Nice with a female version, but nicer if the artist didn’t feel the need to focus on her beauty instead of strength. Makeup, really? Also, with the colored skin I have a hard time identifying her as a statue; she seems to be about to open a bleeding wound with that chisel.
I actually didn’t reflect about her having makeup. I recall (but hopefully don’t misrepresent in my paraphrasing) Julia Galef discussing that a society where people wear makeup is perhaps a more fair option since the difference between the most and least naturally beautiful people would be smaller then. I haven’t thought deeply about this, but in that case, wearing makeup might be the rational thing to do. However, regarding the appraisal that the artwork represents the woman’s beauty more than her strength, I can totally see how that reinforces problematic norms.
Rationality is in part about taking control, and you have more control over your strength than your beauty. Still, if I could sculpt myself I would probably rather be sculpting myself pretty than musculus (well, I guess they intersect for some people). Beauty probably has more benefits than muscles these days and physical strength is much less important for rationality than mental strength. An unnecessarily muscular body might also be a sign of prioritizing the wrong things.
It’s hard to get the metaphors perfect and it is easy to rationalize how details make it fit or not. But it’s interesting to see which metaphors resonate with the community, and would be even more interesting if more people wrote why as you did. So thanks for your perspective!
My objection to makeup is that it’s sorta a zero sum game, where if everybody spends 1hr a day on makeup, the world isn’t really a better place since beauty is a relative thing.
I agree that, in a society where everybody is judged by their made-up looks, innate beauty would matter less, and that’s good.
However, people will start competing on effort spent on makeup, which to me feels like a really bad thing. Imagine everybody having to spend 2 hours on make-up every day before heading out. I think that’s what some women already have to deal with in their workplaces and I’d rather not everybody’s lives be like that.
Betulaster’s image made me think “surely there is a version of this concept that’s more polished.” Turned out there were several different ones when I googled “self sculpting man”. Many of them are sculptures that I suspect work best in person, but I liked this one.
(If you’re me, the image was [probably?] broken because you block twitter during the day. I haven’t checked if it’s actually broken yet but you might want to doublecheck that if you do any twitterblocking)
Source by Michael Oswald
Nice with a female version, but nicer if the artist didn’t feel the need to focus on her beauty instead of strength. Makeup, really? Also, with the colored skin I have a hard time identifying her as a statue; she seems to be about to open a bleeding wound with that chisel.
Agreed!
I actually didn’t reflect about her having makeup. I recall (but hopefully don’t misrepresent in my paraphrasing) Julia Galef discussing that a society where people wear makeup is perhaps a more fair option since the difference between the most and least naturally beautiful people would be smaller then. I haven’t thought deeply about this, but in that case, wearing makeup might be the rational thing to do. However, regarding the appraisal that the artwork represents the woman’s beauty more than her strength, I can totally see how that reinforces problematic norms.
Rationality is in part about taking control, and you have more control over your strength than your beauty. Still, if I could sculpt myself I would probably rather be sculpting myself pretty than musculus (well, I guess they intersect for some people). Beauty probably has more benefits than muscles these days and physical strength is much less important for rationality than mental strength. An unnecessarily muscular body might also be a sign of prioritizing the wrong things.
It’s hard to get the metaphors perfect and it is easy to rationalize how details make it fit or not. But it’s interesting to see which metaphors resonate with the community, and would be even more interesting if more people wrote why as you did. So thanks for your perspective!
My objection to makeup is that it’s sorta a zero sum game, where if everybody spends 1hr a day on makeup, the world isn’t really a better place since beauty is a relative thing.
I agree that, in a society where everybody is judged by their made-up looks, innate beauty would matter less, and that’s good.
However, people will start competing on effort spent on makeup, which to me feels like a really bad thing. Imagine everybody having to spend 2 hours on make-up every day before heading out. I think that’s what some women already have to deal with in their workplaces and I’d rather not everybody’s lives be like that.
Betulaster’s image made me think “surely there is a version of this concept that’s more polished.” Turned out there were several different ones when I googled “self sculpting man”. Many of them are sculptures that I suspect work best in person, but I liked this one.
Man, this one is so great. I want to have a statue like this in my garden now.
Here’s another one.
Image link seems to be broken. Try this one:
https://nitter.net/pic/media%2FEoFhowJVcAAsvM8.jpg%3Fname%3Dorig
(If you’re me, the image was [probably?] broken because you block twitter during the day. I haven’t checked if it’s actually broken yet but you might want to doublecheck that if you do any twitterblocking)
Nope, that’s not it