The Power of Beauty: Our Looks, Our Lives

by Nancy Friday

  But I see what is ahead of us, Schwettman’s apothecary mortar and pestle sign hanging out over the sidewalk, and under it, leaning against the big plate-glass window, Malcolm, Jimmy, Billy, and Tommy. My protective hand reaches out, the words already in my mouth that Aunt Pat used to say to me by way of encouragement: “Stand up straight, shoulders back, remember that the Goldwyn Girls are the most beautiful girls in the world!” Then it strikes me that my companion is only ten, still this side of adolescence. Oblivious to the boys who don’t even give her a glance, she swings past the screen door, beckoning me to follow. But I wait outside, watching her through the window as she hangs over the counter ordering two chocolate nut sundaes, the kind with the walnuts in syrup, our favorite.

  How young the boys look, as open and ill-prepared as I would be for adolescence, just around the corner. In a couple of years, because no one had given her one, that lovable girl would buy herself an ID bracelet—we called them slave bracelets—with Malcolm’s name on one side and Tommy’s on the other; she will, of course, not be able to wear it.

  Our sundaes in hand, we walk the remaining block to Broad Street, turn left, past the lovely antebellum mansion where the dentist on the second floor had recently fitted her with braces; in a couple of years she will have self-consciously learned to smile with her upper lip curved over the hated steel. A few buildings down we stop at the window of the tiny shop where I used to buy and trade stamps; I want to tell her that eventually she will travel to many of the countries on those beautiful little squares and rectangles, but she is already optimistic, which is what will get her there, on and off all those ships and planes.

  At the corner of Broad and Meeting we turn right at the post office, pass the Hibernian Hall where she will soon attend Madame Larka’s heart-in-mouth dance classes, and then at the corner of Tradd Street we turn and walk until we reach the tall pink house with the blue shutters, the wrought-iron balcony on the second floor just off the music room, the piano that I would never learn to play because “they” played. Would that I could convince her not to be so foolish, not to limit her life out of anger at mother for not seeing her, envy of her sister for being seen.

  I turn, but she is gone. No, wait, I want to call, Don’t go, not yet! And then I hear her, “Nancy, Nancy!” I know the way: through the big wrought-iron gate, past the little guest house, and up into the branches of the fig tree, and from there to the adjoining wall. I watch her swing into a taller tree and then with one enormous swooosh! she is atop the three-story retaining wall, all that is left of an old mansion. Dust and dislodged bricks fly from under her feet as she runs half the wall’s length, her passing catching the eye of the old, gray-haired matriarch who is yelling at her from a high verandah on the East Bay side of the wall, not far from Aunt Pat’s studio, where I learned to paint and wrote my first story. That old woman used to get so angry at me, sending her Dobermans out to race three stories below, back and forth in the thick underbrush.

  From atop that old wall she can see our house where my mother and sister and I lived when I was little and the glass bank of the world only half filled. How to warn her of adolescence, the power of beauty that won’t be hers and what she will forfeit just to be an also-ran. Don’t do it, I call out, but of course it’s no use. It will all have to be gone through. It is how she will get here. In the end, it will be she who saves me:

  “Top o’ the wall, Mom!”

  Notes

  CHAPTER 1

  “Soon after we can see…”: John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: BBC/Penguin, 1977 [1972]), p. 9.

  “he saw me”: Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook (New York: Bantam, 1981 [1962]), p. 591.

  The number of children: Steven A. Holmes, “Out-of-Wedlock Births Up Since ’83, Report Indicates,” New York Times, July 20, 1994, pp. Alff.

  “Battering has long been…”: Achy Obejas, “Women Who Batter Women,” Ms., September/October 1994, p. 53.

  “I one my mother…”: Iona and Peter Opie, I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild’s Pocket Book (London: Walker, 1992 [1947]), p. 75.

  “were clearly not rhymes…”: Ibid., pp. 11–12.

  “Today it’s the preference for gender…”: Nora Frenkiel, “Family Planning’: Baby Boy or Girl?” New York Times, November 11, 1993, p. C6.

  “Although it may be unconscious…”: Ibid., p. C6. “…a greater than twofold…”: Muhammad N. Bustan and Ann L. Coker, “Maternal Attitude Toward Pregnancy and the Risk of Neonatal Death, American Journal of Public Health 84, no. 3 (1994): 411–414.

