Thanks for the thoughts, Perna. They seem like the most positive things I can think about t, and I want to believe he's not just being sexist, though I think there's an obvious hint of that. I'll be really disappointed if I start to find out his values conflict with mine too much.


I agree physical appearance is, or ideally should be, part of yourself. But I'm not sure it's realistic for naturally average (or worse than average) looking women to be confident in our physical appearance without putting a lot of work into it. A lot of women want to put work into it, which is fine for them I suppose. I like to do that occasionally, but not to the extent I really know how to use makeup, always make my hair do what it's supposed to, always have a good outfit, etc. I just think the standards of our society require women to put more work into it than we should have to. So, if my preference is to accept that strangers aren't likely to tend to think I look really good rather than put more work into my appearance, I can be confident that I'm doing what I believe in without being confident about my appearance being acceptable (by standards I don't believe in)... I think? Oh, and I'm not in that extreme category of not bathing!



That was it, Next Top Model. Ick, they're competing, vomit, yuck- especially the one that's all women, which is the one he brought up. I tend to have my head in the clouds and I think it could be useful for t to help me become aware of my body... but tai chi, yoga etc sure would've had less sexist overtones.


I agree that how you express yourself, smiling, stretching, your body language, etc is different from how you look (hair, clothes, makeup). But he didn't say he was only talking about how you express yourself. He said physical appearance.

Gah, it's hard to see a way around considering what he said sexist. Wish me luck talking to him. The really frustrating thing is there are so many more improtant things going on right now- a friend maybe has cancer, etc. It's hard to tell whether I should be letting him distract me with this. Well, obviously I haven't been able to help it.