"Beauty": The Eye (and Envy) of The Beholder?

Professional women labeled the "B Word"(beautiful) struggle to be recognized for their ability beyond their physical allure

"She's such a good-hearted child" Sister Jacqueline of St. Mary's Grade School said to my young, devout-Catholic-Irish mother when I was all but 8 years old; "it's shocking how sweet she is-- you wouldn't think so to look at her", she finished as my mother felt the unintentional blow like a kick in the teeth.  Mom explained to me, some years later, that it took her a minute to realize the porcupine edge to the very masculinely unattractive Principle-Nun's "compliment" was her ineloquent way of stating she found me, at 8 years old, to be both pretty and nice, essentially… And, somehow, that was shocking… to a grown woman in her 60's… who taught Christianity as a life-profession.  Given her shock, with similar statements about my non-evil heart which resurfaced for years to come, Sister Jacqueline generally believed, apparently, that all sweet-hearted children were homely or all pretty little girls were assholes?  But I digress. 

When a former high-school friend (and political windbag) trekked from Los Angeles to Chicago to visit me and produce a music video for me in October of 2008, the air percolated with the new-energy Barack Obama was pouring into the Presidential race.  Adam (the arrogant windbag) and I were having lunch on his first day in town.  I mentioned something about my concern for Obama's ability with international relations versus Clinton's and Adam gave me this cartoonish phony as can be smile with the ever-patronizing retort "Awww, Erin, you are so cute-- pretending you know about politics and shit".  To which I almost stabbed his nearby hand resting on the restaurant table with my salad fork.  When I directly asked him what in the HELL would make him think I DON'T know about politics, or world affairs for that matter, he was surprised and apologetic (but, tellingly, not humiliated at his own display of pompousness), we began an in-depth political conversation.  Much like my worldly, historically savvy and liberal Iranian friend who asked me "How in the world do you know so much about world events?"… Or the club owner in Chicago who spent 16 years dismissing me as "a broad with great pins that looks too good to be a real jazz singer".  Or the octogenarian record label owner, just yesterday, who got on the phone with me by opening a conversation, not with "So who have you worked with?" but instead, "Listen, honey, let me tell you how the world works.  Real jazz artists…" and he went on to tell me all about the business I have been in for almost half of my existence.  (Real Jazz Artists?!?!  Meaning men, of course.)  

People who read my poems, hear my music, friends that seek my advice or read these blogs that I write… People who understand me to be articulate, educated, travelled, culturally enmeshed with friends and constituents from all over the world, intelligent and intuitive... somehow,  these same observers, still, find it necessary to remind me that I do not "look" like I would be "this smart" or "this nice of a person" or "so well read" or "so well written" or "such a serious artist" or "so good with kids".  

What. The. Hell.  

Yesterday, a globally recognized jazz legend and newer friend of mine whom I will be recording with this year, called to tell me he encountered some negative comments about me from musicians he knew.  When I asked in regards to what exactly, he explained a couple people told him they viewed me as more of a showgirl than a true jazz artist.  I asked if these people whom he kept nameless were people I knew and worked with and he said no- just people that "heard" about me.  He went on to tell me that one of them said I was a very provocative dresser.  Provocative, eh?

 Provocative compared to whom, exactly?

Mother Teresa? Martha Stewart? Jennifer Lopez? Diana Krall? Josephine Baker?  (I decided to research what other singers wore in their photo shoots-- singers of all ages and genres, from jazz to opera, from the swing era until now…)

And I looked at some of my photo shoots versus what I actually wear when I sing…

But does it REALLY matter?!  Does anyone ever bother to bring up what a photo-whore Kurt Elling is?

I mean are his images acceptable because he does not have breasts?  (Is he really wearing an ascot?)  Is his talent questioned by his peers because he loves getting his picture taken??? Doesn't seem to come up in conversation when a new bass player or pianist is called to do a gig with him.

