The Things That Get You

I like this post from The Kitchen Table on how strange it is that being called ugly (especially fat, in our culture) has such power to wound us.

The author (Melissa Harris-Lacewell) describes her reaction to a comment on a website:

I was crushed. I have had a week of affirmation from my best friend. I was just offered a contract on my new book. I have been appearing on national television and delivering well-received public lectures. I take criticism of my intellect, my politics, and my scholarship in stride, but the minute somebody called me fat I was devastated.

I'm pretty sure I'd be crushed too, if people started saying mean things about my appearance on the internet. Actually, I'd be pretty crushed if they were saying mean things about my intellect, politics and scholarship as well. 

Good thing I have only adoring followers, and also that my stunning beauty is widely acknowledged.

I wonder why it is that "well, you're ugly!" can get you that way. Rationally, it just means someone can't come up with any meaningful criticism of you. It should be easy to brush off, right?

I guess maybe the very meaninglessness of it is part of it. We could have a argument about whether or not my scholarship is poor--I could point out that I did thus and such work, while you argue that I was drawing unwarranted conclusions, etc., etc. And eventually one or the other of us might have to conclude, based on the evidence, that the other was right.

But if you just say, "well, you're ugly!" I sort of can't argue, for at least two reasons I can think of off the top of my head. 

First because saying "I'm not either ugly!" sounds like I think I'm gorgeous, and then it seems like vanity, which is generally frowned upon.

Second, because beauty is subjective, so where I might convincingly argue, to the satisfaction of some objective onlooker, that my scholarship is sound, I can't really argue that I'm not ugly to you.

The very vagueness and childishness of the insult makes it hard to refute. 

Also, of course, we have lots of advertising and media and so forth stressing to us that we're at the very least not as attractive as we could be if we bought such and such a product, so insults directed at appearance probably strike close to personal insecurities for a lot of people.

Hmm...it makes me think.