  “transfer many different emotional investments…”: Ethel S. Person, By Force of Fantasy: How We Make Our Lives (New York: Basic, 1995), pp. 111–112.

  fathers’ expected degree of responsibility…: Judith H. Langlois and Cookie White Stephan, “Beauty and the Beast: The Role of Physical Attractiveness in the Development of Peer Relations and Social Behavior,” in Developmental Social Psychology: Theory and Research, Sharon S. Brehm et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 160, citing R. D. Parke et al., “Fathers and Risk: A Hospital Based Model of Intervention,” in Exceptional Infant IV: Psychosocial Risks in Infant-Environmental Transactions, D. B. Sawin et al.(New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1980).

  “The less attractive the baby…”: Judith Langlois and Rita Casey, “Baby Beautiful: The Relationship Between Infant Physical Attractiveness and Maternal Behavior” (paper presented at the fourth biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, New York, 1984).

  line drawings of infant faces…: Katherine A. Hildebrandt and Hiram E. Fitzgerald, “Facial Feature Determinants of Perceived Infant Attractiveness,” Infant Behavior and Development 2 (1979): 329–339.

  babies look longer at attractive faces…: Judith H. Langlois et al., “Facial Diversity and Infant Preferences for Attractive Faces,” Developmental Psychology 27, no. 1 (1991): 79–84.

  Nor does it matter…: Judith H. Langlois et al., “Infants’ Differential Social Responses to Attractive and Unattractive Faces,” Developmental Psychology 26, no. 1 (1990): 153–159.

  photos of newborn infants were rated…: Katherine Hildebrandt Karraker et al., “Responses of Students and Pregnant Women to Newborn Physical Attractiveness” (paper presented at the meetings of the American Psychological Association, New York, August 1987), p. 2.

  “for infants… what is beautiful…”: Katherine Hildebrandt Karraker and Marilyn Stern, “Infant Physical Attractiveness and Facial Expression: Effects of Adult Perceptions,” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 11, no. 4 (1990): 381.

  “presumably to compensate…”: Katherine Hildebrandt and Teresa Cannan, “The Distribution of Caregiver Attention in a Group Program for Young Children,” Child Study Journal 15, no. 1 (1985): 51–52.

  “I enter the world of her face…”: Daniel Stern, Diary of a Baby (New York: Basic, 1990), pp. 58–59.

  “Babies act as if the eyes…”: Ibid., p. 49.

  “you ask her, ‘Can I see you?’…”: Ibid., p. 50.

  “Sawubona”: Bill Keller, “What’s ‘Shock’ in Zulu? Whites Visiting to Say Hi,” New York Times, May 31, 1994, p. A4.

  “pulled to her eyes…”: Stern, Diary of a Baby, p. 63.

  children of this age did figure drawings…: T. Shapiro and J. Stine, “The Figure Drawings of 3-Year-Old Children,” Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 20 (1965): 298–309.

  “looking into eyes…”: Stern, Diary of a Baby, p. 63.

  When two animals lock…: Ibid., p. 50.

  “Perhaps it is the eye…”: Helen Fisher, Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 23.

  “…it is mainly in the face…”: Stern, Diary of a Baby, p. 48.

  “The world is howling…”: Ibid., p. 32.

  “And his new animation…”: Ibid., pp. 43, 64–65.

  “…the stuff of being-with-another-person…”: Ibid., p. 67.

  Around the sixth week of life… really looking at her: Kenneth S. Robson, “The Role of Eye-
to-Eye Contact in Maternal-Infant Attachment,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 8 (1967): 16.

  the quality of her attachment…: Ibid., p. 22.

  crucial to the development of self-esteem: Richard Robertiello, Your Own True Love (New York: Richard Marek, 1978), p. 120.

  Margaret Mahler’s theories: For more on Mahler, see Margaret S. Mahler, On Human Symbiosis and the Vicissitudes of Individuation, vol. 1 of Infantile Psychosis (New York: International University Press, 1968); Margaret S. Mahler, The Psychological Development of the Human Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1976); Richard Robertiello, Hold Them Very Close, Then Let Them Go: How to Be an Authentic Parent (New York: Dial, 1975); Nancy Friday, My Mother/My Self (New York: Delacorte, 1977).

  “Patriarchy thrives…”: Elizabeth Debold et al., Mother Daughter Revolution: From Betrayal to Power (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993), p. 17.

  “As soon as I saw my daughter…”: Ibid., p. 5.

