeal. And contrary to what guys may believe, we can generally tell the difference between an insolent, visually-stripping leer and an admiring glance.

And then there are those guys who make such intense eye-contact that it becomes almost weirder than if he'd just looked down and gotten it out of the way. I get wanting to look, and for me it's not even sexual. People look at each other. And women's bodies are beautiful. They draw the eye, and sometimes you just want to look, stare even. It's like Isaac Mizrahi once said, "I mean, breasts! They're beautiful! All breasts!" Now, he's a habitual gay boob-grabber, which is a whole other thing and Not Okay, but I feel him: maybe it's because we all had moms, but what's not to love about female curves? Sometimes there are days (granted, usually when I'm in an emotional frame of mind) where everyone is so stunning and in such wholly different ways that I get tears in my eyes. (These tend to be the same days the bounty of produce at the greenmarket makes me sob.)

Of course, women have other reasons to look. Sometimes it's about comparisons. Not so much qualitative, for me, as "she's about my size - could I get away with that length?" or, "she looks like my friend," which I suspect isn't something men do, because I know men in my life have been less than scintillated when I've made such looks-like-friend-whom-you-may-not-know observations. And then of course there's clothes. I love looking at outfits, getting ideas, admiring creativity and proportion, seeing "runway-to-reality," guessing what people do. Do I check out men? Sometimes, I guess - but like men's clothing, it's so much less interesting! I might think a guy's cute, sure, or dressed like an ass, but by and large I find it a lot less engaging. Men, at least in America, tend to be less expressive with their bodies and faces and certainly with their clothing, and for the most part make for dull viewing.

I don't mean to suggest I sit around like some peeping Tom with binoculars. But if I'm eating on a bench, it's the ladies I'll watch. And sometimes, yes, it's awkward. You simply can't stare at a woman's body for a long time without it being inappropriate, and you simply can't look down women's dresses, even if it's totally asexual and she's wearing a really low-cut dress and it's just like an arrow pointing down and, like shouting in church, you just want to do it because it's bad and it's there and you could and it's forbidden. Or nipples. If there are visible nipples it's really hard, both because you empathize and because, well, there they are! I can only imagine what it would be like if there were also a sexual imperative at work. Similarly, sometimes you catch women staring at your breasts. And even if it doesn't feel sexual or predatory, it's a little weird. Because you've caught her doing something, and you both know it, and you don't have necessarily the visceral sense of violation you would if it were a man, and you wonder if maybe the weirdness is just conditioned because, what? They're just breasts - but it's weird nonetheless. The difference is, when it's a woman, I probably won't reflexively cross my arms. Something Bayley wouldn't really get.

Taking Pleasure In The Female Form [Telegraph]

Related: A Dandy's Guide To Girl-Watching [DoubleX]

The confessional-style documentary, which premiered on HBO last night (schedule of upcoming screenings can be found here) follows McCabe (who narrates the film) n her quest to uncover why so many people will subject themselves to injections, surgeries, and peels to regain the appearance of youth. It is a siren song that McCabe is well aware of: At the age of 38, she reveals she has been scrutinizing her body ever since she came across her father's slides from his plastic surgery practice.

Refreshingly free of moralizing, McCabe establishes early on that she, too, struggles with the idea of aging. Setting a precedent for the rest of the film, she begins by analyzing how much money she dedicates to the pursuit of youth:

I found it amazing to watch her dollar costs unfold. McCabe, a smart woman who acknowledges up front that she is not making a wise decision, still cops to being close to $70,000 in debt, makes about $30,000 a year as a temp, yet finds $200 every six weeks to keep her gray hairs at bay.

As the viewer is reeling from the cost, McCabe says, "I may drop my health care coverage, but I'd never stop covering my gray. It may be insane, but it's the truth."

And...it is. Covering gray isn't something I am currently dealing with (and I think a silver afro would be kind of fierce), but I could completely relate to making bad financial decisions in the pursuit of beauty or fashion. How much money have I given to Zappos that could really be earning interest in my Roth IRA? Yet and still, I find myself trading long term financial security for a series of short term beauty boosts.

Looking specifically at the dollars and cents of it all, I am reminded of a series called the Cost of Beauty. PHDork examines the price women pay in pursuit of prettiness, noting:

[W]e can fairly surmise that the majority of harpies–70%–spend between $101 and $1000 per annum on beauty costs. Those numbers fit with both the mean and the median.

