I watched a TikTok, just a few minutes ago, about a role-reversal in the American dynamic of women insulting women based on their political affiliations and physical appearances.

Specifically, it was about how American conservative women now find themselves taken aback by the onslaught of insults coming from liberal American women, who have themselves been the target of insults from the other camp for quite some time.

However, this is seemingly not a fight on equal footing because of the very basis of the dogfight. See, conservative ideology bases itself on a strict adherence to gender roles, which includes the idea that women should be beautiful, generally speaking. On the other hand, American liberal ideology bases itself on a rejection of gender roles, including the rejection of beauty standards altogether.

Of course, nobody likes to be demeaned or insulted; when their appearance is dragged through the mud, even liberal women feel hurt. However, it’s deeper than that for the other side.

For conservative women, to have their appearance insulted, to have their beauty—as in, their adherence to the beauty standards—be criticized, is to have their very nature be put into question. If they aren’t beautiful, they are failing at being women, and that is the biggest sin an American conservative women can commit. When they’re called ugly, they feel that it is their womanhood being attacked, and as that is what they cling to, it hurts much more than a simple insult.

Personally, I find it in rather poor taste to reduce oneself to dick-measuring contests (or mascara-application competitions, I guess), but I do see the humour in the dynamic.

I felt somewhat fancy, tonight; hope it came through in the text.