  “The relationship most essential to disrupt…”: Shere Hite, The Hite Report on the Family (New York: Grove/Atlantic, 1995), p. 350.

  common practice in ancient Rome…: John Noble Wilford, “Children’s Cemetery a Clue to Malaria as Rome Declined,” New York Times, July 26, 1994, p. C9.

  “Of all the characteristics…”: Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Ballantine, 1979 [1978]), p. 49.

  Children in medieval artworks…”: Philippe Ariés, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Vintage, 1962 [1960]), pp. 33, 411.

  moralization of society… “modern concept of the family”: Ibid., pp. 412–413.

  “gave us our selves…”: Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (New York: Delacorte, 1982), p. 28.

  the candidate for governor of Minnesota…: Richard L. Berke, “Religious Right Gains Influence and Spreads Discord in G.O.P.,” New York Times, July 3, 1994, pp. Alff.

  “Be it subtly…”: Mark Leyner, “Samurai Father,” Esquire Gentleman, Spring 1994, p. 81.

  “I think women should be more violent…”: John Lahr, “Dealing with Roseanne,” New Yorker, February 17, 1995, p. 58.

  “Babies and young children…”: Penelope Leach, Children First: What Our Society Must Do—and Is Not Doing—for Our Children Today (New York: Knopf, 1994), p. 19.

  “woman dresses…”: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage, 1989 [1952]), p. 538.

  “fathers… get gooseflesh…”: Nancy R. Gibbs, “Bringing Up Father,” Time, June 28, 1993, p. 58.

  We know from scientific studies… lowered-pitched: Kyle D. Pruett, “Father’s Influence in the Development of Infant’s Relationships,” Acta Paediatrica Scandinavica 77, supplemptum no. 344 (1988): 43–53. R. Parke, Fathers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 35 (cited by Pruett). Martin Greenberg and N. Norris, “Engrossment: The Newborn’s Impact upon the Father,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 44, no. 4 (1974): 520–531.

  “Contrary to the notion…”: Michael Lamb, “The Changing Roles of Fathers,” in The Father’s Role: Applied Perspectives, ed. M. E. Lamb (New York: Wiley, 1986), p. 11.

  “Society sends men two messages…”: Gibbs, “Bringing Up Father,” pp. 53–54.

  27 percent of all children…: U.S. Census, “Marital Status and Living Arrangements,” March 1994, p. ix.

  “nearly one-fourth of all American infants…”: Susan Chira, “Study Confirms Some Fears on U.S. Children,” New York Times, April 12, 1994, pp. 1, 13.

  “What [fathers] are hearing…”: Gibbs, “Bringing Up Father,” p. 53. between 60 and 80 percent…: J. H. Pleck et al., Husbands’ and Wives’ Paid Work, Family Work, and Adjustment (Wellesley, Mass.: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, 1982); and R. P. Quinn and G. L. Staines, The 1977 Quality of Employment Survey (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Survey Research Center, 1979). Cited in Michael E. Lamb, “The Changing Roles of Fathers,” p. 21. “[My husband] and I have a balance…”: Patrice Duggan Samuels, “Dads to the Rescue for the Child-Care Needs,” New York Times, February 12, 1995, p. F23.

  “Today, pregnant teenagers…”: Lena Williams, “Pregnant Teenagers Are Outcasts No Longer,” New York Times, December 2, 1993 p. Cl.

  fathers do not hover…: Henry Biller and D. Meredith, Father Power (New York: David McKay, 1974).

  “One of the most dramatic findings…”: Kyle D. Pruett, The Nurturing Father: Journey Toward the Complete Man (New York: Warner, 1987), p. 48, citing Seymour and Hilda Parker, “Cultural Rules, Rituals and Behavior Regulation,” American Anthropologist 86 (1984): 584–600.

  CHAPTER 2

  “saw that the tree was good…”: Genesis 3:16–7.

  “did ever anybody…”: Herman Melville, Billy Budd (London: John Lehmann, 1946), p. 58.

  “Envy is the sin…”: A. S. Byatt, “The Seven Deadly Sins/Envy: The Sin of Families and Nations,” New York Times Book Review, July 18, 1993, p. 3.

  “If good exists…”: George Foster, “Cultural Responses to Expressions of Envy in Tzintzutzan,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 21, no. 1 (Spring 1965): 26.

