DAY 204: TAKEN OFF THE LATE NIGHT REQUEST LINE
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 6:12PM 
Given the fact that my brain has officially turned to mush thanks to my "monthly gift," I am happy to take one from the request line. Earlier this week, I mentioned I have been itching to write about the "Smart Girl Dilemma," so here it is!
The Smart Girl Dilemma.
Otherwise known as "looks versus books." I would venture to say that every nerdy girl I know has spent a significant amount of time in her life battling with her own idea of femininity. To this end, I wish I could dig up old pictures of me from middle school for you to see. (Conveniently, they are currently in storage.) Let me just put it this way - I wasn't a looker, if you know what I mean. For some reason my frizzy bob, thick plastic rimmed glasses, and teenage acne, did not cause the boys to come a runnin'. My insistence on being competitive at everything, from algebra, to natural science, to my totally excellent skills on the clarinet, created a massive gulf between my life and the teenage romances that Disney movies are made of. And despite my addiction to Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High, my life tended to play out more like one of the awkward characters from a Judy Blume novel.
So there I was, a thirteen year old girl, masked by bad skin and plastic frames, using humor to win friends and gain influence in the complicated world of middle school politics, and all I really wanted was to be pretty. Yup. What girl doesn't want that? As shallow and simple as that may sound to us educated folks, it is true. Girls like to be thought of as pretty. And here is where it gets complicated.
Smart girls generally receive reinforcing messages about their appearance. Speaking for myself, my mother sent subliminal messages about the value of being judged for your brain and not your beauty. Obviously, the former being the preference in our household. I was a late bloomer; flat as a board, and carried "baby weight" though my early teenage years, so there were no obvious reasons for me to pitch a fight for fashion. But sometimes, at night, I would imagine what it would be like to be a popular girl, wearing make up, tying my sweatshirt around my waist (that was what the cool girls did), and gossiping in the bathroom. So cliché, but so tragically true.
Flash to 17 years later, and here I am, mid life career shift. Living out this very dichotomy between looks and smarts. I left a "nerd" career defined by the intersection of current events, empirical data, political pundits, and academics. Very serious stuff (at least to the people in DC). And despite all of those infamous DC sex scandals, I would venture to say that politics and beauty can be, at times, strange bedfellows. While the relationship between politics and fashion is not absent, let's just say, you have to walk a fine line to be fashionable, feminine, and well respected. Even the FLOTUS knows what I am talking about.
So what is a smart girl to do? Take a serious career, wear serious clothes, and only let her inner girl out on nights and weekends? Or be like me, throw CNN out of the window, put on hooker heels, and sell tight clothes day in and day out? There has to be some balance, some middle ground that ultimately every woman has to determine for herself. With total devotion to appearance, you run the risk of being judged by superficialities and not substance. But denying your inner girly girl takes some of the fun out of being a woman. Speaking for myself, I know I am enjoying my time working retail. It allows me to wear dark make-up and party clothes before most people have their breakfast, and I am relishing every moment of it. So for right now, I consider my own smart girl dilemma partially solved.
I remain truly yours, Milagros
204 Days Down, 161 to go.
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