So the fact that I have recorded four albums of my own, written songs for films that won awards (two), sing in renowned venues everywhere, collaborated with some of the most revered jazz artists alive today and push myself to learn Charlie Parker solos, Cannonball Adderly solos and write lyrics to Bud Powell tunes while other "jazz singers" who dress dowdily or unfashionably or who have poor physiques, unattractive faces etc… They can be taken seriously because they don't hold the same penchant for style that I do?  Trust me, there are plenty of talented and better looking singers out there than I and I know several singers who know how to rock high heels and a sexy look without losing an ounce of dignity or class.  I always thought I was one of them.  But I guess I stand out as "provocative" in my style.  Hmmmm… What I wouldn't give to find out who the saint is that deems me so shallow… based on my looks...

If I allowed myself the time to recall every presumptuous condescension, based merely on my looks and casually tossed my way since girlhood, I would probably be an unproductive, angry and isolated adult.  Err uh… Wait.  Anyway…

"The anatomy that brought her daughter a constant stream of awkward and unwanted attention, judgments and exclusions from things she wanted most as life would turn out…" 

My mother often whispered to me "Your beauty is your curse" to which I would say rolling eyes and all, "MOM, just because YOU think your daughter is beautiful doesn't mean I actually am!".  She found it to be a double edged sword for her daughter who grew to be a talented ballet dancer… with large breasts that would propel her into half a lifetime of eating disorders, trying to "cure" or change the condition of her natural anatomy.  The anatomy that brought her daughter a constant stream of awkward and unwanted attention, judgments and exclusions from things she wanted most as life would turn out… The body that endured sexual battery and rape before reaching her twenties… The body that was mocked by other ballet dancers, operated on by endometrial specialists for a debilitating incurable disease… The body that was too short and "round" for serious modeling, not tall enough to be a Broadway singer-dancer or a Rockett, and too slight for an opera singer (before the trend for opera singers to slim down came about).  The body that got noticed first --before or instead of the sometimes lonely or sad eyes weary of misperceptions and the body that took precedence over the remarkably mature singing voice and was reduced to playing sex pot roles in school musicals instead of leading lady roles.  The body that endured and survives over 15 operations, a pituitary tumor and a blood clot disease and a very serious car accident in 2006 that caused all kinds of physical problems.  The body that has been hit, kicked and physically thrown around by men who claimed to love the person inside that body… The body that lost three pregnancies after a decade of being told pregnancy was not an option in the first place.  The body that undergoes excruciating biopsies only to appear on stage 24 hours later in one of those "provocative" Banana Republic dresses in a corner stage of some jazz cafe.

    

"When did body shame become such big business in this world and why?  Who are these faceless gods of judgement over what is deemed "provocative" versus "suitable".  And what exactly IS provocative these days anyway?"

While there are women who vie and save for breast implants, or sneer at the sight of an attractive or voluptuously built female, there are also women who spend a lifetime trying to find clothes that do not accentuate their natural endowment.  I am always humored and aggravated in equal measure by the moronic critics who claim women choose how they accentuate their bodies and therefore are asking for attention when something reveals their curves.  To some extend, that is PARTIALLY true.  But it is simple architecture that a plain v-neck white cotton shirt from the Gap will rest differently on a woman with a near-concave chest than it will on a woman with two trajectory mammaries-- if both of these women are otherwise the same size in body and height and frame, is it somehow less provocative that the braless woman in a white tee shirt with half of her chest exposed (lacking cleavage) wears the same shirt that a support-bra wearing woman fills out?  Should women with DD breasts be abolished from wearing anything remotely form fitting to avoid being called provocative?  Is that not like telling the beanpole woman who loves to eat but cannot weigh more than 97 pounds due to her build, that she should wear baggier clothes so not to show off how skinny she is?

When did body shame become such big business in this world and why?  Who are these faceless gods of judgement over what is deemed "provocative" versus "suitable".  And what exactly IS provocative these days anyway?  I mean when Lady Goooey or whatever she calls herself shows up in a dress made of meat or Beyonce wears a see-through skin tight gown on national television, how exactly am I considered provocative in my Aldo high heels and vintage Dior gown in a photo shoot or at a gala? 

