Not Martha linked to a museum show called "Suffer for Beauty" - highlighting some of the uncomfortable things women have done over the years to fit in with the (whatever was current) standard of beauty.

I don't really have a lot of commentary on that (I think we have it a lot easier now, even with Spanx and the ads for botox), but I will observe from looking at the photo of the woman there...something that's been going around in my head for a time...I have a late-19th century sort of face.

For years, when I'd look at celebrities or the women on the covers of fashion magazines, and then look at myself, I'd be puzzled or a little bereft: they really didn't look that much like me. At the height of my appearance-insecurity I felt like a different species from those tanned, high-cheekboned, pouting models. (And yes, I did feel that way. And at an embarrassingly mature age to feel that way, I will admit)

But now, seeing some older photos and also looking at some of the "Pre-Raphaelite" era paintings by people like Dante Gabriel Rosetti, I've concluded that I simply have an atavistic face. One that's not currently in fashion. So that's why there aren't women who look "like" me acting in movies, or showing up on magazine covers. Not sure what to make of that, other than "not being the current fashion" is preferable to "having a look no one found appealing, ever"

(Perhaps that's partly why I've always like Pre-Raphaelite paintings...)