ArtLung [Joe Crawford]

Web developer & user interface engineer
Tinkering with the web since 1996

email: joe@artlung.com · twitter: @artlung · (photo from instagram)
San Diego, California, USA

“so many terrible songs”

So Leah has been traveling quite a bit lately. She asked me yesterday if saw this photo Dooce ((*Dooce is what I call Heather Armstrong, I’m very nearly incapable of referring to her as anything different. Hey, there are people who call me “art” as in “artlung” so it’s not without precedent.)) when Leah visited her and if I liked it. I replied “yes, I think that photo was pretty good”:

Which, taking some time to look at it again, I still do. Perfectly good photo. But apparently, she’s not so sure. It’s unflattering, or she doesn’t like how her chin looks, or some other criticism that I can’t remember because of course I look at the photo with my eyes, not her eyes.

I look at it and I think: “yes, that is my wife who is lovely and also that shorter kickier haircut is really working for her.”

I’m pretty sure the propensity for women to look at photos of themselves and see only the negative is is the source of so, so, so many terrible songs by men telling women they, the women, don’t know they’re beautiful; but that they, the man, can see them for their true beautiful selves.

I’m not sure if there’s something that can be done about this aspect of women, or about men, or about the terrible, terrible songs, but if there is, please let me know.

two comments so far...

I hate that song! Well, I think it’s kicky, but I hate the sentiment. As someone who often loves photos of herself, I tend to resent this “virtue” that woman are more beautiful than they know or the fact that they can’t see it is good. Leah is fucking hot and I love the hair! Rock it, all.

Abigail- you are the sweetest! Joe- I do like the photo in its natural size. It’s just that when I make it smaller to use as an icon, something insane happens with my chin/neck area and it puffs up like I’m a male Bird of Paradise doing the mating dance. Go ahead. Try it. Make it small. You’ll see. ALSO- the “she doesn’t know how beautiful she is” in pop music is a way to make young girls rely on males to give them their self-worth. It’s disgusting.

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