When I first moved to Chicago in 1996, I was still a teenager.  I knew no one.  There was a very strange and disturbed man by the name of Michael Dobbs who decided he was obsessed with me.  We did not know each other.  He was literally a stranger to me.  But he fiercely stalked and threatened me for 7 months after seeing me sing at a hotel bar one night.  He followed me to school, broke into my dorm building (he was 10 years older at least, not a student), he went to my place of work (Joe's BeBop Cafe!) and threatened the General Manager with a gun to tell him where I was.  It was surreal.  The stalking laws were nothing like they are now and it was hell trying to get the police to put an end to it.  When they finally intercepted several calls this man left on my answering machine in the dorm (dating myself here)… they were swift to arrest him.  It was chilling stuff (a topic for another time).  The point is, I had to be taken to the station by undercover police detectives to identify the person threatening me.  The police officer who helped me Jack Remquist, a surely vodka-drinking 58 year old cop (who loved Celine Dion oddly enough) saw me at the station and said "Honey, you are supposed to look distraught so we can get this guy…" I remember saying "I am a wreck and scared to death, crying… what are you talking about?! Supposed to?!"  to which he replied "You look like a goddamn pin up model-- not in a bad way, but I don't want the other cops thinking you led this guy on".   Women blamed for the weak constitution of men is nothing new.  But the fact that we are shamed into believing our looks dictate the behavior of another is absurd.  Yet often society abides.  

"You look like a goddamn pin up model-- not in a bad way, but I don't want the other cops thinking you led this guy on". 

Funny how things stick to you like cellophane; I remember to this day what I wore because it effected me so much: black cotton capris pants (nowhere NEAR what today's standard of the skin-tight skinny jean is) and a short-sleeved, white angora sweater that covered my waistline and had a high neck (aka no cleavage, no skin except my arms and 4 inches of ankle/lower leg). I had on modest (by today's standards) black high heel sandals from steve madden and a book bag as my purse.  (I was broke.) My hair was in a ponytail and I had no make up on.  When Officer Remquist said that to me, half jokingly, I remember thinking Do I deserve to be stalked and harassed because of the way I dress or look???  Over the years, anytime something "bad" happened to my body by a man, I automatically found myself internally criticizing what I must have worn or done or said to deserve it.  Intelligently, the mind combats such fears and I of course understood that NO ONE deserves such things.  But when you grow up with the notion that your body -specifically- is "cause" for attention and that equals something bad or shameful or wrong or conceited or impure… your self image is by definition altered into a dysmorphic state of constant self rejection and blame and defensiveness.  Ironically, the self-involved nature of such neuroticism portends an air of vanity to the critical on-lookers.  While I am the first to maintain a liberated lifestyle and liberal equilibrium about sexuality and equality for all humans, in a world where so many statistics want to reinforce beauty as a competitive edge in the professional climate of any career, the curse of beauty, as my mother calls it, indeed exists... and it's insidious betrayals to one's intangible essence is not to be discounted.  

Newsflash: a person can be beautiful, smart, charismatic, kind-hearted, multi-faceted and sincere.  All at once.  People are dimensions of perception colliding with self-esteem-- introverted aspects and extroverted veils that cover and fall away as other layers emerge simultaneously.  Every single human being, by nature, holds a component of surprise and secrecy.  We are not flat like sides of a box, we are layered like the earth; few people choose to see beyond the mantle, let alone have the ability to see the most solid inner core of another person.  Rita Hayworth once said something so hauntingly poignant it made me cry "Men fall in love with Gilda but awaken with me".  In that statement, I also understand that she had her share of heartbreak due to others' misperceptions of who she really was… and how many people chose to see her for the fictitious character they wanted or needed her to play-out instead of embracing the reality of who she was.