<em>Image: Afghan lady in Kabul via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Afghan_lady_in_Kabul.jpg">Wikipedia</a></em>

I've been thinking about this <a href="http://www.finslippy.com/blog/on-being-an-object-and-then-not-being-an-object.html">powerful post</a> by Finslippy for a couple of days now. You should read it, and the comments, as well. The comments are almost as good as the post.

This post isn't really about Alice's post, which is self-explanatory and nails something I've been thinking about for a while. What I want to talk about is something I read into in some of the comments. A few women mentioned how they've made themselves less attractive on purpose, to protect themselves from unwanted lecherous male attention.

I know that the conversation engendered by that post is from women who have had to deal with what I will euphemistically call traumatic experiences. I have had a few myself, so I know how it is.

But the conversation got me thinking about the power of female beauty and who owns it. Let's not kid ourselves: Beauty, especially female beauty, is incredibly powerful -- and we, men and women alike, fear it.

I believe that lecherous old men, harrasers, abusers, criminals, psychopaths and jerks of all stripes act the way they do because they fear the power of female beauty. They abuse and harass as a way to control it. Advertisers, trade show organizers, politicians, fundamentalists do what they do as a means to control the female beauty that they fear.

We are given a false choice, pretty or smart, because society fears the power of a woman that controls both.

It's exhausting. I can understand the desire to give up.

But when a woman makes herself unattractive to protect herself from all these forces against her she is covering herself in a burqa of her own choosing.  She is just as powerless as the young girl that dresses like a slut to please men.

I know that many women couldn't care less about makeup and hair and fashion. I'm not talking abou that. You like what you like. (No one can convince that skiing is fun. You can't make me. I like what I like.)