  “Envy is the angry feeling…”: Melanie Klein, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946–1963 (New York: Delacorte, 1977), p. 181. “I consider that envy…”: Ibid., p. 176.

  “In a house where envy…”: Leslie H. Farber, Lying, Despair, Jealousy, Envy, Sex, Suicide, Drugs and the Good Life (New York: Harper Colophon, 1978), p. 44.

  “Envy’s face was sickly pale…”: Ovid, Metamorphoses (New York: Penguin, 1955), pp. 70–71.

  “Allegory and fairy tales…”: Byatt, “The Seven Deadly Sins/Envy: The Sin of Families and Nations,” p. 25.

  “How remarkable it is…”: George M. Foster, “The Anatomy of Envy: A Study in Symbolic Behavior,” Current Anthropology 13, no. 2 (April 1972): 184.

  “The fact that in our paranoid society…”: Willard Gaylin, Feelings (New York: Ballantine, 1980 [1979]), pp. 131, 129–130.

  “…that object of every necrophiliac’s lust…”: Andrea Dworkin, Woman-Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974), p. 33.

  “While some literal-minded parents…”: Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment (New York: Knopf, 1976), p. 226.

  “Because he wants others…”: Ibid., p. 240.

  Preschoolers will tell you…: Karen K. Dion, “Young Children’s Stereotyping of Facial Attractiveness,” Developmental Psychology 9, no. 2 (1973): 183–188.

  “One sibling is always more prominent…”: Stephen Bank and Michael D. Kahn, The Sibling Bond (New York: Basic, 1982), p. 51.

  “reworked and kept alive”: Stern, Diary of a Baby, p. 136.

  “Since [the child] cannot comprehend…”: Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, p. 74.

  “It is, in the final analysis, love…”: Ibid., p. 110.

  a study was done on fifth-grade girls…: Norman Cavior, “Physical Attractiveness, Perceived Attitude Similarity, and Interpersonal Attraction Among Fifth and Eleventh Grade Boys and Girls” (doctoral dissertation, University of Houston, August 1970).

  “I went to my father’s garden…”: Opie, I Saw Esau, p. 72.

  “pee into the bowl like a big man… destiny is being shaped”: Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint (New York: Random House, 1969 [1967]), pp. 132–133.

  …received accurate words for their genitals…: M. Cecile Fraley et al., “Early Genital Naming,” Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 12, no. 2 (October 1991): 303.

  “Over the years…”: Christiane Nordrup, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (New York: Bantam, 1994), pp. 241–242.

  Joycelyn Elders on masturbation: Michael K. Frisby, “Clinton Fires Surgeon General Elders Citing Differences in Opinions, Policy,” Wall Street Journal, December 12, 1994, p. A16.

  “Advertisers are so afraid…”: Susan Chira, “No Cookie-Cutter Mothers in 90’s,” New York Times, May 8, 1994, sec. 1, p. 26.

  “…to wash her little cleft…”: Saul Bellow, Herzog (New Yo
rk: Penguin, 1985 [1964]), p. 257.

  51 percent of the husbands…: Robert P. Quinn and Graham L. Staines, The 1977 Quality of Employment Survey: Descriptive Statistics, with Comparison Data from the 1969–1970 and the 1972–1973 Surveys (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Survey Research Center, 1977), table 15.32.

  The Los Angeles Times… “fast-track job”: Gibbs, “Bringing Up Father,” p. 56.

  “is one of the scarcest commodities…”: Leach, Children First, pp. 121, 120.

  CHAPTER 3

  “This world of childhood memories…”: Stacy Schiff, Saint-Exupéry: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1993), p. 43.

  “Dear American Girl…”: American Girl, July/August 1994, p. 48.

  “Within the first years of life…”: Paul Ekman, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (New York: Norton, 1985), p. 125.

  “I believe that those habits…”: Ibid., p. 125.

  Girls and boys bully their peers…: Heather Welford, “Best Friends and Bully Girls,” The Guardian, November 23, 1993, p. T16.

  “I worry about what I’ve said today…”: Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (New York: Doubleday, 1989), pp. 124–126.

  “…there will be no end to imperfection…”: Ibid., p. 148.

  “because of the girl factor…”: Laura Shapiro with Yahlin Chang, “The Girls of Summer,” Newsweek, May 22, 1995, p. 56.

  “The child begins to feel…”: Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, pp. 219–220.

  “When the father first emerges…”: Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur (New York: Harper Colophon, 1971 [1963]), pp. 51–52.