As to what sucks up all of those HarpyBuxx (they're not just good for abortions anymore!): our lovely, lovely tresses: 43% of expenditures go towards hair cuts, coloring, or other services. Make-up takes up another 29%. The rest:

Hair removal: 8%
Nails: 7%
Other products: 7%
Spa: 4%
Appliances: 2% [...]

A number of you expressed surprise at your spending, comparing it to X months of rent or groceries. It does add up: what else you might spend $613, or even nearly $800 a year on?

What else indeed? Most of us will never know. We're too hooked on beauty pimps and their products.

One person, who comes to illustrate how far people will go in their quest to find the surgical fountain of youth is Sherry Mecom from Texas.

(Is it just me, or does Sherry sound a lot like Ruby from the Style network?)

Sherry seems determined to use money to correct the past. She was once overweight until she had gastric bypass; she continually works on her body; and she is obsessed with the waterfalls and LG dishwashers she procures for her home. She alludes to a poor upbringing and being unhappy, but it feels like she is unsatisfied. Instead, she plans the next big purchase in her quest for a total life upgrade.

In the course of her travels, McCabe meets another daughter of a plastic surgeon - Erica Rose. However, the things that Erica has internalized about self-improvement differ dramatically from Mitch's low key messages from her father:

The quest for perfection is punishing, and not just for women. Youth Knows No Pain also reaches out to men in pursuit of camouflaging their ages. Men have their own hang ups, that just manifest differently and at an older age. The focus is more on hair transplants, face lifts, and lipo, less about botox and wrinkle creams. In an interview with New York Magazine, McCabe discusses some of the more obvious gender differences:

The women in the film were self-critical, and it was the men who were judgmental of others. What other gender differences did you notice?

We asked women why they were scared of aging, and everyone said, "Being alone. Being alone." You never heard that from men. Society is changing so much, and it's becoming more competitive and we have to stay in the workplace longer. Aging is affecting men in different ways, especially if they're in sales or something. When it comes to aging, men are concerned about being destitute, or in a nursing home. And being alone, but more in the sense of not having someone to take care of them.

However, it is interesting to note that the men seem more invested in critiquing the looks of others. While the women show a lot of competitiveness over beauty and aging (there's a great scene where McCabe asks the doctor if she has less wrinkles than one of his other, slightly obnoxious clients (cough, Mary Rambin, cough), and then cheers when he agrees), the men see no problem with informing women exactly what is wrong with them. Gary Baldassarre, one of the patients profiled, is documenting his own journey to regain his hair through a really graphic hair transplant operation. Yet, he sees no issue armchair analyzing women on television:

Another man, Norman Deesing, is an interview subject because he paid more than $50,000 to essentially look like Jack Nicholson. However, he has no qualms about turning to McCabe at some point during filming and pointing out to her that she's "let herself go [...] from the neck up." Admirably, McCabe brushes off the comment.

After the first hour of the documentary, the focus shifts a little from exploring what is happening to exploring why we seek these remedies. Who wants to go to a Botox party, being injected by a dentist who carries around the toxin in a cooler? Why do we pay so much money to distort our faces? Part of the answer lies in our need to conform to what society says is appropriate:

While most of our issues may stem from low self-esteem, "internet celebrity" Julia Allison's offhanded comment about "having an expiration date" struck hard. While she doesn't seem inclined at all to fight this idea of disposable women, it accurately summarizes the feelings of a lot of women in the documentary. They want to stay young in order to be relevant, to be seen as beautiful, to have access to society. It is this fear of obsolescence that drives the industry, which goes hand in hand with a fear of mortality. Some women, like How Not To Look Old author Charla Krupp, have acknowledged their enemy and have committed to fight literally to the death:

I laughed when I heard Dolly Parton unabashedly admit she was going to "get nipped and tucked until [she] is in a pine box," but for some reason, every time I watch this clip of Krupp, chills run up my spine. Are we really moving toward an era when it will be unacceptable to show any signs of aging?

And what happens when the potions and creams and procedures stop working?

Near the end of the documentary, McCabe sits down with Sherry. It has been three years since they first met, and Sherry went through a rough year. Sherry often uses plastic surgery as a mood boost, and after a bout with depression is actively planning her next procedures. McCabe switches between the first and third meeting to provide some insight into Sherry's development, while Sherry openly discloses her fears about not having the money to keep up the fight against time:

Youth Knows No Pain was engrossing, depressing, and thought-provoking, made even more poignant by the candid self-examination of its creator. After chronicling her memories of her father and her longtime fascination with mortality, she ends the film with an astonishing admission: after all that she's seen during filming the documentary, McCabe decided to take the plunge and start on injectables like Botox herself.

