Physical Attractiveness and Sexual Stereotyping: A Post Prompted by Edith Wharton’s Character Lily Bart and Toni Morrison’s Character Bride

Wharton and Morrison describe these characters—in The House of Mirth and God Help the Child (see past posts)—as being uniquely beautiful, which is preposterous. The idea that any woman in a large city could be uniquely beautiful is, to use a literary term, magical realism. For unique beauty to be plausible, it would take a village, a small village. I live in a big city and there are beautiful women all over the place. Of course, when you read novels, you must believe fiction, which is part of the fun.

It was not so funny to Second Wave feminism, which was against a woman’s dressing like, or being treated as, a “sex object.” Beauty was a scam that was holding women back and down. But since beauty is powerful, and most women like to look pretty anyway, the feminist movement changed leader from Betty Friedan to Gloria Steinem.

If you are surprised to find such remarks in a blog like this, let me explain. Before I had a literary theory related to multiple personality, I had a theory about physical attractiveness and sexual stereotyping (1). So if any of the novels that I read for this blog happen to raise the issue, I will comment accordingly.

1. Kenneth Alan Nakdimen MD. The Physiognomic Basis of Sexual Stereotyping. American Journal of Psychiatry 141:499-503, April 1984