I was asked by for an Author Bio picture for an exciting project I am not talking about yet, and I sent this in.
I thought it was kind of cheeky and there was no wind blowing in my hair but it still looked like crap, like it usually does, and it wasn’t in black and white and it showed my face.
More importantly my chest was not in view. I am pretty modest about my breasts. Let me be honest, they’re not very small and no matter how much weight I lose, they stay the same size. But mostly I don’t want them to be associated with my writing.
Usually I hate to even have my FACE associated with what I write, because as a woman I feel that what I look like is just as important as what I write, but the editor specified that it had to show my face. That’s fine. This picture does that, and while not the best photo.. it’s just fine with me.
I got this email back: “Do you have a photo that shows more of yourself? Henry* told us you were very attractive. I mean, you are, but we’d like to have more of you. That sounds wrong, but I can’t find of a better way to put it. “
I don’t even really know what to say, because I don’t know what this person means, and how can I work with someone who can’t tell me what he wants?
*Name of idiot (who got me involved in this now turned annoying project that I don’t want to be a part of but shouldn’t give up) changed to protect the innocent.
Welcome to another edition of “this is what privilege is” theater. I’m your host, Privileged Straight White Dude Who No Editor Has Ever Asked To Send A Picture That Shows More Of Me Because They Heard I Was “Very Attractive.”
For me, it’s all about my words, my precious, precious words. I am grateful! Because — while I am rogueishly handsome, of course — I know that my ability to succeed in my chosen profession is not affected at all by whether somebody thinks I’m pretty. I do not have to worry that I will be less publishable if I get mauled by a tiger or someone throws a bucket of acid in my face, or if I just eat nothing but chocolate-peanut butter milkshakes for the entire summer*, or if — oh, fuck! — I get old.
I know there are dudes who will read this, especially if it gets reblogged anywhere with the word “feminist” in the title (why do you dudes always read those blogs? There’s a new Muppets trailer, go read blogs about that!) — anyway, to the dudes who say that women are the ones who are privileged, because maybe she wouldn’t have been published at all if she weren’t pretty, recognize this: that’s not actually an advantage even if it’s true. Because being required to stay pretty forever is not part of a writer’s wheelhouse, and because conflating attractiveness with talent for half the population makes women who the editor doesn’t ask to send more pics effectively invisible (and, hah, effectively untalented!). It’s true that attractive people are privileged in many ways, but that’s not a thing that benefits women to the exclusion of men.
* A legitimate possibility.