"What about spirituality? Inner peace?...Well, that didn't work." After struggling to make sense of why women subject themselves to beauty treatments instead of aging gracefully, she succumbs to the promises of younger looking skin and a small chance at cheating time.

McCabe's documentary ends with her undergoing different bizarre treatments. Watching her take a needle through the mouth in order to puff up some flesh in her cheek, I kept coming back to her opening admission: It may be insane, but it's the truth.

Youth Knows No Pain [HBO]
Youth Knows No Pain - Full Schedule [HBO]
The Cost Of Beauty, Part 1: The Research [The Pursuit of Harpyness]
The Cost Of Beauty, Part 2: The Numbers [The Pursuit of Harpyness]
The Cost of Beauty, Part 3: The Alternatives [The Pursuit of Harpyness]
Youth Knows No Pain Examines Anti-Aging Industry [New York]

Earlier: NonSociety Nincompoop Mary Rambin: Abortion Is Just Like Botox
How Not To Look Old Author Doesn't Look Old, But She Does Look Stupid

Writes Marcus Jokela, the study's author,

Having your study publicized by the media is nice. Having your study misrepresented and misinterpreted in the process is not. The media coverage of my paper on physical attractiveness and having children had a bad start and even worse follow-up. The origin of the problem: Times Online news article sexing up the finding a bit too much (I wasn't interviewed for this article at all and heard about it only after it had been published). Then things got worse with other journalists copying & slightly modifying the Times Online piece...The main point of the study was to see whether attractiveness predicts fertility in a contemporary American population, not whether people are becoming more or less attractive over time.

And, he says, any larger evolutionary truths people derived from this were mere extrapolations. What's more, certain details were glossed over: that it was actually the second-most attractive women who scored highest, and that the study wasn't limited to women - attractive guys also had more kids, according to the finding. God, these scientists! So factual! Overall, Jokela's response is a pretty handy takedown of the media's handling of the findings scientists approach so precisely, and of the absurdity of that snowball. This should serve as a good reminder to all of us - yes, us too! - to take the time to read the source material and pay these researchers the compliment, at least, of reporting what they say accurately - even if it's not as fun. (Writes Jokela: "And please, do not refer to me as the "Ann Coulter-loving scientist", I hadn't even heard about the lady before the headline." Okay.)

‘Women Are Getting More Beautiful' - Getting The Story Right [Markus Jokela]
Put Away Your Sneakers, Ladies. "Beauty Race" Is A Myth [Salon]
"‘Women Are Getting More Beautiful' – Getting The Story Right" [Feminist Law Professors]

Related: Ann Coulter-Loving Scientist Says Women Are Getting Hotter

If you've seen Toddlers & Tiaras, you already know the deal: Makeup, fake tans, elaborate coifs.

According to Eleanor:

The programme itself follows three contestants, Madison, Sasha and Tyla. Each is desperate, (or rather, they are told they are desperate) to win the title.

Tyla, however, blew Madison right out of the water. Also nine, she is the youngest girl in Britain to wear contact lenses (glasses are, of course, ugly), she has highlights in her hair, and, aged seven, had plastic surgery.

Yes, apparently Tyla's ears stuck out, and had to be changed. In the clip below, you can witness the tone of the documentary, which certainly does its best to paint the contestants  and the mothers, for no fathers are pictured  in a negative light. There's more where this came from on YouTube.

As the little girls prepare for the pageant, there's no joy, no laugther, no "child"-like giddiness. Just tons of makeup. One contestant's mother says, "They remind me of little drag queens, really."

In addition to this new documentary, there's a new book from PowerHouse called High Glitz, featuring portraits of child pageant contestants. The photographs debuted earlier this year at a gallery in The Netherlands.

While the pageant culture is looked upon with a mix of fascination and disdain, blogger Eleanor (who is a "is a 17-year-old feminist from Edinburgh") is also worried. She writes:

It broke my heart to think of these children (none of whom won) as they left the venue. At an age where my biggest body hang up was wondering when my next tooth would come out, what would these girls now think of themselves? That they were ugly? Or indeed, that it mattered? That they were worthless, because their only ‘talent' had been beauty, and they had failed at it? Which would grow up to suffer from eating disorders, (which are affecting younger and younger children), or to believe that fake tans and plastered-on smiles are more important than intelligence, wit, compassion and love?

