All this week I’ve been thinking about friendship and making notes on the topic, but when it came time to sit down and put it together, I couldn’t get another topic off my mind. Back in 2011, I ran across an article originally posted to the National Catholic Register by a former columnist there, Pat Archbold. He titled the article, The Death of Pretty. You can retrieve his article and read the entire text, but as I understood it, his premise was that over the last few decades, our culture has come to place a high value on women being “hot”, as opposed to being pretty.
Archbold offered his definition of “pretty”, which he described as a balance between beauty and innocence. Upon further reflection, I recognize what a verbal mine field this topic can be, and perhaps even trying to broach this subject as a man, is a mistake. Still I think there is something here that we should all think about, but especially us men. Body image is a huge issue and it always has been. In his article, Archbold made a huge deal of saying that “back when”, women largely attempted to project an image of innocence and that this projection, genuine or not, motivated men to act more nobly toward them as opposed to viewing women as a commodity to be consumed.
It would be disgusting to proffer that men who behave in an inappropriate manner toward women, or who view women merely as sexual objects to be consumed, may have their bad behavior excused based on their perception of a woman’s appearance. We see this in other cultures where western women are demeaned, or worse, merely for appearing in public unaccompanied, or with their head uncovered. Closer to home I have heard it said of rape victims right here in the buckle of the Bible belt, “what did she expect, did you see how she was dressed?” Oh, really? So men, are we not responsible for our own behavior? Surely we are better than that.
I would agree with Archbold in this; the pursuit of “hotness” is not a step in the right direction, but the point I would hope we could all take away from my little tap dance around this topic is this. The value of a human being is God given, and not determined by societal whims regarding their appearance. Pretty, beautiful, hot, handsome, etc., are words used to describe others, but which have nothing to do with really defining someone. Something I have noticed over the course of my life is that as I get to know people, they sometimes seem to become more or less attractive to me, based on what I learn about them as a person, about their character.
Have a great week.