Don’t Be Beautiful

You are beautiful,” “beauty is from within,” “be your own kind of beautiful.” These are things that women are told every day. But why should women only aspire to beauty? Why not kindness or intelligence or success in their career or physical athleticism? Why is the way a woman looks a reflection of her worth? We live in a world where vanity is seen as the most important thing Women should aspire to achieve. Because if we are not beautiful we are not worthy of love, friendship, respect.

I am sick of seeing positive affirmations that tell women they are pretty or beautiful. This is just reaffirming gender normative standards that women’s biggest aspiration is to be attractive. It is incredibly unhealthy to young girls that being pretty is the best thing they can be. It goes back to the fact that we teach girls to aspire to marriage and finding a husband. It reinforces that women’s purpose in life is to serve men as a wife, to raise her husband’s children as a mother. These messages convince us that we will not achieve these goals if men do not find us attractive. That we have somehow failed in our life’s purpose to make use of our reproductive organs. But we do not teach boys the same.

Many feminists have highlighted this issue that women are taught to seek approval from others, particularly men. Girls are taught that they are only valuable if they are what is considered attractive. This puts pressure on girls to conform to unrealistic beauty standards. They are brainwashed by the messages put out by a multi-million pound industry telling them to buy products that will help them achieve their ultimate goal of being beautiful.

But women are so much more than just pretty things for others to look at. We should teach girls to be confident, smart, strong, ambitious, hardworking and kind. These things are so much more important than beauty.

Also, beauty is subjective. What one person finds attractive may differ to another. We live in a capitalist society that is whitewashed when it comes to beauty standards. The generic idea of a “perfect woman” is: slim with large breasts and wide child-bearing hips, perfectly clear light skin, straight long hair, big eyes and lips, straight white teeth, a soft high pitched voice that only speaks when spoken to.

This is a very small percentage of women in the world. We are all different shapes, sizes, and colours. We should be celebrating our differences not trying to conform to and ideal. We do not need to spend hours in the gym sculpting out bodies or buy thousands of products to change our face, skin, and hair. We definitely shouldn’t be forced to spend our hard earned money on clothing that society tells us what is suitable for our body type.

Individuality it’s what makes us all unique. Our appearance is something we can express our personality. But it does not define who we are as a person. It should not make a difference to how we are treated by others. It should have no impact at all on how much we are respected.

Are we really that blind that we can only see beauty?

I encourage you next time you tell yourself a positive affirmation or give someone else a compliment, make it about something that isn’t to do with how they look. Focus on their personality or their skills. This shows deeper appreciation for who that person is. By taking the focus off what we look like we learn to appreciate each other’s value on a whole new level.

Sources: inspired by the work of; Jane Austen, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Marisa Donnelly, Sarah Marsh, Gaby Hinsliff, Kelli Cooker, Kate Fridkis, Alanna Vagianos, Alexa Joy Hobelman, Scotlyn Ogle, Nina Bahadur