Well, we can only hope that these baby beauty queens will turn out okay  and that just like other American stuff which washes up on on distant shores  McDonald's; Coca-Cola; Madonna  pageants won't be taken too seriously by too many.

Baby Beauty Queens [The F Word]
Baby Beauty Queens [YouTube]
High Glitz [PowerHouse books]

Ruth La Ferla writes,

A 27-year-old single mother from South Shields near Newcastle in England, Ms. Luke is nothing if not approachable. She is the kind of open-faced, plain-spoken Englishwoman you might expect to encounter at the butcher shop or corner pub. With her plump proportions and pretty if nondescript features, she seems an unlikely candidate to shake up the beauty world. And yet it appears she is doing just that.

For those of you in the know, Luke's an internet cosmetics maven and YouTube sensation who's garnered millions of views, a book deal and a cosmetics line. The Times piece quotes a few experts explaining her trick: says one department store buying director, "Her appeal is that she is the Everywoman...She connects on an emotional level, and her quirky honesty is infectious." And the editor of Allure says women like her because she's "not a threat."

This sort of patronizing rhetoric reminds me of the hundreds of attempts to "analyze" Susan Boyle's appeal. How about the fact that we just like real people? A new study finds that celebrities have little to no effect on our buying power; why is it still some kind of revelation to these experts that a normal, straightforward person is appealing to us? "Normalcy" is not a novelty or a marketing gimmick to most of us. It's just...normal.

Sometimes it seems like many who make ads and magazines and generally create our perception of beauty actually don't understand this. They say they do, because that's what you're supposed to say. Everyone knows we're supposed to celebrate "real women" in all their beautiful diversity. But the mindset is genuinely different. I recently read the memoir by Jean Godfrey-June, the relatively down-to-earth beauty editor of Lucky, formerly of Elle. She paid lip-service to a variety of beauties, and to avoiding unnecessary procedures. But at the end of the day, the assumptions were: you want to be thin and look young. Everyone wants to look like models because they're the most beautiful. And I doubt she was even aware of it: she was so ingrained with these standards that the notion of anything else was literally inconceivable. The thinking seemed to be, "yes, lots of women are beautiful...but you do want to be thin, right?" Or take Liz Jones. A bit off her rocker, yes. But when she admits freely that she, as a magazine editor, found women who were not, like her, anorexic, "disgusting," one has the uncomfortable feeling that she may not be alone. And she, mind you, is a theoretical advocate of expanding the standards of fashionable beauty!

And yet, when Susan Boyle or Lauren Luke takes off, it's a novelty. It's an aberration. The thought goes, what's going on with us that this appeals to you? You're supposed to like models! Doesn't it strike people that, as soon as we have access to self-produced media, the opportunity to make our own choices, we're choosing "average?" Editors know that actors sell more magazines than models: does it occur to them that this has to do with accessibility and presuming to know a bit more about them? That we relate even more to regular joes? Or is this a bridge too far? Sure, people still love the aspirational ideal, and always will. But I believe part of this is because that's what's presented, not just as routine, but with conviction. When we see a Dove ad, we know we're being shown "real women" and the condescension and the self-congratulation are palpable. It's not merely showing a variety of people, Elle: it's believing it. Not because we're not threatened. But because we're not stupid.

An Everywoman As Beauty Queen [NY Times]

Related: Most Claim To Be Unswayed By Celebrities In Ads [AdWeek]
Commentary: Why We're Fascinated By Susan Boyle [CNN]
The Appeal Of Susan Boyle [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Is This Woman Actually "Mad"? Results Inconclusive, Fascinating
The Inconvenient Truth Behind Dove, The Love-Your-Body Beauty Company

It is nearly impossible to avoid the anti-aging machine, an industry goldmine that cranks out thousands of products promising eternal youth, or, at the very least, a postponement of our natural progression into old age. There are creams to fight off wrinkles, creams to fight off crow's feet, injections to erase laugh lines, and surgeries to lift one's face up in order to create an illusion of youth. But is any of it really worth it?

Writing for the LA Times, Stacie Stukin explores the "youth in a bottle" phenomenon, finding that for many women, anti-aging creams are as essential as everyday necessities like toothpaste and deodorant. Even with the knowledge that many of these overpriced creams may not really work, women cling to them, choosing to believe they are working, if only for peace of mind." 44-year-old Sharyn Belkin Locke tells Stukin that she remains loyal to her pricey brand because she doesn't trust anything else, even if the product doesn't exactly produce the results it promises: "There are so many products out there that claim to do this or that. Do you really ever see that kind of difference? I never do."

