I think that “ruggedness” and “elegance” are alternative strategies for dealing with adversity—basically tolerating versus preparing for problems. Both can be done more or less skillfully: low-skilled ruggedness is just being unprepared and constantly suffering, but the higher skilled version is to be strong, healthy, and conditioned enough to survive harsh circumstances without suffering. Low-skilled elegance is a waste of time (e.g. too much makeup but terrible skin) and high skilled elegance is… okay basically being ladylike and sophisticated. Yes I admit it this is mostly about gender.
Other examples: it’s rugged to have a very small number of high quality possessions you can easily throw in a backpack in under 20 minutes, including 3 outfits that cover all occasions. It’s elegant to travel with three suitcases containing everything you could possibly need to look and feel your best, including a both an ordinary and a sun umbrella.
I also think a lot of misunderstanding between genders results from these differing strategies, because to some extent they both work but are mutually exclusive. Elegant people may feel taken advantage of because everyone starts expecting them to do all the preparation. Rugged people may feel they aren’t given enough autonomy and get impatient (“no, I’ll be fine without sunscreen”). There are obvious advantages to having a rugged and elegant member of a team or couple though.
Thanks to useful discussions with my friends / family: Ames, Adriaan, Lauren. Loosely expect I picked the idea up from someone else, can’t be original.
Other examples: it’s rugged to have a very small number of high quality possessions you can easily throw in a backpack in under 20 minutes, including 3 outfits that cover all occasions. It’s elegant to travel with three suitcases containing everything you could possibly need to look and feel your best, including a both an ordinary and a sun umbrella.
This one highlights that the sense of “elegant” you mean is not the math & engineering sense, which is associated with minimalism.
If you asked me to guess what would be the ‘elegant’ counterpoint to ‘traveling with a carefully-curated of the very best prepper/minimalist/nomad/hiker set of gear which ensure a bare minimum of comfort’ was, I would probably say something like ‘traveling with nothing but cash/credit card/smartphone’. You have elegantly solved the universe of problems you encounter while traveling by choosing a single simple tool which can obtain nearly anything from the universe of solutions.
Your categories are not essentially gendered, although I understand why we feel that way. For example, in your travel-packing example my wife would be considered rugged while I would be considered elegant, under your definitions. I also think that in traditional Chinese culture, both of your definitions would be considered masculine. (Sorry women, I guess you get nothing lol)
I also think that we apply these strategies unequally in different parts of our lives. I’d guess if you have to give a research talk at a conference, you’d take an ‘elegant’ approach of “let me prepare my talk well and try to anticipate possible questions the audience will have” instead of “let me do the minimal prep and then just power through any technical difficulties or difficult questions’.
Maybe our gender socialization leads us to favour different strategies in different situations along gendered lines?
to complicate this along gender lines for fun, when i first read your first sentence i totally reversed the descriptions since it’s rugged and masculine to tackle problems and elegant and feminine to tolerate them. per a random edgy tumblr i follow:
that sounds more “rugged” than “elegant” by your definitions, no?
I think that “ruggedness” and “elegance” are alternative strategies for dealing with adversity—basically tolerating versus preparing for problems. Both can be done more or less skillfully: low-skilled ruggedness is just being unprepared and constantly suffering, but the higher skilled version is to be strong, healthy, and conditioned enough to survive harsh circumstances without suffering. Low-skilled elegance is a waste of time (e.g. too much makeup but terrible skin) and high skilled elegance is… okay basically being ladylike and sophisticated. Yes I admit it this is mostly about gender.
Other examples: it’s rugged to have a very small number of high quality possessions you can easily throw in a backpack in under 20 minutes, including 3 outfits that cover all occasions. It’s elegant to travel with three suitcases containing everything you could possibly need to look and feel your best, including a both an ordinary and a sun umbrella.
I also think a lot of misunderstanding between genders results from these differing strategies, because to some extent they both work but are mutually exclusive. Elegant people may feel taken advantage of because everyone starts expecting them to do all the preparation. Rugged people may feel they aren’t given enough autonomy and get impatient (“no, I’ll be fine without sunscreen”). There are obvious advantages to having a rugged and elegant member of a team or couple though.
Thanks to useful discussions with my friends / family: Ames, Adriaan, Lauren. Loosely expect I picked the idea up from someone else, can’t be original.
This one highlights that the sense of “elegant” you mean is not the math & engineering sense, which is associated with minimalism.
If you asked me to guess what would be the ‘elegant’ counterpoint to ‘traveling with a carefully-curated of the very best prepper/minimalist/nomad/hiker set of gear which ensure a bare minimum of comfort’ was, I would probably say something like ‘traveling with nothing but cash/credit card/smartphone’. You have elegantly solved the universe of problems you encounter while traveling by choosing a single simple tool which can obtain nearly anything from the universe of solutions.
Maybe “grace” is a better term than elegance?
Your categories are not essentially gendered, although I understand why we feel that way. For example, in your travel-packing example my wife would be considered rugged while I would be considered elegant, under your definitions. I also think that in traditional Chinese culture, both of your definitions would be considered masculine. (Sorry women, I guess you get nothing lol)
I also think that we apply these strategies unequally in different parts of our lives. I’d guess if you have to give a research talk at a conference, you’d take an ‘elegant’ approach of “let me prepare my talk well and try to anticipate possible questions the audience will have” instead of “let me do the minimal prep and then just power through any technical difficulties or difficult questions’.
Maybe our gender socialization leads us to favour different strategies in different situations along gendered lines?
I think these things mostly split along gender lines but there are many exceptions, just like pretty much everything else about gender.
to complicate this along gender lines for fun, when i first read your first sentence i totally reversed the descriptions since it’s rugged and masculine to tackle problems and elegant and feminine to tolerate them. per a random edgy tumblr i follow:
that sounds more “rugged” than “elegant” by your definitions, no?
I also read that little edgy story and thought at the time that sentence made no sense.
I still think that.