Mistress Judith (was Re: Butler on Spivak)

[Katha Pollitt]

Well, kelley -- let's say it's true that slender exercised women are
generally regarded as more attractive by both men and women. let's say
that martha Nussbaum IS showing off her great bod in NYT. What would be
the appropriate intervention by one who wished to resist that?  Falling
in love with an ugly fat guy (or, conversely, insisting that one's
lovers meet strictures equal to those placed on women?)? Eating a big
box of chocolates? Donning long black dresses at age 35 and giving up
sex at menopause, as recommended by Germaine Greer?

  I don't know how old you are, but  I am cheered to see a woman older
than me who looks good on the basis of a few mornings at the gym (and
hormone replacement therapy, I'll bet) -- no plastic surgery (so far as
we know!). Martha N is (to my eye) not especially pretty, and she looks
awfully uptight, but she's got us all talking about her brains and her
body too! (interestingly, in Annie leibowitz"s 'women," martha N is
photographed as an Upper East Side matron, in conservative clothes with
cup of tea in fussy rich-old-lady living room.)

  That said, I certainly agree with you that contemporary beauty
standards are oppressive and restrictive. Hard to imagine them loosening
up either -- don't think we'll ever see heavy women (or men), gray hair,
wrinkles, flab  and "puffing" up stairs as cute. 

  For all people talk about  "youth culture," people are regarded as
potentially attractive for a much longer time today than in past. In
Rosenkavalier, the Marschallin is having what she knows is her last love
affair-- at 32! the gym is the price. Except for you and me :). 

katha