I use a drugstore anti-aging cream that costs about 20 bucks and makes my skin feel really nice. It also doesn't burn my sensitive skin, which is a plus. I started using it at 25, in a panic, after I read that women should begin an anti-aging routine at that age to stave off the aging process as long as possible. I already have crow's feet and laugh lines, due to, you know, laughing a lot, and having an eating disorder for seven years didn't help things either. But after a while I realized that my skin was not improving because of the anti-aging cream as much as it was improving because I was maintaining a healthy weight and eating well. The internal changes I was making, versus the external, were what was showing on my face. I still have laugh lines and crow's feet, but I like them, and I don't use the cream to "fight off" the aging process anymore as much as I use it because, like Locke mentioned above, it's a nice moisturizer and I trust it on my skin.

I also got a reality check the last time I went to purchase a tube: while looking around the aisles, the Walgreens cosmetic counter woman called out, "Oh no, honey, teen skin creams are on the other side of the aisle." My first thought was, "Oh, snap!" My second thought was, "Oh, shit, she thinks I need Stridex pads. Do I have a zit? Where is it? Oh shit." You can never, ever win.

Dr. Laurence Rubenstein tells the LA Times that "There isn't a cure for aging because it isn't a disease. It's a natural and complex process that involves every system in the body." In other words, we're all going to age, no matter what we inject into our faces. There are, of course, ways to stop the aging process from happening too soon: quitting smoking, eating well, etc. But those things aren't easy for many people, and they certainly won't be boxed and sold at Bloomingdales for $200 an ounce.

Rebecca Seal of the Observer argues that even the most extreme anti-aging treatments aren't fooling anybody: "If you do get the pillow-faced look that's in vogue, you don't look better, you just look like someone who's had fillers in your cheeks and lips, injections in your brow, and perhaps a tiny little face-lift." In a youth-obsessed culture, the public is still quite aware of the difference between someone who is young and someone who "appears youthful."

I doubt that the anti-aging market is going anywhere anytime soon: beauty creams have been around for thousands of years, as evidenced by a recent discovery of a 2,000 year old cream in Italy that was comprised of "fatty acids in high abundance," the same "miracle ingredients" found in many of today's anti-aging creams.

Perhaps the best way to fight the anti-aging madness is to find a way to embrace the natural aging process while maintaining a sense of Perhaps if we celebrated older men and women in our culture as much as we celebrate 15 year olds, we'd all see that beauty isn't about a lineless face or a "youthful" glow, but about a face that tells a story of a life well-lived, a life of many laughs and smiles. My 84-year-old neighbor is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met, with stark white hair and bright blue eyes and a face that matches her deep, powerful laugh. She's also fiercely independent, quite wacky, and one of the strongest people I have had the honor of knowing. If they could bottle that, I'd pay a million dollars for it.

It's not as if I still don't get roped into the anti-aging madness every now and again—it's hard not to, especially when you see your peers jumping through hoops to maintain a younger appearance, and I'm sure as I get older, it will be even harder to have a "fuck it, I love my wrinkles" attitude 24/7. There are times when it feels like you'll be the only person with a wrinkle on her face in 50 years, though perhaps it we all concentrate more on protecting our bodies from the true ravages of aging by focusing on healthy habits to reduce our risks of cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis, we'll find that a healthy interior will reflect itself on our exterior, as health, strength, and caring for one's body will provide the type of confidence that no cream ever could.

Eternal Youth Is An Ugly Obsession [The Observer]
Aging: You Can Hurry It, But You Can't Slow It [LA Times]
Youth In A Jar? Probably Not, But We Buy It Anyway [LA Times]
2,000 Year Old Cream Shows Aristocrat's Taste [MSNBC]

Alter's piece explores the growing trend of image consultations for young girls, who, due to the increased societal pressures to present a certain image thanks in part to tween stars like Miley Cyrus and makeover gurus like Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, feel that their looks need an upgrade. Alter follows a group of girls as they go through a session with "image coach" Sharon Glickman, who attempts to educate the girls about such things as dressing for one's body type (blargh), seasonal styles, and how to dress well even in difficult economic times. The girls are appreciative of Glickman's help, as one admits that the school fashion scene "can be pretty competitive."

