Elizabeth Wurtzel's essay in the Atlantic last week was a typical Wurtzel piece. She told us that she still looks good even though she's 45 and gave us her recipe for looking great in her trademark uncomfortable way. It's full of bitterness and jealousy and name-dropping and sadness and rambling digressions and the occasional, interesting turn of phrase.
The reactions to her piece runs the gamet from train-wreck to a huge train-wreck. I feel too bad for her to add to the pile on. She doesn't seem happy, despite her insistence that she is happy.
My first reaction to her piece was to show it to my nieces and tell them, this is what happens when your identity is too tied up with your appearance. Beauty is a short period of our lives. After 35, you gain weight. Gravity takes its toll; your neck, eyebrows, boobs all head south. If you have put a lot of stock in your looks, it's a depressing, downhill battle.
In recent years, feminist critics have concentrated their efforts on getting more women in the workplace and in the executive office. Wurtzel herself has told us that a real feminist is not even married. Today, I'm missing the old school feminists with their sensible shoes and unshaven legs. I think a real feminist takes value in her brains, kindness, unique talents, hardwork, and not on the fact that she still looks good in a mini-skirt in her mid-40's.
There is nothing wrong with looking nice. A pair of skinny jeans and Lenny's fabulous hair cut makes me feel wonderful. But I'm grateful that I was never beautiful, because aging has no effect on me. I'm going from young and quirky to old and quirky. I'm not ordering Cindy Crawford's face creams on the HSN or sculpting my abs in Pilate's classes. I do the basics, but I don't care that much.
In some ways, I understand Wurtzel's frustration. Society does have a way of casting off middle aged women in their Lands End swim suits and Clarks loafers. But the way to get attention isn't to insist on fitting into tight clothes. It's by saying smart things.
Apt. 11d 
Well, but Elizabeth Wurtzel, though an engaging prose stylist, doesn’t have anything particularly smart to say. So Laura’s advice won’t work. If you don’t have a family, a high-powered job, or a brilliant mind, what else is there to think about besides your looks?
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Well, she looks 45 in photos on Google image search. There’s nothing wrong with being 45. Endlessly talking about one’s appearance is boring.
She is suffering from Peter Pan Syndrome, perhaps. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070501112023.htm
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I actually think Wurtzel’s core problem is even more related to the almost…spiritual…challenges of feminism, choice and otherwise: She enjoyed her greatest success in detailing how completely messed up she was in Prozac Nation. This piece just continues about how messed up she is, but still pretty.
Women seem to get the biggest bang for their autobiographical bucks for overcoming mental illness or incest or rape. Of course this is in large part because unfortunately that is the reality for a lot of women. But it’s also because it is a very comfortable narrative. We know men who rape women, fathers who leave are bad. It’s not so clear whether voting against women in STEM TT positions or voting down down daycare subsidies is bad and so on.
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I wear a size 6, have a decent backside, long blonde hair and the beginning of jowls and a wrinkly neck. I look good on some days, but I look middle-aged. My life choices didn’t give me any of of these attributes, genetics did. I’d rather have people say I’m funny, kind, responsible, smart over “don’t look your age.” I like looking good, but I’d rather live a good life.
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Hey – I like Land’s End swimsuits.
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I own three Land’s End swimsuits, so no judgement here.
I can see how women can get caught up with putting too much stock in beauty. I found that if I got a great haircut with hair straightening the day of a conference, a lot more guys would show up in the audience than if i went with my natural, wild and curly hair. Lots of studies show that beautiful people get ahead faster than average looking people. But beauty can’t be the only card in your hand, because you really only have about ten years of it. When your confidence catches up to youth.
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So Wurtzel’s the Atlantic’s new Sandra Tsing Loh/Caitlin Flanagan? Is it me, or does the Atlantic love to provide a stage for unstable women to overshare?
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Anthing for traffic, baby.
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Does Elizabeth Wurtzel speak with women? Does she have any female friends? At that, does she have any friends? What will she do for human interaction when she stops being invited to parties, and all the boyfriends are “former”?
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Exhibit A. http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/off_the_market_EvMZzeTHldVYepqY3A6JYN
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I still stick by the statement that Wurtzel is clinically mentally ill, and refuse to take any of her musing as being insight into anything. Now, my attitude might also dismiss a host of other writers (Plath, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald (Scott, not just Zelda), . . . .), but I think I’m willing to live with that.
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One acronym we sometimes use in our house is MDAL, Mutton Dressed As Lamb. It’s a dreadful thing we do to young lookers, they get better jobs than their non-looks qualifications justify, and people (even other women) take even their silly utterances more seriously than they ought. And then – !bang! – it’s gone. Very suddenly. And if you keep dressing for it, you look pitiable to the world. I think that’s the pit Wurtzel is falling into.
Sophia Loren excepted, of course, as she always is.
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Jen took the words right out of my mouth.
Also– that was the most narcissistic thing I’ve read online in a very long time. And the internet is full of it.
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Loved this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/01/what-would-hannah-horvath-make-of-elizabeth-wurtzel.html
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How much time is spent working at being attractive? What else could someone do with that time?
I’m not a good judge on this issue because I don’t want to be liked or appreciated because I am conventionally attractive, wear conventional clothing, have a conventional hair style and use conventional make-up. I want to be liked or appreciated for my sense of humor, for my smarts, for my opinions, for my clever conversation, for my determination, for all the things I get done, for my creativity. And while some women can express those things through physical style, that is not one of my interests or skills.
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GREAT post!!! I especially identify with and like these lines: “But I’m grateful that I was never beautiful, because aging has no effect on me.”
I actually was so plain looking as a kid that I actually look way better, almost beautiful now as an adult, and that feels good! (my brother, always super honest and never particularly my friend, said that some years ago — that I was much prettier older than when I was younger). I don’t know if I want to read the piece…
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“How much time is spent working at being attractive? What else could someone do with that time?”
I suspect it’s not so much the grooming time, as the grooming time plus time spent obsessing about it. That leaves very little time for other endeavors.
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