National Geographic on Facebook: this is a facial reconstruction of a teenage girl who lived 9000 years ago based on her remains!
half the comments: men criticizing her looks and saying she’s unattractive and mannish
anyway this is the reconstruction and I always enjoy seeing the faces of prehistoric humans and how much we have in common over thousands of years despite how incredibly different our lives are. I support her and I think she looks wonderful.
everyone in the replies of this post saying “well I think she’s pretty!” missed the whole damn point lmao
I remember watching a documentary once where historians were trying to work out who a dead girl was and what her life was like. I’m pretty sure they dated the body back to the early Victorian era, and established pretty early on that she lived in poverty, died young, and was most certainly a prostitute.
The grand finale of the show was the reveal of her reconstructed face. Now, bare in mind that through their investigations they discovered that she had lived an awful life and died an agonizing death (syphilis iirc). So, you can imagine my disgust when the historians reacted with disappointment at the reveal of her ‘face’. This poor girl, who had suffered terribly, was obviously not the poor, tragic beauty they had been hoping for.
She was plain, maybe some would say she was ugly, but what was truly hideous was the fact that you could practically see the sympathy these historians had for this poor girl slip away as they looked at her ‘face’, and you could certainly hear it in their voices.
Even in death our value rests on the basis of our looks. Sympathy is conditional - based on where you fall on the looks scale.
Science: *gives us the miracle of seeing long-dead faces*
Not actually comprehend anything happening right in front of them
heteronormativity is a hell of a drug
May I add:
Once on Facebook I mentioned getting married at a big mad max themed campout. One of the guys that regularly attends told me to take my wife to visit his camp for a drink. I told him my husband, actually.
And he then said “wow, I’m sorry, I’ve never met a girl named dave before! Now I’ve seen everything.”
This dude thought I was a girl name David before he thought I was a gay man. Straight people are wild.
