Have you heard that Vanity Fair has Caitlyn Jenner on its cover this month? If you haven’t heard I’ll be quietly impressed because, it seems, the entire world has been talking about it. Even President Barack Obama weighed in, commenting that it takes “courage” to live your true life.
(The fact my husband brought it up last night confirmed its ubiquity: it’s a rare day indeed where the cover of a magazine crosses his mind and yet he was up to speed.)
Caitlyn Jenner’s cover is being talked about for a number of reasons. She has very recently undergone a gender transition and is the first transgender woman to ever appear on the prestigious magazine. Caitlyn, formerly known as Bruce, is also a member of the world’s most (inexplicably) famous family, the Kardashians.
This was a cover-shoot and story that was never going to go unnoticed. Amidst the television airtime, column inches and commentary devoted to Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out, it was The Daily Show and comedian Jon Stewart who made the sharpest observation “that no one was talking about”.
“It’s really heartening to see that everyone is willing to not only accept Caitlyn Jenner as a woman, but to waste no time in treating her like a woman,” Stewart remarked.
He then went on to show a montage of footage that comprised a detailed, forensic critique of Caitlyn’s appearance. Whether she’d been photo-shopped. What she was wearing. The make-up. Her age.
The take-home message, Stewart said, was clear.
“You take away the corset and the make-up and I’m not sure anyone would want to bang her.”
For a woman, that’s a catastrophic shortcoming. Because women – more than anything else – need to be “bang-able” (a word I made up). Even at 65. Even when they’ve just undergone a major medical procedure and a transformative life change.
“Caitlyn when you were a man, we could talk about your athleticism, your business acumen,” Jon Stewart commented. “But now you’re a woman and your looks are really the only thing we care about.”
The notion that women are defined by their appearance is so deeply engrained that it’s tricky to tell where societal expectations begin and our own expectations end.
Are new mothers desperate to have their “pre-baby” bodies back in record time because that’s what they want or is it because they don’t feel permitted to try the alternative – and simply relax?
Are individual women drawn to plastic surgery and starvation because of their own sadistic tendencies? Or has our obsessive focus on appearance rendered those endeavours palatable? Are they necessary evils to maintain relevance?
Women are subject to incredible scrutiny on the basis of their looks; Caitlyn Jenner’s experience is an apt case of this as Jon Stewart said. Why is it? What is the cost? How can we change it?