Half a Glass of Thumbtacks

“ Beauty and purity go hand in hand, and are tied up in a false sense of modesty. This type of attractiveness comes from being white, virginal, conventionally attractive and actively or deliberately ignorant of meeting that standard of attractiveness. It comes from needing to be seen as beautiful even “without any makeup on” but in “skin-tight jeans” if you’re Katy Perry, from Bruno Mars ‘knowing’ that “when I compliment her, she won’t believe me,” and in reminding a boy that he should be dating a girl who isn’t a shallow hussy, if you’re Taylor Swift.
All of this encourages girls to constantly strive to meet an arbitrary standard of attractiveness that fuels multiple industries (dieting and cosmetics, primarily) while reminding them that their job is to be appealing to men but never to admit that they’re trying to be good-looking for men, and never admit that they look good – especially if they’re not skinny or white. It creates a maelstrom of unhealthy attitudes about girls’ bodies and sexuality. Girls must be all things: attractive and unknowing, winking about sex and flaunting their sexuality but never expressing desire or – worse – actually having sex, and presenting their bodies as sexually available while deriding those girls whose sex lives are more active than their own. They must do all this while being straight, slender and white and preferably blonde or they’re not really even in the game to begin with.