2013 03 Syled Shoot Great Gatsby Inspiration

By changing our prejudgments of one another, we have the means for the beginning of a noncompetitive experience of beauty. The “other woman” is represented through the myth as an unknown danger. “Meet the Other Woman,” reads a Wella hair-coloring brochure, referring to the “after” version of the woman targeted. The idea is that “beauty” makes another woman—even one’s own idealized image—into a being so alien that you need a formal introduction. It is a phrase that suggests threats, mistresses, glamorous destroyers of relationships.

We undo the myth by approaching the unknown Other Woman. Since women’s everyday experiences of flirtatious attention derive most often from men reacting to our “beauty,” it is no wonder that silent, watching women can be represented to us as antagonists. We can melt this suspicion and distance: Why should we not be gallant and chivalrous and flirtatious with one another.

Let us charm one another with some of that sparkling attention too often held in reserve only for men: compliment one another, show our admiration. We can engage with the Other Woman—catch her eye, give her a lift when she is hitchhiking, open the door when she is struggling. When we approach one another in the street and give, or receive, that wary, defensive shoes-to-haircut glance, what if we meet one another’s eyes woman to woman; what if we smile.