There’s a lot that’s not to like about Catherine Hakim’s controversial book, Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. Her treatment of sexuality as a form of economic exchange, where the man offers cash and the woman offers T&A. Her belief that rich people are better than poor people (or at least have “better manners”) and that pretty people are better than ugly people (or at least are nicer, smarter and better liked). Her bizarre implication that soldiers choosing “the youngest and most attractive women for rape” during wartime is somehow a boon for them. (“Lucky them!” I wrote in the margins of my copy of the book.)

But when it comes to preparing my own article in response to Hakim’s theories, I’d rather seek out the tiny diamond of truth than dismantle her and tell you why she sucks. And that tiny diamond of truth is this: beauty is power, yes, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

Hear me out. Hakim argues that modern Anglo Saxon culture represses and denies beauty, in the same way that it represses and denies sexuality. This is plainly not true. Talk to most women (and perhaps a growing number of men?) and they will be all too painfully aware that the way they look is pivotal to the way they are treated and valued, regardless of their other attributes and however much they might resent that.

She also argues that women, on average, possess more erotic capital than do men: largely because men want sex more than women do (hmmm, we all know what I think of this argument!), but also because women are the ones who can birth babies and because women tend to put more effort into their appearance than men do. But because we live in a patriarchal society, we’re taught that these attributes have no value. In fact, men who possess high “erotic capital” (that is to say, hot men, and men who have lots of children) are rewarded for their efforts (or natural attributes) more than women, who are just expected to be sexy and fertile.

She doesn’t quite get there with her book, but I wonder if Hakim might offer the promise of a kind of beauty-based sex positivity - or beauty-positivity if you will. That is to say, that just as sex can be life affirming and even “empowering” - rather than depressing and disempowering - so too can beauty.

Reading Honey Money, my thought was that perhaps the problem isn’t that we deny or dismiss beauty (because we certainly don’t - you only need to open a magazine or turn on the TV to see that… or just walk down the street alternately dressed up and dressed down), but that women in particular are socialised to see beauty as something we lack - an obligation we are failing in - rather than something we have and could enjoy instead.

Rather than beating ourselves up over our thighs or boobs or hair or the fact that we don’t look like [insert ridiculously hot model or celeb here], we should enjoy the fact that we’re probably already pretty hot. Rather than seeing hairstyling or make-up or high heels or tight dresses as something we “have” to do in order to be hot, we could view them as things to mix and match, to turn on and off according to what makes us feel good on that particular day.

So, here are my questions for you:

- Am I on the right track with the idea that it’s not valuing beauty that’s the problem, but the fact that we’re socialised to believe that we’re never beautiful enough? Is this experience of “lack” just a “neurotic Rachel” thing, or an “other people” thing as well?

- Moreover, is it just a female thing, or do men experience it as well?

- Have you managed to develop a positive approach to the way you look? What did it look like and how did you get there?

- How do we stop beauty positivity from turning into beauty privilege?

- This is more a statement than a question, but something I’d like to consider. Much of what we consider “beautiful” in women is less about natural attributes and more about being seen to make an effort. (I wrote about this in Cleo a couple of years ago.) On the one hand, you can argue that this democratises beauty - if you work at it hard enough, anyone can be beautiful. But on the other hand, it makes beauty something quite close to Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital: not a reflection of innate talents and virtues, but rather of wealth and associated “taste”.

Thoughts?

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Article: The secret lives of beautiful women
Article: Beauty By Numbers