Dressing for your peers, and being judged on such a thing, is a middle and high school rite of passage that never really ends. To that end, it's not really shocking or, for that matter, infuriating that young girls are seeking out fashion advice from experts. It is, however, a bit depressing, if only because it's a continuation of the notion that one's clothes (specifically, the brand name of one's clothes) are the true mark of who one really is, when that is often enough not the case. One wishes it weren't about knowing what's "so last season," as much as what works for the individual and inspires self-confidence. It also seems a little strange that some of the issues re: self-esteem are being addressed externally as opposed to internally, though one can argue at that age, feeling more comfortable in one's body due to clothes that make one feel more pulled together might help a bit.

Still, it would have been nice if someone had pulled me aside and said, "You know what? Socks over tights under shorts plus a raspberry beret might not be the thing to wear in your 7th grade class photo." But then again, my smile in that photo is pretty big, so perhaps the image I laugh at now was the one I was going for back then. I suppose if you have the means to help your daughter create an exterior appearance via clothing and hair that makes her feel happier and more confident, that's all well and good—just as long as she doesn't lose herself in the process.

The Minor Makeover [WashingtonPost]

First of all, the study was very small, 13 women and 14 men. The participants were shown 50 photos of "healthy and attractive babies" (Time's wording), and 30 photos of babies with facial abnormalities, such as cleft palates. The photos would remain on a computer screen for four seconds, unless they pressed a button to shorten or lengthen the time. Women were less likely than men to lengthen the time they looked at "pretty" (again, Time's wording) babies, but they were 2.5 times more likely to shorten the time the ones with abnormalities appeared on the screen.

Time and the AP offer several explanations for this, all of them upsetting in their own way. Time says,

All animals, humans included, are hardwired to spend wisely, devoting the most energy to the offspring most likely to yield the highest genetic payoff; healthy, beautiful offspring are the best bet of all. Perhaps women, who still must do the lion's share of childcare, are naturally more attuned to this trade-off than men are.

The idea that a universal definition of beauty exists, that this particular kind of beauty indicates health and genetic fitness, and that people unconsciously make decisions based on this beauty, is deeply ingrained in the popular coverage of evolutionary biology. We are always being asked to accept that some bodies  whether they belong to babies with cleft palates or overweight women  are inherently less attractive, and that people have to overcome a strong genetic impetus in order to love them. Time even extrapolates the results of the study to people's own offspring: "the fact that both parents and nonparents in Elman's study reacted the same way to the pictures suggests that their responses are deeply ingrained and that they may be hard to mitigate simply by having children of their own." And the headline of the Time article is, "Is an Ugly Baby Harder to Love?," which assumes both that babies with abnormalities are ugly, and that this study can actually tell us something about parental love.

Attraction  both to babies and to potential partners  may have biological components, but popular science writing is often far too quick to assume that these components are everything. If we uncritically accept that people are naturally attracted to a certain appearance, that this attraction has to do with the survival of the human species, and that there's nothing we can do about it, we continue to stigmatize people who don't fit whatever ideal of health and beauty we've set up. It's not that we should entirely discount studies like this one  it's just that we should pause before we make the now-popular abnormal=ugly=harder-to-love link. Both science and attraction are partly culturally determined, and science these days may be a little too enamored of a simplistic view of human love.

Coverage of the baby study is also rife with gender stereotypes. Lauran Neergaard of the AP writes,

Puzzling new research suggests women have a harder time than men looking at babies with facial birth defects. It's a surprise finding. Psychiatrists from the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, who were studying perceptions of beauty, had expected women to spend more time than men cooing over pictures of extra-cute babies. Nope.

So, the scientists just expected women to look longer at all the babies, because women love babies so much? And yet women, rather than having a coo-fest over every single baby, actually had a complex reaction? So surprising! And Jeffrey Kluger of Time says, "Turns out that your mother's feelings for you may not be the unconditional things you always assumed. It's possible, researchers say, that the prettier you were when you were born, the more she loved you." There's no handwringing over the men's reactions to the babies, but when women behave in an unexpected way, it means your mom didn't love you? The idea that a mother's love is a single, uncomplicated entity that can be disproved by a tiny study is not only dumb, it's also damaging  to children, who may worry that their normal, complicated moms don't love them; to moms, who may feel that any ambivalence makes them inadequate; and to society, which expects moms to be constant conduits of sweetness and light, and gets all confused when they're human.

Study: Women Look Away At Abnormal Babies [AP]
Is An Ugly Baby Harder To Love? [Time]