In a nutshell

Via Jezebel, Diablo Cody expressed very nicely how a woman is damned if she does, and damned if she doesn't. 

"...This is a real paradox for me: My entire life I've been told I wasn't pretty enough. My entire life I was told by people that I was ugly, that I was too tall, that I was flat-chested, that I was this, that I was that. When I was a stripper I was never quite pretty enough. I was never one of the beautiful girls. I was never one of the top earners. Suddenly I achieve something in my life that is purely intellectual and purely creative, and I'm being told that it's because I'm pretty. To me that is the weirdest, most ironic thing ever. Like all of a sudden I'm attractive when it suits people's purposes. But in the past when I needed to be attractive I was ugly. So let's pick. Which is it?" -- Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody [Minneapolis City Pages]

Don't we all know: it's neither.  It's that a woman can't be successful on her own merits, so she's got to be cheating somehow.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

I'm glad to work in an organization where women are in all sorts of managerial positions, and nobody gives it a second thought.

It's interesting to see the generational change. The women nearest the top of the ladder, typically in their late 50s or older, have all the sex appeal of a cinderblock. And it's hardly a surprise: when they were starting out, nobody would have taken them seriously if they'd been attractive, especially in our rather geeky field.

But the women who are lower-level managers have the normal range of attractiveness for their ages. It seems that we've gotten well past the point where beauty would be held against them, or be used as an excuse to take them less seriously, so they are more free to be who they are.

But apparently my corner of the world is a bit more enlightened than many others, even here in the U.S. One more reason for staying put.

[Sir Charles]

Juno, the movie she wrote is brilliantly written and charming. Highly recommended to one and all.

[litbrit]

Sara is right: your looks will often be held against you.

Even in the blogosphere, where we write for free, any bit of recognition a female blogger receives is often met with snark about your "hotness" being the main reason people read your work, or, worse, that you are a "groupie" or "main squeeze" of a male blogger, hence your being asked to write for his blog.

Unless you've been there, it's hard to appreciate how demoralizing this is. You begin to wonder if you shouldn't just blow off such laborious endeavors as immaculate spelling, polysyllabic words, and lovingly-constructed, acrobatic compound sentences, and instead just write a couple of short declarative statements with lots of exclamation points, throw in an LOL cat pic, and leave it at that. You know, because you're so HOTT, you can get away with it.

As if.

[Amanda Marcotte]

The weirdest stuff has been the accusations that Jesse Taylor and I have dealt with suggesting I stole his blog. It's not hard to tease out the implications about seduction, deception, etc. The truth is much more mundane---we only met in person at Yearly Kos this year. He actually did think I was a good writer.

[litbrit]

Come on now Amanda, I met you at Kos this year, and you're just plain hott! We all know the reason for your success.

The fact that you speak intelligently and write wittily have nothing to do with anything.

Sheesh, we've really come a long way, haven't we? (H/T to Virginia Slims Menthol Lites, ca. 1970's.)

[Sir Charles]

Could the girlz of the blogosphere calendar be far behind? I believe Anne Althouse can vet the candidates -- anyone who gives her the vapors is in.