We are the 99%

What it means to speak of not-beautiful women

Belle Burden became the poster child for women impoverished by divorce, despite membership in the 0.0000000000001% or some such. Kate Manne, author of a fat-positivity book as well as the More to Hate newsletter, is not what anyone other than a 1990s model scout would refer to as fat. Then there are the so-called spicy straights, the ones ‘queering heterosexuality’ and confusing asymmetrical haircuts with membership in oppressed minorities.

And here I am, defender of the frumpy and frustrated, despite not being Daisy from Keeping Up Appearances nor Jane from Waiting For God. Is that a problem? Did I manifest a public image of being grotesque, disconnected from anything about my own physical presence? Maybe! But more importantly: did I steal plain(er) women’s valor?

I don’t think I did. That’s because, as Emma Camp emphasizes, and as I’d like to think all readers will realize (it is spelled out in the introduction), my point is not that we must remember ugly women too. It’s bigger than that. It’s that not-the-hottest is most women. Camp sums it up perfectly:

Ms. Maltz Bovy argues that the former idea ignores the way most straight women experience the world. To put it bluntly, most women aren’t smokeshows, and yet much of the post-#MeToo discussion of gender relations assumes that it’s simply the lot of all women to be constantly fending off aggressive male attention. Look at how supermodel Emily Ratajkowski’s memoir was often praised by reviewers as a chilling portrait of the kind of sexism all women can relate to. While well-intentioned, this “amounts to feminism embracing the same definition of ‘woman’ as does the proverbial incel,” Ms. Maltz Bovy writes, “the sort who insists that no woman would have him, but if you press him on this, by ‘woman’ he means a category limited to head cheerleaders, prom queens, and women in his preferred porn.”

Ordinary doesn’t mean ugly. ‘Not a supermodel’ isn’t a euphemism for a life of romantic despair. There are specific issues faced by the sort of women who have the hardest times finding partners. I’m not not writing about these women, but nor am I claiming to personally be in that situation. I did not write a book about dating advice for the longtime single because I have not been single since 1200 AD. I am not a femcel. I am not the woman to speak for any minority of women who’ve been unusually overlooked. Rather, I’m speaking as the self-appointed representative of the 99%.

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In Season 2, Peep Show introduces a character who yanks, so to speak, the show out of British self-effacing scruffiness. Nancy, the Yank in question (played by Canadian actress Rachel Blanchard, with Canada as more American than America, much like The American in Fawlty Towers, much like Toronto itself), catches Jez’s attention because look at her. This is different from any of the previously-introduced women characters, all of whom are presentable but inhabit the same general looks-universe as the main characters, one of normal-looking people. The arrival of Nancy is weird! Cartoons Hate Her, who introduced me to this show, remarked on it. It’s remarkable!

Remarkable but also, to me, déjà vu-inducing. I had seen this woman before, but in what? I looked her up and sure enough, Blanchard—who is also, I should say, a funny and talented actress—specialized in being the prettiest lady in a y2k blouse. I’m sure part of why this song/plot would have been wedged in my subconscious is that my husband and Jemaine of Flight of the Conchords were dead-ringers at the time to the point that a giggling woman on the NYC subway once thought my husband was Jemaine. Did I feel personally betrayed by Jemaine swooning for Sally, a statuesque blonde, like when you wake up mad at what your partner did in a dream? I’m not that ridiculous, at least, not consciously.

Does it strike me as rude of the attractive (but in a normal-person way) Peep Show actor to lose all interest in (married) neighbor Toni, played by an actress (Elizabeth Marmur) who what do you know looks quite a bit like me, the moment Nancy enters the picture?

Most women are not Nancy/Sally. I’d forgotten somehow that the pilot of Flight of the Conchords contrasts Sally with Mel, Kirsten Schaal’s frumpy-but-horny (but married!) fan character. The show was unusual for American television in that it even permitted a Mel to exist.

Sally’s “the most beautiful girl in the room.” Assuming the room has other women in it, which it does, her experiences are not those of all. Most women probably will get to be someone’s most beautiful girl in the room, here and there, because tastes are subjective and thank goodness. But there’s a yowza-inspiring life experience that’s been misrepresented as what-it-is-to-be-a-woman for the past decade. I speak for, no, not for, of, the non-yowza-inspiring majority.