Beauty In The Book Business: What Does It Take To Be Taken Seriously?

In collaboration with Urban Outfitters and Dickies, we comissioned a series of stories that feature creative leaders who offer their insight on the “new” work world. Beauty Mark is a monthly column by Allie Rowbottom, where she answers readers' pressing beauty questions and explores evolving beauty trends. To submit your question, email beautymark@bylinebyline.com

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At the writing festival, I am on a panel comprised entirely of women, discussing how we differentiate ourselves in the literary marketplace. The men are somewhere else, talking about their work. For a moment, I consider feeling annoyed. I want to be where the boys are, unpacking my novel, not my image. But I have to admit, I get it.

The challenge of self-presentation in the literary world–where thoughts, those floating abstractions, are capital–is a challenge particularly pronounced for women writers. Intellectualism has long been synonymous with disembodiment, or at least a disregard for the "frivolity" of appearances in the service of more "important" occupations like writing, reading, and thinking. Occupations that, until fairly recently, were seen as the purview of men–white men to be specific–and pretty much no one else, though, of course, that didn’t stop everyone else from writing, reading and thinking in obscurity. But for women of yore as for women of today, equated with our bodies by force of history and religion and image culture and endless, endless marketing campaigns, disregarding appearances is not an option. What, then, do we do? How do we stand out and still be taken seriously? How do we hack the beauty standards of the book business?