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Date: 13 Nov 90 17:24:45 GMT
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>From: gcf@mydog.uucp (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Power and Appearance (was: Re: Female human aesthetics)
References: <9011012313.AA11775@rpp386.Cactus.ORG> <8654@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <658245246@lear.cs.duke.edu> <14515@cs.utexas.edu>

I believe that the aesthetics of appearance have a great deal to
do with power and not a lot to do with sexuality.  As Russell
Turpin writes, responding to a remark about the content of women's
fashion magazines, which seem to concern themselves with how
to appeal to men:

| The question is: to *which* men does one want to appeal?  Some of
| us are turned off by the look and behavior promoted in these
| magazines.  Of course, we likely the men who are considered "less
| than eligible".
|
| The word "eligible" (or whatever current phrase is used in the
| same way) is frequently used in these magazines to qualify men,
| and is laden with connotations.  What makes a man "more" or
| "less" eligible?  Why are these the men that (these magazines
| imply) a woman wants to sexually attract?  What is wrong with the
| men who are not "eligible"?

What make a man eligible, of course, is his power, whether it
is incarnated as wealth, status, or charisma.  But the spectrum
of power is wider, as is its relation to appearance.

The most basic form of power is power over one's self.  A loss of
concern with one's appearance is considered a certain sign of
mental disintegration in a mental patient or a prisoner of war.
A radical change in appearance is often worked on military
recruits precisely to bring about such a disintegration, so that
the personality can be rebuilt on military lines.  The imprisoned
women to whom Hillel Gazit refers -- taking time to achieve a
certain appearance -- are maintaining what power they can over
their lives.  Imprisoned men also do this, but our cultural norms
require them to do so in usually less overt ways.

In the larger world, power can mean not only power over one's
self but power over others.  One route to such power is the
corporate command structure.  In this structure, men are expected
to dress in certain ways: it is virtually a requirement.  They
must generally shave, have short hair, and wear a suit, a shirt
of a certain type, and a tie.  The suit, shirt, and tie must have
certain shapes and colors, which are related to one another in a
particular, rather arbitrary way.  The whole setup is arbitrary,
in fact; its arbitrariness is part of its effect.  (In this
consideration, I simplify by omitting people's capacity for
irony, for example the well-known Wall Street securities trader
who affects a greasy sweatshirt, demonstrating his personal power.
These exceptions are the kind that prove the rule.)

Clearly, a person who dresses in accord with the requirements of
the corporate command structure is portraying loyalty to it, or
at least submission to its values.  People may do this out of
love or fear, but it is still adherence.  A person who is
attracted to a man who assumes this appearance, because of his
appearance, is attracted to the power system which it denotes.
(It is similar to the attraction to uniforms often seen at lower
social levels.)  Internalization of norms by the subjugated or
submissive is a remarkable, yet common human characteristic;
witness the "Stockholm syndrome", where ordinary people, captured
by terrorists, begin to adopt the terrorists' point of view and
values.[1]  Just so, people who would not intrisically have any
interest in the aesthetic of suits and ties find themselves very
concerned with them, because those who have more power than they
do are concerned with them.

For women, the question of how to ingratiate one's self with the
corporate establishment is more complicated.  While our system of
social power demands that the particpant, whether male or female,
be soigne, the messages which women are expected to display are
contradictory, due to the partial success of feminism in breaking
down some of the barriers to status within the system.  One
message is: I want to be part of the system, and achieve power
over myself and others; the other is, I want to submit to one who
has power.  Judging from _Vogue_, _Mademoiselle_, and the like,
this contradiction is far from being resolved.  Thus, the search
for "eligible" men _and_ success-enhancing appearance.  Soc.women
gives us other evidence: quite recently, there has been a serious
debate on whether shaving one's legs should be a requirement for
getting a job.  That such a question can be raised and taken
seriously speaks volumes about the situation of women as well as
the extent and depth of corporate cultural power.

Sexuality, when it shows up in the system of corporate
appearance, denotes submission.  Men's suits hide the shape of
their bodies, even minimizing their shoulders in the "Ivy League"
style of yesteryear (which may still be around, for all I know)
and certainly concealing the outlines of their genitals or
buttocks, as, for example, the tight-fitting pants affected by
the lower orders do not.  Women who desire success in the system
as actors, rather than mere submitters, are generally advised to
have, or appear to have, small breasts and in general a flat,
boyish outline (as noted elsewhere); they may not, however,
affect a truly masculine appearance.  This, I believe, is not so
much an insistence on sexist subjugation as it is an obeisance
given to tradition.  One of the very important projects of the
corporate system is to see that those who have shall keep, and
get more; and allegiance to this conservatism is demonstrated by
a conservatism of style.  Tradition is allowed to change, slowly,
and it is quite possible that in another generation or two the
corporate uniform for the two sexes may be almost identical.

Dress and sexuality are highly stylized even where they do not
refer directly to power (this is called fashion).  But fashion
invariably refers to class, and class is, precisely, the system
of (group) power-relationships in a society.

There are many other systems of power with their corresponding
systems of appearance, which I can't cover here: the academic,
the military, the anti-corporate, special subcultures such as
the African-American and the Hispanic, and so forth.  In many
cases, these systems overlap, sometimes reinforcing, and some-
times conflicting with one another.  This article is only a
very general overview.  More thorough development of these
ideas can be found in the works of Goffman and of Barthes
(from whom most of the ideas here have been lifted).

While there is very little we can do as individuals to alter
the either the power-structures of our society or their reflec-
tion in our appearance and our feelings about others' appearance,
we can recognize these feelings and judgments for what they are
and use them to measure the degree of our submission to, or
freedom from, the various power systems which affect us.
Knowledge is also power.
--
[1] Another excellent example of this is students' absorption
with minute differences in grades, even as they are aware that
the grades generally have little or no significance in the
outside world.
--
Gordon Fitch  |  gcf@mydog.uucp  |  uunet!hombre!mydog!gcf